My wife and her father was recently had visitors from their past. Lazar and Luda were friends with my wife's family for many years, but not too long after the breakup of the Soviet Union and Ukraine independence, they chose to emigrate to the USA. As the Soviet Union disintegrated, so did the economies of many of these soon to be independent nations.
Several times during the ensuing years, their USA friends would send "care" packages to friends who remained behind. But something wonderful happened in the ensuing years. As time went by, the economies of many of the newly independent countries, and Russia itself, improved vastly. In wasn't always easy, and it wasn't always smooth, and things were not always trending up, but time went by and things improved.
The package was sent via boat shortly before they left the US, and arrived here in Kiev several weeks after our guests had left. While they were here, they seemed a bit awed by the mega-bazaars and the mega-stores that have blossomed here in recent years. It was no longer a time of Soviet shortages or post Soviet upheavals. But our package reflected the old times. Coats and shirts and pants and even underwear, all things in abundant supply these days. Even the styles of many items were straight out of the past.
But we thank them nonetheless, because their hearts were certainly in the right place. Their memories though were of another time.
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