Oct 11, 2026 · 1 min · 1 segments
George Girjel recalls the harsh realities of leaving Russia under a socialist government—selling property for pennies and being unable to take money out of the country. They describe rebuilding life…
The way you leave Russia, and this was back then, you don't bring nothing with you, basically.
Therefore, they make it extremely hard because you have to understand this is a socialist slash communist country.
So even taking money with you was extremely impossible, which we didn't have much.
But whatever you have, it's... very very hard to take it with you because they just control everything you know so you sell your we we had a two-bedroom condo at that time that we lived in with my mom and you know we sold that pennies on the dollar because again it's one of those things where government controls everything So we moved here and working and everything else.
I didn't want her to work two jobs, you know, but we had to do what we had to do at that point.
And, you know, with our culture, just like yours, where we come from, you know, the respect for the parents and elders, it's very high, you know, and of course they do anything for us.
The way you leave Russia, and this was back then, you don't bring nothing with you, basically.
Therefore, they make it extremely hard because you have to understand this is a socialist slash communist country.
So even taking money with you was extremely impossible, which we didn't have much.
But whatever you have, it's... very very hard to take it with you because they just control everything you know so you sell your we we had a two-bedroom condo at that time that we lived in with my mom and you know we sold that pennies on the dollar because again it's one of those things where government controls everything So we moved here and working and everything else.
I didn't want her to work two jobs, you know, but we had to do what we had to do at that point.
And, you know, with our culture, just like yours, where we come from, you know, the respect for the parents and elders, it's very high, you know, and of course they do anything for us.
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