Olesya Aleksandrova

OA: Oh we didn’t have anything, it was an empty apartment. No spoons no plates, nothing. So we bought first our thing was in Walmart we bought spoons and plates, plates, and the only thing that I could recognize was yogurt (laughs), you know the food is different and I didn’t know these names, and it was different difficult, you know, even the butter. When you are in a country you don’t know it’s packed or where it see it, and stores are so big, even small Safeway it was so big for me that we don’t have these big stores in Kyrgyzstan and I was lost. So the only thing I recognized was yogurt. (laughs) So first day was yogurt day. (laughs)

CB: On your first day was that all you and your daughter ate?

OA: Yes. And um, people who met us they gave us air mattress for some time and other neighbours gave us some furniture, so next day in the evening we already had a table, bed, and um all um other stuff. And um, day by day we got lots of thing first my furniture was furniture people don’t need any more and they put furniture in the street ,so this was my first furniture. (laughs)

Biography:
Olesya Aleksandrova was born and raised in Kyrgyzstan in the late 1970s. She began studying economics and government investment at the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in 1995. She graduated in 2002 and went on to complete a master’s degree focusing on the medical system in Kyrgyzstan. While completing her degree, Olesya opened a private medical clinic, and later opened a private maternity hospital.

During the revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, many businesses in the country were taken over by the government and Olesya's clinics and hospitals were threatened. In August 2006, she applied to immigrate to Canada. In June 2007, Olesya immigrated to Canada with her young daughter and settled in Vancouver. In 2009, she opened a fabric import company. Olesya has since married and is living in North Vancouver with her husband and three children.