
I love stories, and life has given me plenty to tell. It has long been my plan to put them down on paper. My path has taken me through 15 years of entrepreneurship, travelling, and finally, immigrating. I found myself again in a new place as an employed software engineer, and now, five years onwards, I am transitioning back to independence.

I was born in soviet Moscow and went to school in a new, unknown country that had yet to define itself. I belong to the single, non-indoctrinated generation of Russians around: we were taught that anything was possible and that our only limits were those we set for ourselves. This played some bad jokes on me: Once my childhood was over, the country decided to make another turn, this time back to authoritarianism, and together with its people, happily embraced the old and familiar soviet dogmas.

So, a year after graduating high school, I jumped on the website development bandwagon that has carried me for the last 20 years.

My experience was not purely virtual: my severe first \[ad]venture was an e-commerce website that sold shoes and accessories (my friend brought the idea, not a passion for shoes!). The next one was even more grounded: a chain of gadget repair stores. The third I would call 'Chinese adventures', as I was involved in trading activities for many small-scale entrepreneurs like me in China. These adventures, spanning from 2000 to 2014, were thrilling but ended abruptly as Russia took a turn I couldn't follow.

That time, my country decided to be, once again, the bad guy and no one asked me if I wanted to participate, so I quit.

The word 'quit' is nice and short! Applying it to reality was a grilling experience. It took me several attempts and struggles to acquire a new true home: Israel. Most of my current stories are related to this land and its people.

I'm practical, so I write about entrepreneurship, technology, business, and ideas in general. I have never been short of ideas, and I believe in the power of sharing them to make the ideas a part of reality, to let them sprout and witness the fruits.

To set the record straight, I am a Christian, so my viewpoint is not so common in Israel or the world of tech. This lens offers a distinctive angle to my experiences and reflections.


Twitter

Linkedin

Facebook

Immigrant, Enterpreneur, Husband, Father and Son

Rodion Kuprin


My new workplace was in between Hod HaSharon and Petach Tikva. I dropped my things at my old-time friend, a resident of Herzliya and started my office life. Nothing to share about my new role: I just commuted daily to the office, typed letters on the screen and commuted back. It's not that I haven't done anything of significance, but I did more or less standard things the standard way.

The office life looked like a sort of adult kindergarten, something that amused me a lot during the first weeks. I and my coworkers enjoyed very little responsibility but had to have lunch at specific times of the day and did some fun stuff the rest of the time. Later, the stuff I did lose the appeal, but the first weeks were nice.

My first goal was to find a new place for us. It was challenging in the Tel Aviv area a few months before Corona: renters were competing for the apartments, and landlords enjoyed the bull market trend by raising the prices frequently and imposing some extra requirements. The fact that I am an employed software developer helped a lot: Many times, people were not happy to deal with someone whose Hebrew exposed his recent immigration, but just mentioning it soothed all the alarms as if it were some magic spell.

Finding a rental apartment is a function of time and money. My time was limited by my desire to leave my friend's couch and see my family. On the other hand, money was scarce and unknown, as I had yet to understand our budget for necessities, so I opted for a minimal sum of money. A month into the search, I could finalise the contract for a small but well-maintained 2-bedroom apartment in a neighbourhood known in the past as quite a dangerous place to live and now was just a little scuffed.

The apartment was in a run-down building with many tubings and wires exposed in an open view. That was one of the reasons my landlord was not very greedy, and I did not have much competition. One compelling thing was the option to purchase the furniture of a previous renter: a pair of students were moving out.

About a month after I moved in, Olga and Mark arrived. I remember the day I was waiting for them at the airport: I was thinking about what would be less intimidating for my wife: the dark and beaten-up neighbourhood after sundown or the ugly sight of our new home in the streams of the setting sun. Our destiny was to arrive late, and I will never know what would've shocked her more, but I recall that the effect was profound and sufficient for her to be a bit down for the first few days.

It was a hectic period: I worked full time, and Olga and Mark tried to adapt to life in our new place. We had to start from scratch: filling our apartment with furniture and smaller items, learning where to get groceries and befriending the neighbours.

