‘Is Minneapolis good?’ How a Russian transgender refugee found hope in Minnesota — and a friend at the airport

Erik Georgievich Beda arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last month on a United flight from Chicago with nothing but a small plastic bag containing his Russian passport and other paperwork.

Beda, who knows only a few words of English, had no money. He hadn’t eaten for almost 24 hours. He arrived in snowy Minnesota wearing all the clothes he had: a button-down long-sleeve shirt, green hiking pants and hiking boots without shoelaces.

“When the plane landed in Minneapolis, I saw that there was a snowstorm outside,” Beda said through a translator. “It was very snowy and frosty. I had no warm clothes, no shoelaces, no food and no money. I decided that the airport police might be able to help me.”

Beda, 36, stopped the first airline employee he saw, and, using Google Translate, asked to be taken to “airport police.” He was instead brought to the Travelers Assistance station on Level D, where volunteers immediately began to help.

“At first, I tried to explain as best I could in English, but my pronunciation is very bad, and no one understood me,” Beda said.

Through a Russian interpreter, the Travelers Assistance staff learned that Beda, a transgender male, had fled Russia with his partner, Ivan Beda, because of the country’s widespread crackdown on LGBTQ+ people and outlawing of gender changes in identity and gender-affirming medical care.

“They are considered a terrorist and an enemy of the state,” said John Pundsack, a Travelers Assistance volunteer who befriended Beda at the airport. “Erik and Ivan were truly running for their lives.”

The couple left Russia on Dec. 23, flying to Istanbul and then on to Mexico City. After two months in Mexico, they crossed the border into Arizona and were detained there.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not keep Erik Beda in detention due to an inability to house a trans person, medical needs (hormones) and liability, Pundsack said.

Only Erik Beda was provided travel from Phoenix to Chicago to MSP. Ivan Beda is still being detained; he is now at the Folkston, Ga., ICE Processing Center.

Retired teacher, travelers’ assistant

When Beda arrived at MSP on March 22, Travelers Assistance staff called Pundsack to help. Pundsack, 57, worked past his normal “Go Guide” shift to make sure Beda got the help he needed, including food and water, said Travelers Assistance operations manager John Hewitt.

Pundsack, a retired teacher who lives in Woodbury, went to his car and got his blue Minnesota Twins sweatshirt for Beda to wear. He found a backpack in Lost and Found for Beda to use, found a shelter in Minneapolis that could take Beda for the night and organized an Uber to transport Beda to Christ Family Kingdom Center shelter at 6 p.m.

Volunteers and staff also provided a coat, sweatpants, cash, bathroom supplies and a SIM card for his phone.

“They renewed my hope in humanity,” Beda said. “They give me trust in people.”

Pundsack has been in daily contact with Beda since their first meeting.

“Saturday night I got a chance to chat with our young man and he is safe in a shelter,” Pundsack wrote in an email to Travelers Assistance staff on March 24. “He said he got a shower today and they even did his laundry. Such things we take for granted. He was so happy.”

Beda, Pundsack wrote, had been in contact with an immigration lawyer and an LGBTQ+ support group.

“I asked him if he has enough to eat, and his response was ‘Yes, and it’s tasty. I got fruit for dessert today,’” Pundsack wrote in his email. “It has been weeks since he has had fruit. Tonight we ended our conversation by him saying, ‘I think that nothing in life is accidental. Everything that happens is the necessary part of the plan. Some bad events turn out to be something good in the end.’ So now, hopefully, he can find his husband, and they can reunite and start life over.”

Pundsack and his husband, Joe Briol, and their neighbor, Katie Rust, have been helping Beda since his arrival. They contacted the Advocates for Human Rights on his behalf, and attorneys there are helping with his asylum case. They also helped schedule medical appointments, including an appointment with an endocrinologist. The dental clinic Pundsack uses, Grand Avenue Dental, donated the time and materials to fix Beda’s cracked molar.

Pundsack, Briol and Rust also have organized a GoFundMe fundraising page to raise money for the Bedas to pay for Ivan Beda’s legal fees. They are looking for an attorney in Georgia to take Ivan Beda’s case, so a bond can be set for his release.

Erik Beda has an asylum hearing set for April 2025. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s office reached out to him last week to offer assistance.

‘Is Minneapolis good?’

“As members of the LGBTQ community, Ivan and Erik faced persecution their whole lives together in Russia from family and neighbors,” according to the GoFundMe site. “They experienced physical attacks and eventually they were threatened with arrest by authorities who found out that Erik was trans. Both men are educated biologists who specialized in zoology. They owned a home in the country and raised cattle.”

The Bedas had to flee when authorities found out about the couple and issued an order for Erik Beda’s arrest, Erik said. They abandoned their farmstead and gave Manny, their beloved Australian cattle dog, back to the breeder.

