Finding
America
BY TERI R. WILLIAMS
PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER,
BREWTONPARKER COLLEGE AND
INNA EDWARDS
INNA EDWARDS NEVER DREAMED OF COMING TO AMERICA. LIKE
MANY RUSSIANS, SHE WAS CONTENT IN HER BELOVED HOMETOWN,
BUT WHEN A VISIT HERE DISPELLED HER MISCONCEPTIONS AND
OFFERED HER A FUTURE, SHE DECIDED TO MAKE IT HOME.
“We can kill our
dogs first and then
kill each other.”
It was a crazy proposition, but Inna’s
friend had lost all hope. She was not alone.
Even though history points to a progression of
events that led to the collapse of the Russian
economy on August 17, 1998, the end came
suddenly.
“We went to bed one night and woke up
the next morning to everything priced six
to seven times higher,” said Inna. “Banks
shut their doors. When they reopened, all
our money had disappeared. Grocery stores
emptied.”
As the weeks and months passed,
desperation and fear turned into hopelessness.
Each day brought another story of a suicide.
“Parents killed kids and then hanged
themselves because they didn't know how to
feed them. It was horrible,” said Inna.
She closed the travel agency she had
been managing in Kurgan as travel came
to a halt. In the months that followed, her
only focus was on survival. After a couple of
months, everything in the pantry was gone.
“I had a friend who had a friend that farmed
somewhere outside of the city. He gave her
some potatoes, and she brought me a bag.”
Inna and her two collies survived on those
potatoes. It was a kindness she vowed never to
forget.
44 Toombs County Magazine
Even though times were hard, Inna never
expected to leave Russia. “I had a beautiful
childhood in St. Petersburg,” said Inna. “I
had a wonderful school. Beautiful. Our school
was founded by Peter the Great’s daughter.
That was a very old school and an extremely
beautiful building, 18th century with marble
steps and very beautiful rooms. It was a
beautiful environment. It’s downtown so I
could walk to it. And every Wednesday our
history teacher would take us to the Hermitage
for classes. You don't even realize that people
from all over the world come just to see the
Hermitage, and it was a part of my childhood.”
Education in Russia was free, but it was
still difficult to get into a university. “In the
Soviet Union, they decided, for example, how
many engineers they would need for this
year, and that’s how many students would be
accepted to balance the number of students
with the number of jobs. When I was growing
up, everyone wanted to be an engineer. So
I decided, I can do that. It was hard to get
into the technical university at that time.
You had to take an exam, and only one out of
sixty-four applicants for engineering students
was accepted.” After getting a masters in
engineering and working as an engineer, Inna
went back to school for a post-masters in
patent research. “At the time, I thought it was
so interesting to work with those people who
had new ideas.”
Inna’s father, Nikolay Medvedev, was a
high-ranking Naval officer and over the entire