Title: Camel from Kyzylkum
Author: Lara Gelya
Publisher: Life Journeys Books
In Italy – Now and Then
The first time I visited Rome was in early 1990. I was on a mission to find a better life after escaping the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. As punishment for my escape, my USSR citizenship was revoked, leaving me stateless, with the status of ‘Refugee of the World.’ I traveled light across continents, with just two suitcases filled with family photos, a few books, spoons, and small pots. I had almost no money in my pocket, but Rome and Italy were still a wonderful discovery and a source of immense cultural enrichment for me in 1990.
During that time, I visited Rome and its historical landmarks such as Vatican City, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Trevi Fountain, to name a few. I also had the most important interview of my life in Rome, at the American Embassy, where I received the green light to go to the USA!
In May of 2024, during our Mediterranean odyssey, we spent some time in Rome. It was a deeply nostalgic and memorable experience for me! Revisiting Rome after so many years brought back a flood of memories and allowed me to see familiar places with new eyes.
I would like to share with you a chapter about my life in Italy in 1990, from my memoir Camel from Kyzylkum:
Italy
My first impression of Italy was that it was quite dirty and noisy. After I got used to the spotless cleanliness of streets and places in Austria, it disappointed me to see trash on the streets and in public places, along with graffiti. For the first time, I saw homeless people sleeping on rags on the marble floor of the subway in Rome. I also noticed how Italians get pretty animated when they talk, compared to very restrained Austrian people. But with time, my opinion about Italy changed—I fell in love with the country, and I grew to love the warmth of Italian people. I came to love Italian bread. The Italian language was like music to my ears, and I even learned how to speak some basics.
For the first two weeks in Italy, we were stationed at the bungalow summer camp south of Rome. It was January, and even during the day it was pleasantly warm outside, but at night it was cold. These bungalow houses did not have heat and were not equipped for the wintertime. I remember I was sleeping in my warmest clothes and even covered myself with a mattress from a spare bed in my bungalow. Nevertheless, I got very sick with a cold, so sick that I thought I would not survive it. During the day I walked to the seafront and sat there for long hours—the warm Mediterranean sun and fresh, salty sea air helped me to slowly recover.
After two weeks in the bungalow summer camp, we were told that we needed to rent apartments for ourselves in the nearby city of Torvaianica, a city south of Rome that was founded in the 1940s and is best known for its beaches. It has a population of about 12,700 inhabitants and extends for about eight kilometers along central Lazio’s coast. The refugee organization, HIAS, gave us money to cover rent and food. I do not remember the exact amount it was per person, but it was just enough for us not to be on the street dying from hunger. Later on, when I was already in the United States and working, I was required to reimburse HIAS for what they’d spent on me. I paid it back gradually, a small amount each month.
There were plenty of apartments available for rent in January. Many of them were at the seaside. Refugees from the Soviet Union usually shared one apartment—a two-room apartment for two families, a three-room apartment for three families. I was alone and in no way could I afford to pay for a room on my own. Someone from the group introduced me to a young fellow who was traveling alone, too. His actual name completely escapes my memory at present, but I’ll call him “Misha.”
Misha was in his early twenties. He was very smart and even knew English. For the first time in his life, he was separated from his parents whom he had left behind in the Soviet Union. Misha and I rented a room in the two-room apartment on the first floor of a building at the seaside. We could sit on the balcony and look at the beach and the Mediterranean Sea in front of us. The enormous wardrobe that was in the room divided our room into two halves to give each of us some privacy. Misha was absolutely unprepared for everyday life. He did not know how to manage the little money we had, how to do grocery shopping, or how to cook food. I felt sorry for him and suggested that he contribute some amount of money for food and I would shop and cook for both of us. Misha was happy to do that.
When I went for an interview for the first time at the American Embassy in Rome, I was asked a lot about places I had worked in the Kyzylkum Desert. They had a detailed map of Uzbekistan on the table and asked me about Zarafshan, Navoi, Uchkuduk. I was surprised; I thought they already knew more than I did.
After the first interview, I had to wait for the second one, a very important interview, after which a decision would be made on whether to allow my entrance to the United States. Many families were denied the entrance visa to the United States without being given any specific reason or explanation. These people had stayed in Italy for six months, for a year, or even longer. They found some jobs to support themselves and their families. Some of them decided to stay in Italy for good. It was an unsettling time.
Every day at 6:00 p.m., all Soviet refugees who stayed in Torvaianica gathered together at the central square of the city. There were a lot of us, and while I do not know the exact number, I remember how the square was filled with a Russian-speaking crowd, to the amazement of the local population of Italians. We were waiting for the messenger, usually a man who would stand in the middle of the crowd and read the list of people who had gotten permission to go to America. Even though I had not yet had a second interview in the American Embassy, these daily meetings were the biggest entertainment of the day and a learning experience—people mingled together, told stories, shared news, and made friends.