This building I described in detail appeared to be a hidden gem for us: Mark just arrived and desperately needed new friends. He had not yet started to speak Hebrew, so he needed some Russian-speaking friends. It appeared that two families with kids his age are also living just next door! It has been more than two years since we left this place, but to this day, those kids frequently see Mark, and we often see their parents. Remember how hard it was to find someone you like in Ashkelon? Here, in Herzliya, it was so different!

We met many people during the first months there who are our friends to this day. Most of our first batch of friends were from Russian-speaking families with kids the same age as Mark, and later, more Hebrew and English-speaking families entered our circle. We were frequently invited to visit them and vice versa, so we were not socially deprived anymore, which helped a lot down the line.

Mark's adaptation was not easy: the kindergarten he was assigned to was run by a sturdy lady with many virtues but little empathy. She ran the house full of screaming Israeli boys and girls with the vigour and confidence of a seasoned sergeant. It was not something Mark expected to see, and there was very little good to recollect during his first year of education. He became detached and did not participate in the educational activities she led. I praise God for giving him relief in a couple of friends he acquired there. Unfortunately, we could not comprehend it on time, so Mark spent an entire year in this institution.

Later, this lady played a positive role: as he did not participate in the classes, she stirred the process of putting our son into the special education system. Despite the harsh sound of it, that was something wonderful! The following year, he spent time with a smaller group of Hebrew-speaking kids surrounded by many professionals who helped him overcome the difficulties of communicating in Hebrew. He quickly opened up and started to talk to everyone around, made new friends and became a happy boy. He entered a school the next year, having sufficient soft and hard skills of a first-grader. Now, as he is attending a third grade (ד), I see this year in special education as a blessing.

That was not so easy with Olga. She was reluctant to enter Israeli society as she longed for her Moscow life. She has many things to lose: her relationship with the Russian language was much more intimate than mine. Her career was connected to it as she was working in the publishing business, her friends were there, and she did not feel the same as I do towards the Russian move to totalitarianism. Even when the full-blown Ukrainian invasion started, she still felt like she would like to go back.

Her life was hardly bearable: she was depressed and went through some dark times during the next couple of years. I was increasingly more anxious, did not know how to help, and probably was not capable of helping her.

My life was not peaches either, as I am very much dependent on the well-being of my family; I was anxious to overcome the difficulties that my wife and son had and probably did more harm than good.

That initial adaptation to the new reality and learning to live together again took us over three years. It was a bumpy ride, to say it mildly. It's a hard part to write: immigration for us, and many families we witnessed, was like a planned car accident: you put all your family members in the car, wish everyone good luck, accelerate and slam into the wall, hoping that everyone will survive and the wall will crack.

If you compare it with the family's internal struggles, overcoming the external stress was peanuts. Fighting for a place under the sun emptied us, and then we were to fill ourselves with something else; we were to meet the new people who emerged from this process and get to know and love them anew.

I started this story by mentioning our dog, Baton. That's my first dog friend! Throughout my life, I never understood the deal with pets and perceived pets as a burden and tool for emotional sublimation. What a snobbish prick I was!

Meeting Baton was a miracle that changed our relationship dynamics. Through his love, we gained new strengths, met new people, and our life got an additional dimension that we have explored together.

Many old friends are surprised to see me, once a self-proclaimed pet-sceptic, happily sharing my home and even my pillow with Baton. That's the crux of our journey – I am not who I was before. We are not who we were before. We've grown, learned, and loved in new ways, and Baton's arrival symbolised the start of this new chapter.

Reflecting on this journey, I realise it's more than a physical move from one country to another. It's a journey of transformation, redefining home and family, and learning to embrace change with open arms. And in this journey, we found not just a new place to live but a new way to live.


In the final chapter, I describe a family's journey that comes full circle as we settle into our new life in Israel.

Part 7: Herzliya


That was the most well-prepared and thought-out attempt that eventually bore fruit. But before that, I had to deal with the fruits of the previous one.

