Browse Exhibits (1 total)

The daughter of two doctors, Irina Melekhina (b. 1965)  met her husband Aleksandr, who was Jewish, in dental school. Hoping for a better life and benefitting from refugee status, the Melekhinas left the Soviet Union in 1991 with their infant daughter. After Irina's husband finished dental school in New York, the Melekinas moved to Philadelphia, where they continue to run their own dentistry practice. In her interview, Melekhina talks about growing up in the Soviet Union, mandatory military training, and their harrowing flight to the United States on the same day that hard liners marched into Moscow to overthrow the government of Mikhail Gorbachov.