Misha always found me in the crowd after the announcing part was over and asked, “What’s for dinner tonight?” It seemed that he was always hungry. Even though I did not want to go home yet, I felt an obligation to serve him dinner. I thought he was acting like a little baby and since I was not his mother, it was bothering me. There was only one time when I sent Misha to the store to get something for me while I was cooking. He returned with an ice cream cake, our money for two weeks of our food ration gone. We divided the cake among all of the people who lived in both rooms of the apartment. This was the last straw for me. I canceled our contract and let Misha be on his own. Our living arrangements in the apartment remained the same, but I did not cook for him anymore. Meanwhile, we got a new tenant in our room. Another woman, approximately my age, joined us. Three of us shared the room up to the time of my departure.
The distance between Torvaianica and Rome was about 40 kilometers (25 miles), and there was bus transportation. I used the bus a few times. The ride was about 50 to 60 minutes. I did not go often, because the bus was usually packed with people and reminded me very much of the buses in the Soviet Union. Also, traveling by bus costs money I could not spare. Very soon I learned I could get to Rome by hitchhiking—every car driven by an Italian man would stop when they saw a young, pretty woman hitchhiking on the road. Several times I even hitchhiked with Misha. When the car stopped, I told the driver that he was my brother. I must say that most of the time Italians were very reckless drivers, and I felt uncomfortable in the car quite often.
I loved my outings to Rome. I enjoyed exploring the beautiful city where every stone has a history. Once or twice a month, all museums in Rome were free and I took advantage of this. Visiting the Colosseum, St. Peter’s Basilica, the museums of the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel and the Trevi Fountain, to name a few, all became unforgettable experiences and cultural enrichment for me.
On the days when I was not traveling to Rome, I was discovering Torvaianica. Some items and events from my time there will be engraved in my memory forever.
For instance, there was a shoe and leather accessories store across from our apartment. In the Soviet Union, Italian shoes and leather accessories always were part of every woman’s desirable outfit, but they were difficult to get. In the store across the street was everything I could only dream about: elegant leather shoes, hand purses, belts. I visited the store quite often—not to buy, just to look. The store seemed to me big and exceptional. Years later, in 2001, Sparky and I traveled to Italy and visited Torvaianica. We found the beachfront apartment where I lived at the beginning of 1990 and a shoe store across the road. To my amusement, all at once, I saw an ordinary little store where I calmly browsed —it did not give me the excitement that it had in 1990. Perception is everything, and I was a very different person by 2001.
The main drag of Torvaianica with its famous Italian bakeries, restaurants, and shopping sprawled along the Mediterranean coast. On the snuggly, warm Italian evenings of January and February, I liked to stroll the street, window shopping and people watching. Italian people did not like to hold back their emotions—they laughed, they talked loudly, helping themselves with gestures, and I loved the music of the Italian language. I always stopped at the window of one particular bakery to examine all of the wonderful baked goods on display, though I could not afford to buy any. One of these baked goods was filled with a mix of rich semolina and ricotta cheese, and was a shell-shaped pastry called Sfogliatelle; Zeppole was another pastry consisting of a deep-fried dough ball dusted with powdered sugar and sometimes filled with various sweets; there was also biscotti, Venetian cookies, and hot chocolate cake—I could not take my eyes off of these beautiful culinary arts. One evening, the owner of the store, a middle-aged Italian man wearing a white chef’s coat and hat, with a lush body, dark mustache, and kind, laughing eyes, came out carrying a plate with a few biscotti and Venetian cookies and offered it to me to taste. Bewildered by his offer and the fact that he, probably, had been watching me evening after evening in front of his window, I did not have the strength to refuse his marvelous-looking, tasty Italian pastries.
Finally, the day came when I received a letter from the American Embassy in Rome with the invitation for the second and most important interview of my life. As I struggled with the English language then, I clearly understood the date and time of my interview, but I completely missed the location. Besides, I was pretty sure that there was only one location for the American Embassy in Rome and I knew where it was. But I was wrong.
The interview was scheduled for 12:00 p.m. I wanted to be collected and prepared. To eliminate any possibility of being late, I arrived at the American Embassy in Rome at 11:00 a.m. It was a sunny, beautiful, spring-like day; I lost myself for a short time (while waiting) on the fascinating streets of Rome. The sidewalk cafes were full of business people enjoying their lunch hours. I was thinking, “Is there going to be a time in my life when I, like them, can sit leisurely at a sidewalk cafe and have lunch? And feel myself as confident, relaxed, and happy as these people?” I wanted to believe that this time would eventually come in my life.
