The train to Frankfurt travelled through the Netherlands, and luckily I already had a Dutch and German visa in my British travel document. I took a short ferry to Rotterdam and then headed straight to Germany. However, I stayed in Frankfurt for only a day. Next day a representative from the US Army came to pick me up and take me to the US military intelligence base in Munich, where I was accommodated in a full-board separate room in a guesthouse. I gave very well-paid lessons in Russian language and Gulag geography and gained economic independence, although I enjoyed it in a different way: I did not save, I bought various clothes and sent it to my parents and wife in Leningrad. I made a lot of new friends from Soviet political emigration during my life in Munich. I met with Vladimir Voinovich, the author of the book about Soldier Chonkin, Julia Voznesenskaya, Poetess, Zhora Mikhailov, sobviet dissident, and other interesting people. I visited Radio Liberty, where they showed me my file containing an anonymous message received from the labor camp that I was working for the KGB. I asked who was the author of such a bare-faced lie, but they replied that I didn’t have to worry as they had a similar message about nearly everyone. Over the four months I spent in the beautiful city of Munich, I had adapted to the western way of life and had travelled all around Bavaria. One day the representative of American military intelligence offered me a job at the CIA upon my arrival in the US. I told him that I would think about the offer, but I did not accept it, as I wasn’t comfortable with the restrictions it would impose on my personal liberty.

My documents for entering the United States were ready in four months. I was again taken to Frankfurt, where the Consulate of the United States gave me a package of documents for the immigration service in America and a plane ticket. On October 30, 1988, I set foot on a small piece of American land – the Pan Am Boeing 747: I had never flown on such a huge plane before. It was take to the US seven hours to fly. I spent around 20 minutes at passport control in JFK – I had a German travel document with a visa from the US Consulate in Germany and a package of documents for the immigration service confirming my status as a political refugee. Alexander Hoffman, the same publisher I had met in Moscow back in 1981, was already waiting for me at the JFK terminal exit. We hugged and then he took me to his house in Darien, a wonderful town in Connecticut. As soon as we came out onto the highway, I realized it was a one-of-a-kind world. It was my new start. I spent the first two months before 1989 traveling and arranging my life. I stayed for nearly a month in Washington with Lyudmila Alekseeva, who worked for Voice of America, and then with her friends in New York. I received an SSN, a most important document in the U.S., and an American driver’s license. I spent my first Christmas with my American friends, and the New Year in a darkened bar together with the owner of an apartment in Stamford, where the Tolstoy Foundation had taken me in after my trips. I liked Connecticut, but I did not want to depend on benefits or aid from various foundations. If I was going to live in Connecticut I needed a car, so the apartment owner, a temporarily unemployed pilot, sold me his old VW Beetle for the 500 dollars I had managed to save up. The car broke down two weeks later. However, the repair of its transmission exceeded my budget, so I had to throw it away, and say goodbye to the apartment owner.