Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

The Gindins stuck it out until Boris could legally apply to leave the country, but that’s when the real difficulties began.

First he and Yana had to quit working. No one with a job could even ask for an exit visa. And the application process to OV&R, the Department for Visas and Registrations, took at least five or six months, which meant they had to survive that long without an income.

When they were given the green light they had to pack everything they could take with them and sell everything else, then fly to Moscow to pick up the visas, which in their case turned out to be handwritten, not typed, documents, which would later cause them a lot of trouble on the outside.

“Of course during the three months while we waited for our approvals to come from Moscow, Yanawas kicked out of Komsomol; our neighbors and co-workers turned against us, calling us traitors and other names,” Gindin recalls. “Even our friends disapproved, and in some ways worst of all was the condemnation we got from other Jews who still weren’t ready to leave.”

The Gindins decided to go to the United States, not Israel, because of the stories they were beginning to hear about opportunities. It was a bit of irony that a man who’d pledged himself to fight the evil capitalists by becoming a naval officer ended up taking his family to America. But their eyes were fully open by then to the harsh realities of life in the Soviet Union.

On top of that, Russia was becoming a dangerous place for Jews. By the summer of 1988 a lot of them were leaving for the United States, so an ultranationalist group calling itself Pamyat (Remembrance) rose up with the purpose of eliminating all Jews. Not by deportation, but by extermination. It was the old pogroms all over again, which seemed to be a part of the Russian soul.

It was right after that difficult summer that the Gindins finally got their exit visas and in October booked a flight to Vienna, as a waypoint to the United States. Boris’s uncle Vladimir, who had emigrated to the States in 1979, offered to help get them settled once they arrived. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA), and the Jewish Agency for Israel, Sohnut, also pitched in to help, because by Western standards the Gindins were poor to the point of destitution.

But before they could actually board the aircraft, the Soviet system took one last swipe at them. All their luggage was searched for contraband, they were patted down to make sure they weren’t hiding something illegal beneath their clothing, and Yana’s engagement ring was confiscated because it was worth more than the 250 rubles allowed to be taken out of the country.

In Vienna they were housed in a big building with ten or fifteen other families who’d left the Soviet Union and were heading either to the United States or to Israel.

“We stayed there for eighteen days, and the city was shocking to us, to see the luxuries in every shop window. It was clean, beautiful, and charming.

“We were free. A huge load had been taken off our shoulders, even though we knew that we’d be facing a lot of new challenges.”

At that point Boris didn’t even speak English.

The Sohnut representative gave them a small amount of money so that they could live until they reached the next stage of their journey in Rome. But their trip almost ended right there, when they showed their handwritten exit visas. No one wanted to believe the documents were real. They had to be forgeries. It was possible that the Gindins were smugglers or thieves or perhaps even wanted for murder back in Russia.

“It took us sixteen hours that day to convince our interrogators that the visas were real, and that it wasn’t our fault they were handwritten.”

The Gindins were finally placed on a train that was to take them to Rome by the next morning, but in the middle of the night the train was stopped out in the countryside, in the middle of nowhere, and all Jews were told to get out with all their belongings.

Terrorists were planning on attacking the train and killing all the Jews.

“Armed soldiers were everywhere,” Gindin says. “We did what we were told to do, and we were taken by bus to a small hotel in Rome where would we have to stay for the first week until we could find an apartment. It would be several months before our U.S. visas arrived, and in the meantime we had to somehow make a life for ourselves.”

In the hotel the HIAS organization fed all the immigrants. It wasn’t much: bread, oatmeal, soup, a small pat of butter, and one piece of fruit three times a day, but it was better than nothing.

The Gindins were interviewed again, and the same question came up: Why are you leaving Russia? This time Gindin hinted that his reasons for getting out had to do with his service in the navy.