My family is half Armenian/half Russian.
Until 1988 we lived peacefully in Baku, Azerbaijan, back then one of the former republics of USSR,
right on the shore of oil rich Caspian Sea.  In 1988 Armenia and Azerbaijan, the 2 neighboring republics
started a civil war.

This page gives a quick overview of what the war was about:
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/analysis/newsid_72000/72268.stm

One thing led to another, and pretty soon Armenia was evicting all people of Azeri nationality from its lands,
and Azerbaijan started doing the same with Armenians, and they got brutal.  When the civil war started to
escalate, and there was a real threat of rebels coming to Baku, which was the capital, my father traveled to
Moscow,  and at the US embassy applied for a political and religious asylum (we were Christians,
while most of Azerbaijans were Muslim).

In the summer of 1989 my family left everything, and with a few suitcases ran.
We settled in a small town in Russia.  On January 13, 1990 the riots came to Baku.

My grandfather was beaten, and miraculously escaped alive.  My grandmother was taken hostage,
and kept on bread and water for 3 days until the police found her.  My aunt and her kids escaped by
hiding in a trunk of a car.  All of our houses were robbed, and taken over.  There were ethnic cleansing going on.
For 7 days riots rocked Baku.  Gorbachev, who was the head of the government back then, offered no help.

The outside world, the United States, NATO, United Nations, offered no assistance.
Partly because they probably had no idea how bad it is, partly because they had no interest in Azerbaijan or Armenia.
Finally, on January 19th Russian troops entered the city, and brought the riots to a halt.
We had to start from scratch.  Slowly but surely the paperwork and red tape moved along,
and in November of 1990, after an interview at the US embassy in Moscow,
we were granted the status of refugees.

In 1991 we found out that we would be leaving on October 19th, 1991.  An American agency loaned us
the tickets, with a promise to repay once we are in the US.  Little did we know, they were ripping people off.
For 5 people, 2 of which were under 10 years old, they charged us $5,000 for 5 one way tickets to New York.

Then came August of 1991, with the big coup by the communists, and we thought that our dream of coming to
America was over, but that was quickly fixed.  Finally we arrived at Moscow International Airport on October 19th.
We were the pioneers, we were going to a country that for 70+ years was criticized by the government, a country
whose language we didn’t know, whose culture we only saw in movies.  We didn’t leave on the 19th, our tickets
were changed, and we spent 4 days in the airport.  Finally on October 24th we said good bye to our family,
without any idea of when we might see them again, and boarded the PanAm flight “Moscow-New York”.

Because we had this “refugee” status, we had a sponsor in the US.  Our sponsor was Catholic Charities.
We settled in Hartford, CT.  For the first 4 months they provided us with rent, some food, and English classes.
After that my parents got 2 jobs each, myself and my siblings started school.  In 1995 we became proud citizens
of the United States of America.  Since, my parents achieved the “American Dream” and bought a house,
I graduated college and now work in New York, my sister is in college and my brother is attending high school.