Irina & Alexander Rakov

Story

RAKOVS STORY

Country of origin – USSR

Year of arrival in Australia – 1979

Irina and Alexander (Sasha) Rakov met in 1971, in Odessa (former Soviet Union), when at the age of 17 Irina (a music student) auditioned for Sasha’s band, as a keyboard player/singer. He was a guitarist.

She has passed the audition and started working with the band. A year later they began working on Soviet cruise ships, sailing all over the world,

entertaining foreign tourists. They visited Australia for the first time in 1972, and fell in love with it.

Irina and Sasha also fell in love with each other, but couldn’t get married for a while

because it wasn’t allowed for members of the same family to work overseas together,

and they could lose this very “privileged” job. So even when they did get married on

6 March 1975, Irina had to keep her maiden name, so that the Soviet Authorities wouldn’t find out and separate them.

But they found out anyway, and the couple got into a lot of trouble. A few months later they got into even more trouble for playing “too much” western music, speaking their mind against the communist regime, and for talking to foreign tourists on the ship, which wasn’t allowed for the Soviet crew members. Their visas for overseas work were revoked, and they became political dissidents. Alex & Irina decided to emigrate to the West and applied for permission to leave USSR as political refugees in 1977.

It was an extremely hard process, they and their families were punished by the regime, lost their jobs, livelyhood and status in the society. Finally, after an agreement with the United States, a lot of dissidents, Jewish people and others, wanting to leave the USSR, were allowed to go. Alex and Irina were amongst them. They were stripped of their Soviet citizenship, and most of their possessions, and left the USSR in 1978. The Soviet Union was preparing for the Olympic Games of 1980, and was getting rid of some “unwanted element” in the society.

Thousands of refugees from all over the Eastern Europe gathered in Rome,

Italy, where the American Joint Distribution Committee helped and supported them, assisting with applications to USA, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries.

The Rakovs applied to come to Australia and arrived in Sydney on April 5, 1979, with $115.00 and 2 suitcases. Irina was pregnant and their daughter Caroline was born here in September that year.

They have been living in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney ever since, working in the music (Catch22 Band) and graphic design/advertising industries.

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