When we moved back to Russia, I didn't have any plan for how I could be back yet, and my days were filled with efforts to catch up with the ongoing business. It was pretty hectic, so I could not reflect on what had happened and what to do next. Some opportunities were lost, some money burned, but most importantly, I burned up myself: I was utterly exhausted, and a few months afterwards, the signs of it started to appear: I lost sleep and felt pain in my stomach. That took me quite a while to understand that it is connected and that it's a result of anxiety and depression that took me by surprise.

At first, I was trying to keep up the pace of life I had for many years, meaning practically no rest. Then, the fact that something was wrong became evident to my family and, finally, to me. Suddenly, I could not produce any value; all I did was worry or be nervous. Jogging helped, as well as some sauna. That was all my remedies at the time.

My journey towards the norm took about a year, and skipping the dull parts, the key was the right medical professional with whom I developed trust. She understood immediately that my pains had nothing to do with organs and everything to do with my state of mind. She put me on a cocktail of antidepressants, tranquillisers and neuroleptics for some months, gradually decreasing the dosage. I dropped around 12 kilos that year; if anything was good back then, it was my weight.

A week or two after I started to take my pills, I entered a different state of mind: that was like being inside a well-oiled off-road vehicle that could ride you towards whatever destination. You don't need to exit the car. You steer it to wherever you want. This feeling gave me confidence and calmness that I haven't had in my life! To this day, this metaphor helps me to overcome the difficult times.

The problem was that I wanted to return to Israel but had no idea how to get there. Any business in Israel was out of the picture. I did not want to be back to the point of devastation that I just escaped. So, I put the plan B into action: get a job like a person without a crazy bug. The problem was that I never had a job (to be clear, I was 20 or 21 when I was hired the last time, and it was already 15 years ago).

### Getting a job

Getting a job that can feed a family of three in Israel is not that easy: historically, Israel is famous for its high cost of living and comparatively low wages. Given that my wife's professional adaptation had not yet even begun (she was working as a managing editor of a prominent Russian publishing house), I had to find a way to get hired and paid way above the average.

Here, I need to put some numbers: in 2019, when we finally made it back, our expenses were about 14000 ₪ monthly in Herzliya. That includes rent, groceries and other necessities, but no fun things. Our son was already at the age when public preschool institutions are available, so there are no nursery expenses (it's usually 2000 - 4000 ₪, depending on the location). Five years later, the minimum for a family with one kid has grown significantly; I estimate it to be 18000 ₪ somewhere around Tel Aviv (excluding expensive areas) or 15000 ₪ in some more distant but still compelling locations.

So, with that in mind, I embarked on my journey to acquire the only profession that paid well and was available to an immigrant without a solid Hebrew: software development.

I remembered people's attitude towards me in the accelerator: I am a Russian programmer, so I decided to make use of this bias to get a stance in Israel.

I used to know many things about software development and had many years of experience in web development, but more as a manager. Working with code took up at most 10% of my days. I always tried to avoid writing code myself, as I thought of it as something that could be easily delegated (true). But hard times lead to hard choices, and sometimes there's no choice, despite what they say.

So, with the help of my friends in the field, I started my journey to the 'exciting' new world of JavaScript and Node. [[My journey to becoming a professional Software developer]] It took me about a year to revamp my business expertise into something digestible for the Israeli Job market.
I gradually removed the exciting parts from my CV, leaving only things that could be understood by someone looking for a full-stack developer.

As I remember it now, I learned around 6-7 months every day for about 5 hours by watching courses on Udemy and consulting my savvy friends when needed, and then I started to prepare my CV and send out the applications.

I haven't had any success during the first five months: I've applied to numerous jobs (my goal was ten applications daily) and received zero interview invites. Every couple of weeks, I rechecked my CV and adjusted it more and more, looking at the examples of successful career shifters on LinkedIn.

