I must be a fanatic because this escaping is very dangerous.

Oleg Emelyanov had a variety of ideas for escaping from the Soviet Union. Four years ago he came up with the right idea and several weeks later he arrived in Los Angeles. Emelyanov lives in Reseda. I like to travel, I like to see other countries, but it was impossible to do it being in the Soviet Union. That’s one reason why I escaped.

At first I thought maybe I can marry foreign woman; I can leave Russia that way. But after awhile I realized is very difficult to contact any foreign woman because I didn’t speak any foreign languages.

After that I had many fantastic ideas. For example, I thought maybe I can build a small submarine and leave Russia on it. I thought it was possible to cross the Baltic Sea to Sweden. But it was impossible because the submarine must weigh more than one ton. I had no car so I couldn’t bring it to the seaside. It was wrong idea.

After that I thought maybe I could cross the border on foot, but Russian border is not American-Mexican border. So it was wrong idea.

I saw little ad in newspaper. Some person was flying in this very small plane for one person and it doesn’t have any cabin. I called him and he told me it cost 25,000 rubles. I earned 2,000 rubles per year. So it was wrong idea, also.

Then I started to think about small boat to cross the sea. And I visited seaside of Baltic Sea in Lithuania. But I saw big coast guard ship, then I saw radar station and I realize it’s almost impossible to leave Russia from this part of land because Sweden is very near Russia.

So I realized it would be better to cross the Black Sea, because it’s not so important for Soviet Union because it’s a closed sea. I chose point which was 450 kilometers from Turkey, it’s not so heavily guarded.

I studied for about a year. I had to know a lot of things about the weather, about the season, a little about navigation, a little about astronomy. I read a lot in the library.

It takes six months to get the boat. It was small, one man plus me. The sail and the motor I bought in one day. We had some apples and 10 liters of fresh water. That’s all.

I must be a fanatic because this escaping is very dangerous. I was some kind of crazy. Some days I thought, “Of course I can do it, it’s no problem.� But after a while I thought, “No, it’s impossible, they catch me, 100%.� And then again I think, “No, I can do it.�

Then my friend and I went to Anapa, a city on the Black Sea. We took all of our stuff, the boat, the motor, sail, to seaside and found a place to stay for a couple of hours waiting for dark time to inflate the boat. We decided to start at 3 a.m.

I think it takes seven or eight days, but it took us only five days, because after two days there was a storm and the wind came stronger and stronger, and we could move very fast. But this wind was very dangerous because it blew from the side, our boat could capsize. The water comes again and again. We have to sit in water because our boat was full of water, but it can’t sink because it’s inflated. It was very cold. We thought about a warm bed especially at nighttime because we couldn’t sleep during the five days.

To see the land after five days was the most exciting. We were very tired after this trip. We can’t walk straight because of spending five days in small boat.

I was three days in Turkey police station, then I was one week in secret base, then exactly 30 days in Ankara prison. Turks took us to the airport and in two hours we were in Munich. I went to New York, in two weeks I went to Los Angeles.

I started English when I came to Los Angeles, so I study English, nighttime. It was difficult for me to get the first job. But the second job was much easier. I have same job, electronic assembly, as in Soviet Union.

My plans are to be an idea man. But maybe it’s impossible for me, so I will be a programmer because I know math very well. Maybe in a year I will take college. I like to create ideas. I think my escaping is good example, I thought a lot about it.