Winter 2004

From the USSR to the USA: a Lighthouse Employee’s Journey

Born in former Soviet republic Azerbaijan, Serzh Nikolayev, production worker machine shop, experienced events leading up to the Soviet Union’s collapse first-hand. He emigrated with his family from their homeland to the United States shortly before all non-Russian republics declared independence in December of 1991. After arriving in the United States, Serzh settled in the Northwest and came to work at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind.

He developed a fascination with mathematics and mechanics early on. “I’m really interested in math and anything technical,” says Serzh, who currently works in the phenolics area making nonmetallic parts for Boeing airplanes. “It’s not because of my job. I’m just interested in those sorts of things.” Upon finishing high school, Serzh trained as a radio technician at Azerbaijan’s Electrical Technical Engineering College of Radio Communications.

After completing his technical education, Serzh worked with a team for the military replacing and repairing electrical equipment. In 1978, he started a new job with the technical department of the county police. “At that time, all the alarm systems [in the county] were under the government. The government’s job was to fix and replace alarms.” Serzh stayed in this position for five years.

While working as a technician, Serzh pursued his passion for music on the side. “All this time, I was a musician also.” Serzh started playing in bands at the age of fifteen. He is an accomplished musician, playing keyboards and several types of guitar.

After political pressures in the police department became too much to bear, he left his county job and became a full-time professional musician. “Everyone was pressuring me to join the Communist Party. I didn’t want to,” Serzh recalls. “If you do other jobs not related to the government, there is not so much pressure.” Serzh and his band began traveling around the Soviet Union, giving concerts incorporating a variety of musical styles.

Serzh toured with his band around the countryside until starting work in a concrete block factory in 1989. At this time, civil war broke out between local factions following a government attempt to unify Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan. Serzh remembers the spread of the conflict: “At first, it broke out in little places, then it came to the capital in January of 1990.” Serzh, his wife Natalie and son Roman were living in the capital. They fled Azerbaijan as national strife continued to grow. “The situation was becoming worse and worse. So we had to move to Moscow,” he reports.

In 1991, Serzh learned that the United States and Soviet governments were allowing refugees into America for the first time. Along with ten other family members, he arrived in the Seattle area in May of that year. A stream of relatives soon followed. Today, Serzh lives in Renton with Natalie and Roman, now twenty-one. Sixty-five members of their extended family now live in the local area.

Despite speaking little or no English, Serzh began work at the Lighthouse in August of 1991. For the first two weeks in his new job, a Russian language interpreter translated training instructions as Serzh learned the ropes. Never taking formal lessons, Serzh says he learned to speak English “just from working at the Lighthouse, just communicating, little by little.” He credits working with Jerry Kopp, production supervisor, and Bruce Peterson, production worker, with helping him master English.

Serzh is known for working hard and maintaining high quality standards. Mike Scheschy, production supervisor, praises his work ethic. “Serzh is a dedicated employee. He maintains a high degree of quality in all his work.” Serzh is eager to pitch in wherever needed. “Anybody knows, they can just call me and put me on right away.” Serzh’s peers recently honored him by naming him Machine Shop Employee of the Year.

Serzh prizes his relationships with other Lighthouse employees. “People here -- I feel like they’re family.”

Born with macular degeneration and diagnosed as legally blind in 1967, he now lives with no remaining central vision. Serzh shows particular concern for others living with disabilities.  “If somebody asks me to do something and I can do it, I will. It’s not going to hurt me, but it’s going to help them.”  Serzh says of the Lighthouse, “I come to work and it’s like my home.”

When not on the job in the machine shop, Serzh still loves playing music. During the nineties he regularly played with a band at a local Eagles Club. Now, he says, “I like to play, but at home for myself.” Jazz and blues are his favorite genres. “But to listen to, not to play.” Serzh usually plays pop and rock. Of creating music he says “I feel like I’m young, like twenty years old.”

Previous Page | Horizons Main Page | Home