This oral history interview with Gabriel V. Krivoshein and Vera P. Krivoshein was conducted by Charles Digregorio at their home in Portland, Oregon, on April 30, 1976, as part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s oral history program.

In this interview, the Krivosheins share their experiences as Russian refugees in Portland, Oregon, in the 1920s. Gabriel Krivoshein talks about learning to speak English, about finding work in the Portland shipyards and in logging camps in Washington, and about adjusting to life in the United States. He talks about his experience in the Imperial Army during World War I and during the Bolshevik Revolution, then describes his journey to the United States via China in the early 1920s. He speaks about the Russian community in Portland.

Vera P. Krivoshein shares her first impressions of Oregon after immigrating from Russia in 1925, and talks about adjusting to life in the United States. She speaks about her experience in the University of Oregon extension, about the Russian community in Portland, and about her reasons for not seeking U.S. citizenship until the late 1930s. She talks about jobs she worked, about her experiences during the Depression, and about her reasons for remaining in Portland.

They close the interview by talking about their early lives in Russia, and Gabriel Krivoshein describes his first American Halloween.