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Edik's History
This is a time line with all of the major events in Edik's life -
Edik's born
Edik was born is Kiev, which was at the time a part of Russia but is now in Ukraine. He was born when America and Russia had just joined World War 2 so his father along with every man in the town was fighting in the war. His mother wanted to keep him safe from the Germans constant bombing of the city. She put him in the most safe looking building, which happened to be the housing for the outgoing missiles. Miraculously he survived. -
Edik's brother was born
When Edik was 4 years old his father came back from war, and soon to come was a sibling. When he was 5 His brother Roma was born. Finally he had a companion and someone to spend his days with. They still are extremely close -
Edik's Childhood
Edik Grew up in Kiev, which was very dangerous when he was an infant, but still spent lots of time skiing with his brother. They were sons to a seamstress who was not very wealthy, yet they still had an overall good childhood because no one knew they were jewish. -
Edik Marries Inna
When he was just 19 and she was 17, Edik and Inna got married. Inna was an extremely wealthy daughter of a jeweler but Edik was a poor boy from a poor village. -
Edik's College
Edik attended ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia, when he was 17. ITMO University in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was an engineering school and Edik learned electrical engineering. This University still exists today -
Edik's military training
While in college it was mandatory to have a one semester class training people for the army. Russia was at constant threat of a war so they made sure everyone was ready. -
Edik moves to St Petersburg
Edik moved to St Petersburg for college which was far away. Not many people from Kiev left the city so when he did it was very strange. -
Edik's only child
When Edik was 26 Inna gave birth to Yelena and she is the reason they decided to immigrate. They wanted their child to have religious freedom and not to be persecuted for being Jewish. -
Edik wants to go to United States.
Edik wanted to go to the U.S but the relationship between the two countries was not good. Edik could not stay in Russia. His 10 year old daughter was facing persecution for being jewish and she had no opportunities to escape her harsh upbringing. -
Edik Applies for a refugee visa in order to immagrate to the U.S
America had a system were they would allow a certain amount of people who were refugees into the United states. Edik applied as a refugee to try to give his daughter the best chance to grow up. -
Edik ends up immigrating to America
After years of wanting to leave Edik submitted an immigration request and was selected randomly out of thousands to be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. He brought his wife, Inna, and his daughter Yelena. -
Edik's job in the United States
When Edik came to the U.S he didn't know English but he still had his education from his college. He found a job working for Honeywell Industries and this job supported his small family very well. Only 2% of immigrants from Russia had a college education so he had an advantage -
Section 8 housing in NYC
When Edik first moved to America he was put in Section 8 housing and was given food stamps. His family was in a building where he did not feel they would be able to thrive so this made him very frustrated. However, he was still in america and there was no one persecuting them. -
Edik's first house
After just 6 months of living in section 8 housing in New York City Edik saved up enough money to move to an apartment in Lowell. After just one year living there Edik bought a house that was also in lowell -
Edik joined his first temple
When Edik Immigrated to the U.S he was able to join a temple for the first time. -
Edik's daughter went to college
Yelena changed her name to Lena when she first came to the U.S to try to fit in. She went to school, learned english, and taught her parents the foreign language in her free time. When she graduated High School Inna learned how to program and worked for Wang Laboratories in order to pay for Lena's college. -
Edik's first grandaughter
Lena gave birth to a baby girl and this was edik first grandchild. She was born at Beth Israel hospital and lived in the town Harvard for the first 2 years of her life. -
Edik got in a car accident and broke his back
When Edik's daughter just moved to Wellesley he was going to visit them. He was driving down the highway in the pouring rain when his car flipped. He got out and had lots of pain in his back but didn't want to stress out Lena and Inna so he didn't go to the hospital. He called a cab and the cab took him to Lena's house. Later he found out that he had broken his back. To this day he still has a limp because of this car accident. -
Edik's first grandson
on July 20 2001 Edik's First grandson was born. Everyone always said that he looked like Edik when he was young. Some of the pictures Edik looked at showed just how much that was true. He had never had a son so this was a big moment for him. The grandson's name was Ben. -
Edik finds out he has cancer along with other medical problems
When Edik was 64 he was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. Soon later he was diagnosed with blood cancer. In the past 12 years he has accumulated blood, bone, liver, and skin cancer along with 2 open heart surgeries and a dozen heart attacks. -
Edik's Mother Dies
When Edik was 71 his mother passed away. -
Now
Edik is currently living in Wayland Massachusetts with his cancer in remission. He lives with his wife Inna and is very happy.
