A Small Boat, a Vast Sea and a Desperate Escape From Russia

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/us/russian-asylum-boat-alaska.html
https://archive.ph/GDiKx

A Small Boat, a Vast Sea and a Desperate Escape From Russia
In September, two men set out from Russia, hoping a boat could carry them to asylum on U.S. soil. Their quest for freedom did not go as planned.
By Mike Baker
Jan. 29, 2023

A series of knocks rattled his apartment door one day last fall, and Maksim peered through the peephole to see two soldiers in uniform. They were military enlistment officers, he knew, expanding the vast conscription effort for the war in Ukraine to Russia’s remote Far East.

The 44-year-old fisherman kept in motionless silence until the officers moved along. Knowing they would be back, Maksim went that night to the home of a friend, Sergei, who had received an unwelcome visit of his own. Together, they pored over maps at Sergei’s kitchen table, trying to find a way to flee the country and a war where thousands of young Russian men were dying. Sergei then offered a plan that, at first, seemed unfathomable.

“I propose that we travel by sea,” Sergei said.

The idea was the start of a daring and daunting journey in which the two men set off in a small fishing boat with a 60-horsepower motor to travel hundreds of miles over several days — past Russian border guards and through the treacherous Bering Sea — to win asylum on U.S. shores. It was a desperate quest for freedom, and one that did not go according to plan.

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