“By the time I was thirteen I already knew that I could no longer live here,” Vika told me. “I was still in the Soviet Union, but I knew it was temporary. Just thinking that way set me free. “I’m not scared of the latest wave of anti-Semitism. They are pathetic people, and they will always be around. I’m leaving because I cannot stand it here any longer: the rules, the psychology, the gray sameness of everything. If I stay here, I will suffocate. Unless a brick were to fall on my head, I could predict every moment of my life here until I die. I want to have children one day, but I will not
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