Markov took his family out of the U.S.S.R. in 1989. With the
help of several Jewish organizations, he, his wife, Faina, and
their two children skipped from country to country for three months
until they reached the United States.
But the family's arrival lacked a ticker tape parade or any
sort of welcome wagon. With only $500 in his pocket, Markov set up
camp at a welfare hotel in Brooklyn Heights. "It was a
terrible place," he shudders. Fortunately, his English was
"decent," his computer-programming knowledge was
extensive, and he was a formidable mathematician. He landed a job
in just a few months.
The position he found was as a technological consultant to a
money management firm. Markov understood technology, but had no
idea about finance. "In Russia, there's no such thing as
inflation or investments," says Markov. "We're very
primitive. They didn't even teach us these things in
school." He started spending his nights at a local bookstore.
He couldn't afford to buy anything, so he stood in the aisles
and read books on finance, improving his English and finessing his
understanding of the financial world at the same time.
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Meanwhile, Kvitchko was also trying to carve his own niche, even
if that meant leaving Ukraine. "I came here with my wife and
one of my kids to visit a distant relative, who invited us for an
opportunity to see the United States"--in this case, he was
seeing Riverdale in the Bronx. But Kvitchko was thinking beyond a
vacation. Perhaps he could drum up some business with Americans and
work on projects for them from his homeland, he thought. "I
was pretty naive," admits Kvitchko. "But my [naivete]
disappeared quickly. Of course, I couldn't get in to see
anybody."
As the month-long visit drew to a close, Kvitchko had failed to
turn his vacation into a business opportunity. "Of course
nothing's going to happen in a month," a friend of the
relative told Kvitchko. "Why don't you stay with me for a
while and try for a little longer?"
Kvitchko was delighted--provided one thing: "Before I
agreed to his generous offer, I decided to find any job here.
Something. Anything."
Any job turned out to be washing dishes in a cafe. Kvitchko
scrubbed dishes all day, and by night, he tried to improve his
English. He could understand the language all right, but speaking
it was another matter. So Kvitchko would read newspapers every
night, "trying to make sense of them." He would also pore
through the dictionary, writing down words on flash cards and
memorizing the meanings. "I still have the cards," he
says fondly.
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