Natalya Androsova began standing in line for milk, meat, and bread when was five years old in Siberia, Russia.
Standing in line didn’t always guarantee that there would be food, however, because there were frequent shortages, as was the Soviet custom.
Though Siberia was rich in minerals, the centralized economy left the people of the region, such as her family, working hard with little pay.
Weighted with responsibilities with which most American children might be unfamiliar, Androsova combined her schoolwork with chores, and as she grew older, she found herself longing for a place that she had read about, where read freedom rang with prosperity.
It wasn’t until years after she and her husband arrived in America in 1999 that she saw a shadow over the Liberty Bell that had been cast by some who wanted to reduce American freedoms in the name of fairness, which she knew from first hand experience would manufacture the strained economic conditions she thought she had left behind in Russia.
Never has that agenda been more pronounced as it was with COVID-19, Androsova told The Epoch Times, when she said she could see how easy it would be to transform the United States into a country with communist ideologies during a time when small businesses and churches were closed, while large, corporate chains and liquor stores remained open.
“I did not expect so many Americans to be so compliant,” Androsova said. “I realize we are law-abiding citizens, but that was clearly government overreach.”
In 2021, Androsova helped form the grassroots initiative Russian-Speaking Americans for Freedom (RSAF) in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other multinational American citizens whose primary language is Russian.
The purpose was to bring the Russian-speaking community together, she said, to get involved in local politics.
“Because we all grew up in the socialist Soviet Union with the implementation of communism in our homeland, we know exactly what is happening because we’ve seen this before,” Androsova said.