After one of those efforts to become someone else on the paper, I finally started receiving interview inquiries. That was sudden, and I am not sure now what has happened. Was it me or the market? One of my apparent gaps was that I was still in Moscow, which was not something HR people wanted to see, but it didn't prevent my phone from ringing. I remember having a couple of short phone interviews and doing some tech assignments, but no solid results. And then, someone called: that was a CTO of a small promising startup in the logistics area. He noticed my entrepreneurial experience and wanted to interview me. I said I was fine coming to their office but needed time to book a ticket and return to Israel. That did not turn him away, so in about ten days, I was already biking through the fields between Herzliya and Hod HaSharon to meet the company and my future boss.

During those ten days, I was able to secure another two interviews, so in total, I had three: one in this logistics company, another one in the ad-tech startup that was in a more advanced stage, and one more in a company that had a real estate business in Israel. Of the three interviews, I was able to get two job offers. That was an impressive result!

Five years later, I should acknowledge that I could never meet the demands of any HR, and all the interviews I passed were directly with a hiring manager. So, as a developer, I was bound to work in relatively small companies where HRs have not yet taken hold.

### Departing Russia

That was sometime in late May of 2019. COVID was ahead; the full-blown war in Ukraine was ahead. Planning the trip, I felt like I was jumping on the last ship coming out for some reason. I don't know why. It may be a coincidence, but I felt it strongly: day by day, I saw propaganda at work and no sign of a thaw coming.

Another few weeks of preparations in Moscow came and went. Olga grew increasingly anxious and felt like she, this time, could not escape Israel easily. Those two previous attempts were brutal on her, and now she enjoys life in the big city where everything is open 24/7 and where she knows every corner. The big deal was our friends: they became resentful towards me as they saw Olga's frustration about the move. Mark was four and a half years old then, and he had started to develop individual relations with each of the grandparents, so there were many things to lose.

As you can imagine, bringing the news that I got accepted was a sour moment: we had to prepare for the move and repeat goodbyes.

With our friends, it was rough: we used to have a tight group of friends who were together from the early twenties. The annexation of Crimea cracked us down: some members favoured this advancement, but we were still together, holding our differences to ourselves most of the time.

People in Moscow had adjusted to the new life: the war was raging on the outskirts of the empire; officially, there were no Russian troops, and it was easy to ignore. The city was thriving and had just welcomed the FIFA World Cup. The colourful event made many believe the future would be bright and stable.

I was surprised then and am surprised now at how easily the mind bends where pressure is applied. And how fast Moscovites were at returning to their pre-Crimea way of life. It was as if they were in a big hurry to return to their important life: paying the mortgage, advancing their careers and getting new cars.

I was considered to be crazy among our friends for many years. Before, it was more like harmless-crazy, but now, as I was determined to take my wife back to Israel, the move she did not want, I started to get many worried looks and understood that my position had changed. In their eyes, I became an abusive husband or a psycho.

So, our departure took the form of a funeral this time, as we were leaving the thriving developed city for some more struggles in the desert. My parents, though, were quite optimistic as, this time, I would have a regular and well-paid job.


In this part of the story, I struggle with the consequences of my previous reckless immigration attempt and finding my first job in Israel.

Part 6: Securing the basics


Some eight months later, I got up on the flight to Israel, this time with a plan to found a startup.

I was accompanied by my Moscow friend, rich in ideas and dreams of leaving Russia like mine. We were travelling to meet the startup accelerator board to present our idea. The accelerator was located in Ashdod, another southern city on the shore of the Mediterranean. We were aiming to get on board the accelerator focusing on helping olim entrepreneurs like me, and I was full of energy and hoped to pull off another sharp turn. This is Aliyah's story, so I will not share many details about the business side here.

The plan was simple: get accepted, become exposed to the Israeli startup scene, and hope the idea and its execution would be good enough to attract funding. My other ventures were looking solid at the time: the web development project went fine and stopped being all-consuming, and the gadget repair business was still a thing and produced some steady income. I wanted to move my family to Israel once more and try to juggle the needs of my family, our startup, and my ongoing business.

