I was lucky enough to meet an entrepreneur who did all kinds of yacht and boat repairs. One thing led to another, and it turned out he needed one more person. We agreed that he would pick me up in the morning and show me the ropes. At the start, he promised $8 an hour, and after just a week, it went up to $9. Further raises would depend on the quality of my work. Hooray! I have a job now!=)

As promised, the employer picked me up in his car in the morning. I ended up working on yacht repairs for a full 40 days, 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, sometimes more. By the end, my salary had grown to $11 an hour. We did everything imaginable on that job—from basic painting to restoring a rare 1937 model.

The most interesting part of the job was the people: each with their own fascinating story.

For example, Alex got hired there after me. He had done quite well for himself in Russia, serving as a director of his own company. But he was set up and accused of stealing a ton of money, which forced him to flee the country secretly, crossing the border illegally. In the US, he spent 4 years applying for political asylum, spent almost all his money on it, and ended up getting rejected several times. Bad luck. Now he is planning to go to Canada, because he could be deported from America back to Russia at any moment, where everyone already thinks he is dead.

Or Kolya and his family from Ukraine. They owned a chain of stores back home, but Nikolai's wife was also unjustly accused and imprisoned. He spent almost all his money to get his wife out of prison on bail and fled his country with his freed wife and two 8-year-old children.

There were quite a few stories like that. Overall, at this job, I met some of the best and kindest Russians living in the US. They were simply victims of injustice.