Tag #130995 - Interview #78175 (manin rudich)

Life was better in Chisinau: I remember we went into a coffee shop to have some coffee. We were standing at one of those tables without chairs, and we were talking. A waitress near us was eavesdropping, I noticed. And she went to whisper something to another waitress, packed something in a napkin and came to me. She asked me in a low voice, 'Are you from Romania?' I answered I was. 'Then take this!' It was a lump of sugar. Back in Romania it was a real problem: we had food stamps for sugar, for bread. I was very touched by the solidarity there. People heard us talking Romanian in the street and they just followed us. There were some gypsies in a parking lot, who heard us talking in Romanian, told us they had relatives in Bucharest and asked us if we knew them; of course we didn't. When I drove back to Romania and had to stop at the boarder, the car's trunk was full with bread, roast turkey etc; all from my cousin. The custom officer said, 'Don't let the doctor here see it, he will confiscate everything from you!' There was a doctor assigned at the customs office. The officer was a nice man, he let me pass. When I came back I gave my sister half of everything I had got.