Looking back at this decision, I recognise many shortcomings, and I am still unsure if I would like to do something like this had I known the consequences. In short, I burned out, lost much money and had to deal with anxiety and depression for the next two years. If there could be a positive side, it's that I learned a lot about myself, Israel and life in general. But all of it is in the future! Back then, I was optimistic and tried to play my role as close to perfection as possible.

Our presentation went well: we got accepted and started to plan the move. I began to look for a spacious flat to rent. My partner planned to join and live with us for most of the accelerator program. I tried to find something in Ashdod on the budget, but for some reason, I had terrible luck: apartments were available everywhere but not in Ashdod. I found options to live near Tel Aviv in Holon or Rishon LeZion; another option was Ashkelon again.

After several consultations with my wife, we decided to go the easy way and stay close to my wife's family and my new accelerator. I signed a lease in Ashkelon, but this time, it was a much better apartment in a much better neighbourhood.

Again, it was a wrong decision: staying close to Tel Aviv would've helped my networking and provided a sense of the business side of Israel. Staying in Ashkelon or Ashdod without a car made networking practically impossible, given my tight schedule. But most importantly, it prevented Olga or me from knowing the country and having a chance to make new friends, as we found out that even in this new neighbourhood, it proved impossible to meet someone we could befriend. Writing this some years later and being blessed to live among like-minded families, I can't emphasise this more: people matter.

A few weeks after we started the program, my partner's plan to stay in Israel changed, and he had to return to Moscow; the acceleration appeared to be quite demanding and required me to visit the office three times a week for the whole day. Every day there required some preparation, so it was like a full-time job that did not pay any money. The program was meant for the group of cofounders so that one is attending the workshop or a meeting and others are working on the product. For me, it was a nightmare: I struggled to meet the demands of the accelerator and not drop the ball on my other businesses, as well as trying to help out Olga with Mark, as they shortly followed me.

It required around two months to understand that it couldn't continue like this, and without my co-founder's help on the ground, I would not be able to reach the goal: MVP development and some advancements with financing. At this point, I had to readjust the goals and to shift gears. It became apparent to me and the accelerator's management that we were not progressing on the product, and I had to stay for some long meetings explaining myself. I am not sure that I did a good job explaining, as I was angry toward my co-founder, who practically abandoned me and the accelerator management, who appeared to be not very understanding. My dream was falling apart, and I was frustrated and tired. My usual workday was about 12 hours long, the tension in the family grew, and I was desperate.

One goal I set up before signing up for the accelerator I managed to achieve: the program provided me with some valuable knowledge about Israeli business and high-tech culture.

### English is not enough.

Everybody speaks decent English, and most of the documentation is written in English, and you can be employed as a software developer knowing only English. But running a business, especially a startup that requires funding, is different. The primary language of Israeli commerce is still Hebrew. The business is conducted in Hebrew; all the small talk happens in Hebrew. It was not particularly helpful with my Hebrew, which was akin to the level of a 4-year-old. My partner, who spent about two weeks in the accelerator, knew no Hebrew at all, so even though we had a lot of exposure to like-minded people, we were a bit too isolated. It affected our ability to engage in the free flow of idea exchange that happened there.

### We had to prove ourselves from the ground up.

This may seem obvious, but it was not so much to me. One of the essential things I learned on my immigration path is that there's a constant stream of Eastern immigration to the West. It's like that from the Roman times! East and West are not always the same: it could be Chinese immigration to North America, Russian Jewry moving to Israel, or Turkish people moving to Germany. Most of the experience and achievements of the easterner should be revalidated and reapproved by the West. Whenever I talked to someone from the business field, I felt it: why do you think you can make things here? That question was never asked up front, but I felt it constantly.

### Use positive stereotypes, as there may be no other choice.

It was pretty funny: I never meant to present myself as a 'high-tech' person before entering the accelerator. Most of my businesses involved some part where I wrote code, developed websites or dealt with SEO, but I treated it as a tool, like a screwdriver or a flashlight. Having a flashlight in your pocket is good when it's dark, but you can do much more than just lighting the way.