“We were able to leave because the order for my arrest was issued in my former female name,” Erik Beda said. “But my documents, including my Russian passport, had already been changed, and we went unnoticed. A lot depends on luck.”

Beda said he barely got through customs in Moscow because he had masculinizing hormone therapy drugs with him.

“In Russia, testosterone preparations are equated to hard drugs,” he said. “You can go to prison for 10 years for them. Luckily, my endocrinologist did good paperwork for my medication — although she could pay for this with her position and freedom, so I was able to pass.”

The couple spent two months in Mexico City attempting to apply for asylum in the U.S. “We went every single day to request this appointment to seek asylum, and we were never granted an appointment,” Beda said. “We didn’t plan to stay in Mexico. Our goal was to get to the United States and receive protection. Only the United States could help in our situation.”

Out of desperation, he said, they flew to Tijuana, Mexico, and then took a bus to Mexicali, Mexico. From there, they took a taxi to the border near the city of Yuma, Ariz., he said.

Near the border, while still in Mexico, the men were assaulted and robbed of all their money and possessions, Erik Beda said.

Both men were taken to a detention center in Yuma, but because they didn’t have any transgender beds, Erik Beda was put on a bus to Phoenix.

“He didn’t know anybody, but the volunteers at the tent city in Phoenix pooled their money to buy him a plane ticket to MSP,” Pundsack said. “Before they started their whole journey in Russia, they were looking at cities in the U.S. that were trans-friendly, and they learned about Minneapolis. So when they asked where he wanted to go, he said, ‘Is Minneapolis good?’”

Transition in Russia

Erik Beda grew up in Balakovo, Russia, and attended the Russian State Agrarian University-Moscow Agricultural Academy. He studied in the Faculty of Animal Engineering and met Ivan Beda in 2005 during a student activity day. They married in 2006.

They divorced six years later so that Erik Beda could begin his transgender transition. “In Russia, two men cannot be married, so we had to get divorced,” he said.

The next year, he went to St. Petersburg in order “to confirm a diagnosis of transsexualism,” he wrote in a seven-page document explaining his need for asylum.

The couple lived and worked in different cities in Russia, often working with animals at veterinary clinics and other places. The couple were physically attacked on numerous occasions and faced death threats and discrimination. “When my mother found out about my transition, she tried to kill me,” he said. “She hired people to ‘fix’ me.”

Erik Beda said he almost died one night in August 2013 when he was attacked, kidnapped and beaten by three masked men. The men kept Beda handcuffed in an abandoned factory without food, water or access to a toilet for a day and then let him go, he said. When he reported the crime to police, they refused to investigate, he said.

The couple moved to a small village and went into hiding for five years to escape the persecution, and Erik Beda said he stopped his official transition.

“It was a very difficult five years,” he said. “The general population and the government both have very negative views of the LGBTQ community. Since the war in Ukraine started, the negative interactions have intensified because the government is looking for, like, inside, you know, traitors, basically, and so that community has been targeted.”

The Bedas married again in 2019. Last year, they moved to Moscow, where Erik Beda passed a psychiatric commission and received a certificate in May 2023 with a diagnosis of transsexualism, he said.

“I immediately went to have my birth certificate changed, but I was told that I did not have the right to do this as long as Ivan and I were married,” he said. “They demanded that we dissolve our marriage because after changing the documents, the marriage would officially become same-sex, and this is prohibited. But it was about saving my life, so we had no choice. We believed that the opportunity to make a transgender transition and be myself was more important to me than a marriage stamp in our passports.”

In June 2023, he underwent a double mastectomy. A month later, Russia passed a law banning gender reassignment. The law prohibits individuals from changing their gender on official documents, including passports and identity cards.

“If they find out that you’re transgender, they will do conversion therapy and then consider you as someone that’s spreading propaganda, and for that, you would be put in jail,” he said. “If you are part of an LGBTQ community, you are now being listed as part of an extremist group.”

Fortunately, he said, a few days before the new law went into effect, he was able to change all of his documents to “Erik Beda.”

Beda said the couple’s landlord knew he was transgender and reported him to the authorities. “We knew that I was on a list and could possibly be arrested,” he said.

Police left an envelope at the couple’s house at the beginning of October 2023 with a summons for Erik Beda to appear before the Investigative Committee on Nov. 11.

“Then I realized that there was nothing to wait for, and if I didn’t leave Russia now, I would be illegally convicted and I would serve a prison sentence on a fabricated case,” he wrote. “I was in a panic and didn’t know what to do. Ivan and I realized that the only way to escape persecution was to leave Russia.”

Because the arrest warrant was in his “dead” name and his passport was in his new name, “they didn’t put two and two together at customs as I was leaving,” he said. “They didn’t have time to get the updated documents on the arrest warrant. I was very lucky.”