At about 11:45 a.m., I returned to the American Embassy expecting to soon be called by the guard. There was a good crowd of people waiting, like me, to be called. One by one they went inside until only I was left waiting. It was after 12:00 p.m. I got anxious—I began to wonder why I was not being called. I showed my paper to the guard. He explained to me (mostly by gestures and with some Italian phrases) that my interview was in a completely different location on the other side of the city. I was shocked. First, I had no money to get a taxi. Second, I thought my life was doomed. With this realization, I stood on the curb of the street in the center of Rome and sobbed bitterly. Tears rolled down my face.
Well, the Italian people did not easily tolerate this scene. Soon enough, a taxi stopped by me. The driver got out of the cab and asked me what had happened. Continuing to cry, I showed him my paper invitation for the interview and tried to explain to him that I had come to the wrong location. He looked at the paper and then at me and started vigorously gesticulating, pushing me inside his cab. Even inside the taxi, I could not stop crying. The driver turned around to me shouting some equivalent of “Shut up” in Italian. I became quiet. I realized he was going to drive me to the address where I needed to be. While he was driving, I feverishly thought about how I would pay for my ride as I had very little money in my pocket. But I was wearing a gorgeous silver ring with a gemstone on the ring finger of my left hand. The ring was handmade with an intricate Gothic design and a big, beautiful, pink, tourmaline stone—it was my favorite ring! I bought it during my vacation in Latvia, a country on the Baltic Sea—Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991. I immediately decided to pay for my ride with the ring.
We arrived at the address of the second location of the American Embassy. I paid for the ride with the ring. The grounds of the Embassy were surrounded by a high fence and the gates were closed. I was not sure how I could get inside. However, the gates opened for an incoming cab and I just sneaked through the gates and ran towards the main building. I entered a room full of people waiting to be called for their interviews. My face was red, mascara smeared across my face, and my hair was messed up. Immediately, I heard my name being called. I walked into a smaller room where two men asked me questions. Then one man with reddish hair said to me how he had grown up in Buffalo, New York. He asked me if I knew how severe the winter could be in Buffalo. I said, “Probably not worse than in Siberia.” They both laughed. With this, my interview was over. From that point, I would have to wait for the Messenger at the Torvaianica square to call my name and give me an official paper with “Yes” or “No” written on it.
After two weeks or so, the Messenger at the 6:00 p.m. gathering at the Torvaianica square called my name. I was not nervous; for some reason, I was sure that it would be “Yes”. I calmly opened the envelope—there were dates for my flight from Rome to New York City. It was exciting news for me, and in anticipation of big changes in my life, I started to prepare myself for the trip.
About the Book
Camel from Kyzylkum is an award-winning memoir that chronicles the remarkable journey of immigrating from the Soviet Union during the late twentieth century. It delves into themes of hope, struggle, family, and loss, offering a profound exploration of the human spirit’s yearning for freedom and self-determination. Through the author’s compelling narrative, readers gain a deep insight into life within the Soviet Union and the immense sacrifices and risks individuals undertake in pursuit of a better life.
The memoir traces a gripping path from Ukraine to the Kyzylkum Desert in Uzbekistan, and onward through Austria, Italy, and finally America. Along this journey, the author navigates personal truths and aspirations, illustrating the resilience and determination required to forge a new path in unfamiliar lands.
Camel from Kyzylkum is not just a memoir; it’s a transformative narrative that opens doors to unfamiliar worlds, encouraging readers to broaden their perspectives and empathize with the challenges and triumphs of others. It stands as a testament to the enduring human spirit and the universal quest for identity and belonging.
About the Author
Born and schooled in Ukraine, Lara Gelya spent the next two decades in the Kyzylkum Desert of the Republic of Uzbekistan, working at geological sites and expeditions of the Mining Industry. At that time Ukraine and Uzbekistan were parts of one country — the Soviet Union.
In 1989 Lara left the Soviet Union, lived in Austria and Italy before she, at last, found her way to the United States in 1990. Starting her life from ground zero again, and trying on so many hats, she was able to make a lengthy professional career that led to her eventual retirement on the shores of sunny Florida.
Now, enjoying her retirement, Lara fills her days with enriching activities like writing, creating videos and pictures, reading, gardening, cooking, traveling, and immersing herself in nature or entertainment. Her diverse interests and active lifestyle after retirement show a deep appreciation for life’s pleasures and a continuing curiosity about the world around her.
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