So, talking to the Israeli startup mentors, I found that they were pretty sure that we could build any product that required writing code or overcoming any technical difficulty, as we're Russians, and everybody in Israel knows that an immigrant from Russia could be a great engineer, medical doctor, or musician. But they were less sure about our ability to steer something more complex than a moving services business or a grocery.

There are a lot of stereotypes related to immigration in Israel and to Russian immigration in particular. In general, it does not affect the lives of immigrants, but it's not like that when something is at stake.

## Leaving Israel again

It's not like I decided to leave: the decision was made based on the lack of alternatives: the accelerator demanded either to progress with MVP (while attending all the meetings and workshops) or leave. So, I left and appeared again in Ashkelon with my family. It was summer, and I remember spending many evenings together on the beach and having some enjoyable moments. Our friends and family from Moscow visited us often. Still, there was nothing else to do: I was dealing with the ongoing business and trying to overcome the experience of being rejected. Somewhere early in the autumn, we packed our bags, handed back the apartment and left for Moscow.


In 'Back to Ashkelon,' follow a journey of renewed hope and challenging setbacks, as a family returns to Israel with entrepreneurial aspirations.

Part 5: Back to Ashkelon


As you can guess from the title, it was not a big success. As I later deducted, we fell into all the traps that await any freshly made Ole. We came to Israel bearing a heavy load of preconceptions and false expectations. Now, after eight years and after numerous families of other new immigrants we witnessed and guided here, it's apparent that we were bound to fail:

- No plans of getting a job
- Poor choice of the community
- Poor understanding of Israeli geography and transit.
- No solid plan for the future
- Immigrating with a toddler

Despite everything stated, the sun shone, and the sea welcomed us with its breeze. We had a few weeks before the real winter. We signed a lease on a relatively small but lovely apartment on the shore overlooking fields filled with rubble, a construction site and some parts of the sea line. I signed up for an evening Ulpan (Hebrew language course), and we walked every day around the city enjoying the weather and December sun and thinking about what to do next.

The real problem was that we could not find anyone to befriend despite our efforts. Many Russian or English-speaking families lived there, but the environment around us was not open: looking back at it, it is the main reason we moved back to Moscow. Knowing how open and welcoming the Israeli society is, I am still determining if it was Ashkelon or our initial snobbism to blame.

Despite our miserable social advancements in Ashkelon, we both were able to see the beauty of the Israeli people, its customs and the Israeli way of life. To my regret, our first attempt was not easy for my wife: she was practically locked in the neighbourhood we resided in, and it was not particularly funny despite the presence of the sea and a long sandy beach. I need to mention that none of us bore a driver's license, as we never lived anywhere where a car was a must. Once in a while, I sneaked out to meet new people on business or visit a church in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, so I saw some of the country while her exposure to our new place was minimal.

Most of the people we met in Ashkelon in 2015 belonged to the Russian-speaking immigrant bubble: a hardworking community without much time for reflection and empathy. My Ulpan acquaintances included a few families from Russia and Ukraine in their senior years, a few immigrants from France, one lady from Iraq and some Russian-speaking immigrants of our age.

### Russian-speaking immigrants' integration track

I want to describe their life in particular: coming to Israel from all around the Russian-speaking world without any Hebrew or English, having to reinvent themselves in the new place in the foreign culture is not easy, so most of those who happen to immigrate in their 30s and 40s are bound to stay within a Russian-speaking bubble for their lives. There's not much career choice available. The Four Horsemen of your personal career Apocalypse as a middle-aged Russian-speaking immigrant not blessed with some IT knowledge or command of English bears the following names:

