Siberian Seven

The Siberian Seven refers to seven out of twenty{{nbh}}nine members of two families of persecuted Pentecostals in the Soviet Union who took up residency at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on June 27, 1978.{{cite news |last1=Schmemann |first1=Serge |title=In Moscow, A Fast Takes a New Turn |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/25/world/in-moscow-a-fast-takes-a-new-turn.html |work=The New York Times |volume=131 |issue=45204 |date=25 January 1982 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150524125549/https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/25/world/in-moscow-a-fast-takes-a-new-turn.html |archive-date=May 24, 2015}}{{cite interview |last=Merry|first=E. Wayne|interviewer=Charles Stuart Kennedy |title=Moscow, USSR—Consular/Political (Internal) Officer 1980-1983: Siberian Seven |work=Foreign Affairs Oral History Project |date=2010 |publisher= Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training |url=https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Merry-E.-Wayne.pdf |format=PDF |pages=102-104|interviewer-link=Charles Stuart Kennedy }} These seven members represented the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families, both originally from Chernogorsk, Siberia.{{cite report |title=Siberian Seven|work=Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and International Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session, on H.R. 2873 and S. 312 |date=16 December 1982 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b_UO7TViQW4C&pg=PA3|language=en|page=3}} The seven stayed at the embassy for five years, until being granted exit visas and permission to emigrate on June 26, 1983, before all 29 members were allowed to leave to Israel on a tourist visa.{{cite magazine|last=Lubow|first=Arthur|date=18 July 1983|title=At Last, the Promised Land|url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20085494,00.html|magazine=People Magazine|accessdate=29 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171029013252/http://people.com/archive/at-last-the-promised-land-vol-20-no-3/|archive-date=29 October 2017|url-status=dead}} Sixteen members of the families eventually settled in the United States.{{cite news|title=16 Siberian Pentecostals End a Trip to Freedom|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/21/us/16-siberian-pentecostals-end-a-trip-to-freedom.html|issue=45746|volume=132|page=A14|accessdate=16 August 2022|work=New York Times|date=July 21, 1983|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220803111717/https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/21/us/16-siberian-pentecostals-end-a-trip-to-freedom.html|archive-date=3 August 2022}}