Yuri Pavlov: Leaving Home

On what would be the day that ruined all of Yuri Pavlov’s expectations for his future, he answered a phone call from his mother. “Yuri, it didn’t work,” she told him.

She had gone to the local military recruitment officer earlier that day with food, cognac and the hope of bribing Pavlov’s way out of Belarus’s mandatory military service. He managed to avoid being drafted the prior year because of his poor health and schooling, but he’d just graduated college and had no excuses left.

Pavlov’s options were clear to him. Either he joined the military or admitted he was gay to a largely homophobic society. Coming out would mean he’d be diagnosed with gender dysphoria and exempt from military service, but it also meant that everyone in his town would know.

“I felt trapped,” he said.

Pavlov is a doctoral student in the instructional design, development and evaluation program in the School of Education – a field of study that doesn’t even exist in Belarus. He says he feels lonely sometimes but he likes his life here. “I don’t know many people so I can be whoever I want to, people don’t care,” he said. “It’s more liberating for me here.”

Pavlov is one of only two students from Belarus at SU and has no plans to return home. Belarus, which has been referred to as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship,’ has ranked among the world’s most repressive societies since 2004, according to Freedom House. Belarus legalized homosexuality in 1994 but LGBT rights are limited and the topic remains highly taboo. Government restrictions limit access to information, including media censorship and email monitoring. Peaceful protests end in arrests and dissidents continue to go missing, according to the U.S. Department of State.

“Back home they don’t teach you to think critically,” he said. “You’re like a container. They pour knowledge into you, you don’t think about it and you spit it back out for exams.”

He got his bachelor’s degree in Belarus but found his education there to be totally disengaging. Students were discouraged from asking questions and textbooks were outdated. “I think I’ve been abused by instruction in my life,” Pavlov said.

He spent his junior year of college studying at a small liberal arts school in Kentucky where he was struck by the vastly different American education system. This new educational experience and his unsatisfying Belarusian one led him to later pursue instructional design.

.  .  .

Pavlov was born and raised in Stolbtsy, Belarus, a small town with a population of 16,000 people just outside of the capital, Minsk. One Friday afternoon in Syracuse, Pavlov Skyped his parents, Taissa and Alexander Pavlov, who had just finished supper in the same countryside home that he’d grown up in. They chat almost every day but this is the first time in a while that they’ve seen each other’s faces.

“He had problems with discipline, but never school,” his mother said, reflecting on his early years. 

He had always been an exceptionally brilliant kid and a fast learner who could never understand the academic shortcomings of other students. He was a high achiever who wanted to be the best at everything, even in nonacademic arenas like dance. But his need to be the best was aided by temper tantrums when he wasn’t. “I would get so mad and hit people, I was crazy,” he said.

In 2012, Pavlov’s life took a turn for the worst.

He had just returned home after his first year in the U.S. and was feeling optimistic about his life. He would soon get his driver’s license; he was about to graduate and already had a great job offer; and feeling confident, he downloaded a dating app and met a man.

“I was at my highest, I was so full of myself,” he said.

But soon everything changed. He failed his driver’s test, he did poorly on part of his dissertation, and the man he was crazy about no longer cared for him. Yuri had fallen into a depression that would last three and a half years.

His depression coincided with his military service debacle, and the mental and emotional strife that the conundrum caused Pavlov took a toll on his physical health. “I remember I was so mad, so depressed, that I got sick,” he said.

With an odd stroke of luck, he was hospitalized three weeks before being drafted and escaped military service once again.

Eventually, things began to turn around for Pavlov. He said reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Lovehelped him. “I was like, ‘shoot, this is my story!’” He tried out vegetarianism, got into yoga and connected with his spirituality. His depression subsided as he learned to prioritize other aspects of his life.

“I realized health is important, family is important,” he reflected.

He hasn’t come out to his parents about his sexuality and doesn’t plan to but suspects they know. When he was in the ninth grade, his father discovered gay pornographic photos he’d saved on his computer. “He didn’t scream at me but I could tell he was mad,” Pavlov said.

His father still asks him if he’s met any girls whenever he visits home, but Pavlov simply dismisses it by saying he doesn’t want to talk about it.       

He is a loquacious and chipper person but being insecure about his sexuality made him project a stern image of himself throughout his young adulthood. “I was such a stupid, serious fool,” he said. 

.  .  .

Pavlov, now 29 years old, is a soft-spoken man who likes to act silly sometimes and wears various shades of pink. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, a slender build and a coy smile. He’s still a perfectionist but doesn’t care to be the best.

Lili Zhang is Pavlov’s friend and colleague in the instructional design department. She said he’s always making her laugh but that when it comes to classes Pavlov is very concentrated. “He’s curious about everything. He reads a lot and always shares it with us,” Zhang said.

He leads a regimented lifestyle, routinely waking up at 7 a.m. to swim one kilometer for half an hour every Monday through Friday. He might stop by Bird Library for a danish, but after that he stations himself in the School of Education where he studies into the night. 

Pavlov was only 23 at the time of his military service scare, but men in Belarus can be drafted by the military until the age of 27, so for the next four years he sought educational opportunities as asylum from the military. His last excuse was his acceptance to SU.

Pavlov is focused on his career and plans to make academia his main pursuit in life. He hasn’t completely written off the idea of marriage and starting a family but is quite cynical about relationships.

“I’ve kind of given up on the idea of finding someone,” he said.

He doesn’t know for certain how he will stay in the U.S. after graduation but has a few options in mind: Optional Practical Training, post-doctoral education or a research position at an institution. “If that doesn’t work, there’s Canada, the U.K., Australia, even Latin America,” he said.

Education was and continues to be his means of refuge from Belarus.

His parents are supportive but understandably upset. Their smiling faces, once eager to see their son’s, diminished through the screen of Pavlov’s computer as the soon-to-be reality of his and their lives dawned on them. “We will be happy all the time if you are happy,” his father said.

“Yeah, that’s the important thing,” his mother said, pausing. “Wherever you are, if you want to come home we will always welcome you.” She began to cry. Then, so did Yuri.