MAPLETON -- Utahn Serge Dengen is no longer afraid to visit his native Siberia.
The Russian defector will visit his mother and introduce his American--born wife and baby to his Siberian relatives later this month. He hopes to bring back his mother, who has breast cancer.The urgency of his mother's condition prompted Dengen to buy airline tickets. His newly granted American citizenship ensures his safe return.
Dengen, 30, took the citizenship test Jan. 26 and was sworn in the next day, without the usual wait, after another applicant dropped out.
As a U.S. citizen, he can travel to Russia without the risk that the Russian government would make him stay, he said.
Dengen grew up in Omsk, a poverty-stricken Siberian city about 3,000 miles southeast of Moscow. Omsk was a "closed" city during his youth, so no foreigners could travel there. His joining a folk dancing group brought the possibility of traveling abroad.
After performing domestically with the group for four years, he was able to tour internationally. His first trip was to New England and the East Coast -- and it was during those two weeks in New England that he decided to defect.
But it would be another two years before his next folk dancing trip out of Russia. That 1992 trip was to Spain.
A group of cloggers from Utah County attended the same international folk dancing festival, and Dengen made a special effort to become acquainted with them and a group of Spaniards.
While defecting to America was his goal, his plan was to work in Spain long enough to save money for the trip.
When the festival was over and the Russian folk dancers returned to the Madrid airport for the flight home, Dengen stashed his belongings behind a pillar. During the confusion of boarding the plane, he passed a note for his family to a trusted friend and slipped away.
From Madrid he made his way to a small Spanish town where he located friends from the folk dancing festival. They told him that the police were already looking for him.
They decided to go to the authorities to see if they would help. Spanish police gave him three days to leave or they would deport him.
While he was discussing his situation with his Spanish friends, Mapleton's Mary Jex and a few of her dancers walked by.
Jex, who directed the Cloggers USA Folkloric Ensemble, had met Dengen during the festival.
"They were surprised to see me," he said. Jex and her troop had planned to leave a day earlier but changed their minds.
Jex and her husband, Kent, arranged for Dengen's passage to America through the U.S. Embassy in Spain. He was detained briefly by police at the Madrid airport. After a few tense moments, they let him go.
When Dengen arrived at the Salt Lake International Airport, his new American "family" was waiting. He lived with the Jexes "as a son" for four years before marrying Jennifer Jarvis from Arizona, whom he had met at Brigham Young University. The Dengens have a baby daughter, Katia.
Dengen works in construction and also as a Russian translator at Camp Williams.