August 1944, the Soviet Union re-established control over Moldavia, and drove the German and Romanian forces out of Moldavian SSR. The entrance of Soviet forces was ushered by aerial bombardment, and almost killed the Kostins, when a bomb obliterated their residence, when they hid under a bed. They later hid near a German armored vehicle, until Soviet forces entered the city. The Soviet Union began purging native Moldavians, and sending richer farmers and the intelligentsia to concentration camps in Siberia. Private business operations became illegal, and Kostin's mother operated a small family business, at the risk of being exposed to the officials by neighbors. In the mornings the Kostins would wake up to the clamor of some of their neighbors packing up and being deported. It was at this point of time that Kostin turned into a gangster and lost interests in schooling. His early life turned into a game of survival of the fittest. Most people were preoccupied with obtaining the basic necessities of life. In 1954, he began military service as a degenerated athletic youth in the army, where he was reformed and became a sapper. He revealed that on at least one occasion he was instructed to dig trenches along the Soviet border in anticipation of an American invasion. By the end of his service he grew more insubordinate and went absent without official leave adding seven months of military jail term to his three-year military service. His deputy commander assigned him the task of redecorating the "Leninrooms"—political meeting rooms of the barracks. His jail term was immediately commuted upon the completion of the job. Career as a sportsman and engineer In 1959, upon being discharged from the army, Kostin began playing volleyball for Kishinev's regional sporting team. He then moved up the ladder to play for the Moldavian SSR team, subsequently becoming part of the Soviet national team, representing the union in international basketball competitions. In 1969, his sporting career ended with multiple spinal and knee injuries and complications from negligence of medical treatments. He began studying at the Agronomy Institute of Kishinev, and was employed as Senior Engineer for a construction firm in Kishinev. It was then he received a job offer at the Construction Bureau of Kyiv, in Ukraine. In Kyiv, they pioneered a construction framing method that expedited building construction, and Kostin invented a machine for the method, which he was awarded prizes