They Have Reason To Celebrate

Eight years ago, Nadia Dyachk spent May Day watching a parade and celebrating the achievements of the Soviet Union.

The Russian immigrant had a different reason to celebrate Thursday.

Dyachk, who moved to Spokane two years ago, became a U.S. citizen, taking the oath with 131 other people.

“America is very good. This is definitely a good change for me and my friends,” Dyachk said after the noon ceremony at City Hall.

May Day, an international labor holiday, was widely celebrated in the Soviet Union before its collapse.

“Mostly it was some speeches, then a holiday,” said Dyachk, 40, then a machinist in the Ukraine city of Kharkov. In 1958, when Congress wanted a day devoted to honoring this nation’s heritage of rule by law, it chose May 1.

Since then, court and elected officials have used Law Day as a fitting time to have groups of people take on the rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizens.

Dyachk, who has a 16-month-old son, was one of a dozen former Russian or Ukraine residents at Thursday’s ceremony, taking the oath read by U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.

Joining Dyachk were two friends, Zoya and Serge Vagin, who moved to Spokane five years ago.

“It feels good,” Serge Vagin said after swearing the oath. “But in this country, it’s not all freedom.

“In Russia, it is easier than here to start a business,” said Vagin, a mechanic trying to open his own auto-repair garage.

Red tape exists in both countries, he said, but Russian entrepreneurs right now have an easier time than Americans. “It’s better here,” added Zoya. “But it is hard for us to find jobs.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo