Escaping from the Red Hell

by Vladimir Pavlov

Escaping from the Red Hell by Vladimir Pavlov By 1980, under the Ceuasescu's merciless and dictatorial Communist regime, Romania reached lowest levels of living, beyond any imagination, the entire country becoming just a starving extermination camp. After loosing his job as an art teacher, being expelled from the educational system for his political and religious ideas which were "not compatible with the mission of a true Communist educator," and harassed by the Romanian Secret Police, called "Securitate," Vladimir decided that there was no reason to continue his life in that terrifying "prison-camp" and he started to plan how to reach for his freedom. Escaping from the Red Hell is a contemporary novel, inspired from Vladimir's risky and dramatic journey to his freedom. In 1982, after earning another Master's Degree, this time from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Vladimir was able to get a job at the Ocean Fishing Company, as an electronics engineer. In spite of his black-marked past, using the system corruption and the greed of one of his supervisors, Vladimir managed to obtain the long-expected visa for working outside Romania, leaving on one of the trawlers going to South Africa, just one year after getting married. During his first voyage, in 1984, he jumped ship in the Canary Islands seeking political asylum in Spain. Two months later, Vladimir was granted political refugee status in the United States, and here he started his new life with just $200 in his pocket, a pair of pants and a shirt. A couple of months later he found out that his wife didn't want to follow him here, not willing at all to leave her family and her friends, and to adventure into the "imperialistworld." The beginning was extremely challenging, in spite of the fact that Vladimir had already two degrees, a Master of Fine Arts and a Master of Science in Electronics Engineering. After all these years, many jobs and tough lessons, he is now a Senior Software Design Engineer at the

524 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2005