Word: shpihun
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Then, well-fed and smiling, they settled back as Victor Shpihun, a 41-year-old shipyard worker, rose. With many a smile and glint of his gold-filled teeth, Shpihun carefully explained why he and the other 169 Canadian residents of many years preferred dictatorship to democracy. It was not that they loved Canada less, said Shpihun, but that they loved Russia more...
They had so decided last November, when Russia offered Soviet citizenship to all former citizens of the Ukraine and White Russia. Shpihun and some 700 other British Columbians, who had come to Canada 20 years ago, grabbed it. None had ever become a Canadian citizen, few had ever lived in the U.S.S.R. Yet now they were filled with a deep yearning to go home and build "an orchard for the people of the U.S.S.R...
...Shpihun had weighed it all very carefully. It was true that Canada had treated him well. Poor on arrival, he had been fed and housed by relief money when he could not get any of the limited manual labor he could do. Later he had been able to marry, raise four healthy children. For the last six years, Shpihun had worked steadily, earned $160 a month in a shipyard. His teen-age daughter Mary and son Bill had steady jobs also with the Canadian National Railways. They had plenty to eat and a cozy home, had even saved some money...
...last April Shpihun had been laid off for sevenf weeks. "In Russia," said he, "it is the responsibility of the Government to transfer me to another job." He also thought it would be easier for his son to become a doctor, his daughter a nurse. "Here she can only become a waitress." As for himself, added Papa Shpihun, he would consider it a great honor to join the Communist Party "if invited...
...Meantime Shpihun and his fellow dinner guests had a final request to make of their stepmother country. The Canadian Government must help them go to Russia. With shiny new ..Soviet passports in their pockets, they still had no idea how or when they were going, or who would pay their fares. The Soviet Embassy in Ottawa mumbled: "It is a complicated situation." The orchard builders were becoming impatient. "We want to go soon," spoke up Shpihun. "We don't want to wait too long...
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