Divorce adds peril

Because the couple isn’t married, Erik Beda is terrified Ivan Beda will be sent back to Russia. He is praying that someone will step up and agree to be Ivan’s sponsor.

“His interview about the validity of his fears of persecution may not be approved due to the fact that our marriage has been dissolved,” Erik Beda said. “If this happens, he will be deported back to Russia. But if a sponsor is found, Ivan will be immediately released without an interview, and we can get married again. Then our application for asylum will become common to both of us, and our trial will be in Minneapolis.”

The couple had hoped to remarry in Mexico, but they didn’t have the proper documentation, he said.

“We hoped to get married here legally as quickly as possible,” he said. “The divorce was not part of what we wanted. It was not part of our wishes.”

The couple talk every day by phone. The LGBTQ Freedom Fund provided money so that Ivan Beda can call each day from the detention center and talk for his allotted 5 minutes; Erik Beda, who is staying in a shelter in downtown Minneapolis, has found that the best cellphone reception for the calls is on Nicollet Island. Each call costs $3.95.

“I walk there every day,” he said. “We give each other updates on each other’s day and where we are headed. We don’t have a lot of time for much more. He can’t eat and can’t sleep. He’s very depressed. He is sad that we are not together.”

Kindness in Minnesota — and in immigration

Erik Beda meets with Pundsack once or twice a week. They generally meet at the airport or the Capitol – places Beda can reach easily via light rail.

Pundsack, who taught fourth grade at Starr Elementary School in New Richmond, Wis., has worked to raise money for Erik Beda through friends and family.

Beda said he can’t believe how kind the people of Minnesota are. “All of this happening is very unusual,” he said. “I’m very grateful for it because in Russia, people don’t give you this kind of help. The people here are very nice and kind. I’ve been told they are that way because of the harsh winters.”

Beda said he was struck by the kindness shown at the immigration center in Yuma, too. The room had “transparent walls,” he said, and he was able to observe the officers working with newly arrived migrants.

“I saw wonderful things,” he said. “One migrant woman was extremely tired and could barely stand on her feet. She had a tiny baby in her arms. She couldn’t sign documents, couldn’t get anything out of her bags because she was holding her baby. She almost cried from powerlessness and fatigue.

“And then an officer approached her – a very tall, bearded man. He very carefully took the child from her arms and cradled him as if he were his own, staying next to this woman the entire time she underwent the necessary procedures. When she finished, the officer took her to the seating area, gave her the baby, and brought her food. This was an amazing example of humanity for me. I can’t imagine a Russian police officer treating a migrant’s child like that.”

He was shocked to discover that officials didn’t shave the heads of migrants who had lice. Instead, he said, the women’s hair was washed with a special shampoo and combed out with tiny combs.

“One woman had luxurious hair down to her lower back,” he said. “They found lice on her, and three medical staff combed and washed her hair for about two hours. This was the second incident that struck me to the core. Everyone was very patient, kind and professional. I say ‘thank you’ to them for their humanity.”

Beda credits Grand Avenue Dental with giving him the “the most wonderful experience I’ve ever had with a doctor,” he said. “In Russia, it’s not like that at all. There is very little pain medicine. They yank out rather than fix them. It looks like a brand-new tooth. It is amazing to see the difference.”

Pundsack said spending time with Beda has made him appreciate the little things in life.

“The two things he asked for the first day: ‘Do you think you could bring me dental floss and a nail clipper?’” he said. “I brought him an orange, and he called it a dessert. This whole experience has just taught me to appreciate everything that I have. It’s just, like, ‘Wow, look at this.’”

Hoping to settle here

Beda is hoping that he and Ivan Beda will eventually be able to live together in an apartment or house in Minneapolis. “It would be nice to have a place to live – that would be a dream,” he said.

Ivan Beda will need to work with an attorney in Georgia and prove his case at a credible-fear hearing and a bond hearing, Pundsack said. No court date has been set.

“If you had asked me about this three weeks ago, I would not have had a clue about any of this,” Pundsack said. “Normally, when you’re a travel assistant, you’re helping people with things like, ‘Oh, you’re at Gate G, you go down this way.’”

He said his late mother, Irene Pundsack, who died in February 2021 at the age of 94, would be proud.

“It’s what my mom would do,” he said. “She helped a lot of homeless people. Her house in St. Cloud was donated to a group that helps people who are unhoused. That’s why I think I’m having all this success. She’s looking down and saying, ‘You help him. You help him.’”

Erik Beda wants people to know that the situation in Russia for the LGBTQ+ community is “catastrophic,” Pundsack said.

“He knows – and people in Russia know – that Minnesota is one of the best places to be transgender or gay,” he said. “That is why he came here. He knows if he goes back to Russia, he’ll be dead. We’re doing all we can to keep him safe.”