- ניקיון - nikayon: cleaning. It's a hard physical labour reserved mainly for females. The payment is decent and starts at around 8000 shekels monthly. Usually, there's no chance of learning Hebrew and being exposed to some better opportunities in the future. So go clean and earn money until you find something better, and finding it will be more challenging each year you spend with the mop.
- מטפלת - metapelet: caregiver. Another type of (primarily female) physical labour that is less intense, with somewhat lower income. The salary is minimal most of the time, around 6000 shekels. It can provide a chance to acquire the language, as your boss is typically someone with more life stories than a library but not as much time left to share them, so no career ladder is available.
- מוכר - mokher: salesperson (in a 'Russian' grocery store). The best unisex type of labour for a recent immigrant. It includes possible career advancements and other perks like unlimited snacking. Every town has several so-called 'Russian stores' where you can get non-kosher food and familiar cheap booze. Russian stores are popular among Hebrews and all sorts of foreigners, so your language skills will advance.
- Construction or a factory worker. It is hard labour, long hours, money that can feed the family (8000 - 12000 shekels), some stern but steady career ladder, and the chance of learning the language.

It is a simplification, of course. There are other options, like guarding a parking lot or working in some municipal service, but it's a rule of thumb that it would be hard-earned money for not-very-creative and fun labour. There's one good job set that does not share any specific field or profession but is marked in the job description as 'you can study'. That means that while sitting at your guarding booth or a cleaning post in some office, you can squeeze in some time for yourself and advance in another more promising field.

We have met many families with kids our age who could get out of this hamster wheel. Still, I observe that it always requires some external help or particularly fortunate circumstances.

### Decision to leave

Back to my story: Five months later, I secured an ample web development opportunity in Moscow that could be the start of some new business and feed us on the way. At the same time, I got to know a couple of servicemen in Jerusalem who were running a repair store like mine, and I was trying to organise the import of spare parts from China as I did for my business in Moscow. I decided to use my chance and move to Jerusalem to work with them and get out of the town we started to despise.

The plan was to return to Moscow for a few months, secure my project, return to Israel, and settle in Jerusalem.

The first part of the plan went peaches, as the project began on time. I started to be more involved with web development, and my 15 years of freelancing finally led to me starting a small software company with eight employees.

The second part needed to catch up: we could finalise the contract terms with the suppliers only half a year later, with some 5-month delay. It became apparent that I couldn't sacrifice the development project already in production and bore fruit with some prospects with an uncertain payoff, so we decided to prolong our stay in Moscow.

Being back there, my wife was happy, as finally, she was able to rest and meet our friends; our parents were glad to see their grandson, and I was pretty frustrated with all of this: how can I stir my family in a way that it produces so much turmoil and separation?

The political situation in Russia showed no positive progress; I felt more and more that I did not understand and did not feel the rhythm of this new life in my hometown. This pushed me forward: I wanted to be back and focused on building a foundation for our life in Israel.


In 'Our first attempt,' discover the challenges and realizations of a family's initial foray into life in Israel, exploring their encounter with cultural barriers and the complexities of starting anew in Ashkelon

Part 4: Our first attempt


I remember many irrelevant details of that day. Early in the morning, we and our parents went to one of the Moscow airports for final goodbyes and a few uncomfortable parting moments.

We stood in line with many other passengers boarding a flight to Tel Aviv: Israelis, tourists, and some prospective immigrants like us. Families making Aliyah reminded me of the old-time farewell pictures: eyes filled with tears, luggage piled high. It looked and felt surreal for me: how something so mundane as a 5-hour trip could be so dramatic. It felt like we were leaving the country for good, which turned out to be true, as I never felt at home in Moscow again.

Israel met us with the warm, humid weather; the air near the Ben Gurion airport smelled of something sweet, perhaps date palm trees or a nearby citrus orchard. We gathered outside the terminal and were lifted to another building in the airport area, where we spent most of the evening. Tired families from all over the world were gathered in the hall and seated, waiting to meet representatives of some government office. We filled the papers for the Ministry of Interior and sat idle. A senior Russian-speaking gentleman distributed sandwiches with the remark 'the only free thing you will get in this country'. Oh boy, how wrong he was!

