Volume 8, Issue 2 / Shevat 5765 / February 2005
Land of Opportunity
When Sasha Yaroshevskiy came to Israel for the first time in 2003 on a birthright trip, he was amazed to discover that the reality in the Jewish state was vastly different from its portrayal in the mass media in Russia. "It was a different world from anything I had experienced in Russia," he says. "And I saw that everything here isn't so bad here." In fact he was so impressed by what he saw - the freedom, the higher education opportunities, and particularly by the security - that he seriously considered making Israel his home.
It was not an easy decision - nor a natural step. Raised in a stable, successful, middle-class family in Yekaterinburg, Sasha had never seriously considered leaving Russia.
Even as a child, he had been interested in psychology. "Of course, we had heard of Freud during the Communist regime," he recalls, "but didn't know much more. But in the newly-independent Russia in which Sasha grew to maturity, the field quickly began to develop.
He concentrated on psychology courses in his last two years of high school, and received a BA in the field from the Ural State University. He began MA studies, while beginning to work professionally. In his spare time, he acted in a small chamber theatre group.
With close friends, a supportive family, a promising career, and ample extra-curricular interests, Sasha's rosy future in Russia seemed assured. But his trip to Israel made him think twice. "I was very impressed with what I saw in Israel," he says. "But I realized that being somewhere as a tourist is vastly different from living there permanently."
He went into the Jewish Agency office and inquired about aliyah. "It was a serious decision," he stresses, "because it's a lifetime commitment." When he learned about the Jewish Agency's Kibbutz Ulpan program at Kibbutz Shoval, he knew it was the ideal framework for him. He arrived at the kibbutz in November 2003.
Time in the ten-month program was split between intensive Hebrew studies and work on the kibbutz. Thanks to the high level of instruction, Sasha is now able to converse freely in Hebrew. The program also afforded participants the opportunity to visit Israel's universities to learn about various programs. Sasha received a pleasant surprise when the Ministry of Education recognized his years of study beyond his BA, with honors, as the equivalent of a Masters Degree. After he finishes his army service, he hopes to do another MA or to study for his Ph. D.
He is glad of his decision to come to Israel, and is grateful for the many personal and professional opportunities it offers. He's hard put to name things he doesn't like about the country. "Well, maybe annoying little things, like bureaucracy," he reflects, "but then, where isn't there bureaucracy?"
Written by: Shifra Paikin
Photo by: Shimmi NachtailerTo download this file as a word document, click here.