Long story short, a man wearing a kippah congratulated us, took our papers, and made a pair of the worst document photos my wife and I ever had. He handed us our freshly printed IDs and a tehudat ole - a document ensuring our rights as new immigrants. This is how you become a citizen of Israel via Aliyah. Finally, we were free to go! Free to go anywhere - the first time a grumpy sandwich-handing man appears to be wrong: after you make Aliyah, you are provided with a free taxi to anywhere in the country.

Our destination was Ashkelon, just some five kilometres off the Gaza border, where my wife's relatives resided. Their family moved to Israel ten years prior and were happy to host us and guide our first steps in the country.


In the third chapter of our story, I describe the day of our immigration - Aliyah

Part 3: Aliyah day


I always kept the idea of a possible move to Israel in my pocket and cherished that someday we could make it. The fact that my family could make Aliyah was evident, and it took the form of my wife's beautiful Jewish face. But I had never been to Israel, and my exposure to the Jewish culture at the time was minimal: I read the translation of the Tanakh and some Jewish newspapers that my wife's parents received every major holiday. I haven't had any feelings for the land in particular, I want to be out of Moscow and Russia ASAP.

It sounds like a very poor background for making Aliyah when you look at it from the Israeli standpoint. But I want to emphasise here that miracles happen. I went from wanting to live anywhere sunny and safe and being indifferent to the place to have a solid connection to the land and its people. Despite the ongoing war and extreme cost of living, there's no other place I want to call home.

It's time to address a couple of elephants here: the two main factors that prevented us from considering moving to Israel were my wife's opposition to the move and my religious beliefs: the first lost its veto power when Russia went to war, but second was not easy to deal with. The known fact is that Aliyah is for Jews and their spouses (alongside some other family members). In the Law of Return, it is stated that it's for the Jews who are not practising any other religion.

Per se, it did not present any problem for me as a Christian, as I have never been Jewish, and since in Russia, all the marriages are civil, no one asks and checks if both spouses believe in the same diety the same way. So, legally, I could do it, and I decided to take my chances!

In 2014, we were not the only ones considering the move: When I called the consular services number and got someone on the line, I heard the queues were nine months long. So, we waited for almost a year to start the process.

Our son Mark was born somewhere between my first call and the first visit to the embassy. We refocused our lives on the family and him, a new person who had yet to form the personality but had already made the demands :).

## Aliyah process

Nine months passed, and we were standing in line with many families like ours on the central Moscow alley with a stroller and some vague hopes to escape the winter for the Mediterranean sun. We had a file containing Soviet-issued papers documenting my wife's family history, the only remaining evidence and distinction between Jews and many other Soviets: for many Jewish families in Russia, being Jewish was not even a cultural matter, as several generations under the communists killed most or all the distinctions between the nations producing a new breed: "Homo Soveticus", the Soviet men.

The process inside the embassy building was kinda simple and required very little input on our side: the lady behind the desk typed something on the computer, looked at our papers, asked a few questions about Olga's family history, why we wanted to live in Israel and what do we plan to do there. I murmured something I thought should be pleasing to her and sat here waiting nervously for the verdict.

The verdict was that despite the many valuable documents we brought, we couldn't be accepted right now, and we needed to get one more: Olga's brother's passport (or something like that).

That sounded a bit funny, as he was not the one making Aliyah, but it appeared that after we brought his passport, she made another request to get something similar. So we figured out that sending us out bore some sense to them: either it was a way to control the flow of the immigrants or test our persistence in a rabbinic way by refusing us three times before finally accepting.

So, three visits came and went: winter turned into summer, and our son gained weight and became a happy and fun toddler. We switched the bassinet on his stroller to the seat and finally got the immigrant visas! A new flow of emotions filled me: dreams of being out of Moscow were replaced by the anxiety of someone who needed to pack his life in a suitcase and say goodbye to the remaining family and friends.


Preparing for Aliyah from Moscow was a complex emotional journey.  I was trying to balance my religious identity, family dynamics, and the desire for a new life in Israel.

Israel

Part 7: Herzliya

Part 6: Securing the basics

Part 5: Back to Ashkelon

Part 4: Our first attempt

Part 3: Aliyah day

Part 2: Thoughts and preparation