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| . | .Page 2.............................................................Return to Russia As I See It Page 1- - - - - - Return to Page 1 - 10 Days In August - - - - - - RETURN to PORTS of SPIRAL SEA INDEX - - - - - | |||||||
| Shirley Timashev, foreign correspondent | ||||||||
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Ten Days in August Russia: 1991 Courtesy |
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RedSquare
It was significant that the parade was held without police interference. The city fathers had apparently okayed the demonstration in defiance of a decree issued by the coup leaders. Later that day we saw a televised press conference where the coup leaders subjected themselves to hostile questioning by the media. I was impressed by the boldness of the questions and surprised by the blandness of the answers. Here are some examples:
Q: Where is Mikhail Sergeiovitch? A: "He is safe and taking a rest. It is our hope that he will take up his office when he feels better. We will continue his policies." Q: Will you continue perestroika? A: "Perestroika has not been successful. The movement to independence in the republics has destabilized the economy. The policies will not be reversed but we will have to be more organized." Q: What about Yeltsin saying that you have initiated an illegal coup d'etat. Will you take action? A: "The State Committee stands ready to cooperate with leaders of the republics. The leaders of the Russian Federation must cooperate with us. An appeal for a general strike is impermissible." The impression I got was that the self-organized State Committee wanted people to accept their fictions as fact. They expected that there would be some opposition but thought that it would collapse in the face of military might. A confrontation with Yeltsin would not be necessary. And they were calling the Supreme Soviet into session on August 27th to provide a veneer of respectability for their takeover.
Departing Nizhny Novgorod It was the eve of our last day in Nizhny Novgorod. Professor Ivashkin and his daughter Anna gathered us together and gave us all farewell gifts, a nice selection of handpainted craft items. While Ivashkin was "playing Santa Claus" we tried to ignore our sadness on leaving. We found a few good things for which we could offer up vodka toasts. And after the first few offerings, of course, it became easier for one person or another to think up at least some silly things. It also helped us take our minds off the powderkeg cooking in Moscow that could blow up at any hour.
August 20, 1991 After breakfast we heard from a Seattle businessman that the international airport in Moscow was closed. He predicted, however, that Gorbachev would be back in power by Thursday and would execute the new union treaty. That sounded incredibly, optimistically naive. The Russian students who sat through TV broadcasts with us thought that neither world opinion nor civil disobedience in the USSR could break the KGB/military grip on power. We bought the morning newspaper without hope of reading it. A simple translation of the headlines was all that we thought we'd get from Andy, who still didn't want to talk about the coup. When Tracy handed him her newspaper, Andy read slowly, "D-o-n-‘t W-o-r-r-y, B-e H-a-p-p-y." His ironic message was, this is none of your concern. He was painfully aware that in a few days we would be back in the U.S. We couldn't possible feel what he felt about the situation. And his way of dealing with that pain was to try to shut it out. But other Russians wanted very much to talk with us about the situation, because they knew we had access to CNN at our hotel, and they wanted to know what news was being broadcast to the world. Vadim said that Russian newscasts were becoming more balanced, reporting for instance on the miners' strike. They also observed that there had been no buses on the streets of Nizhny Novgorod that morning, indicating that there might be a local strike. It was known that there would be a demonstration in Moscow at noon, and there was speculation that there would be one in Nizhny Novgorod as well. We continued with our instructural business management presentations about the very unreal "Florida Shoe Company." Dennis Lachapelle spoke as legal counsel. Rika Canin and Tracy Newman spoke about government relations and politics. They noted that businesses can lose a lot of money when they don't understand the internal politics of a country where they have a presence. There were a few sad smiles at their words. We ended our presentations with gift giving. We had as respectable a grab bag of items, for our hosts, as the Ivashkins had had for us. Although there had been a lot of exchanges on a private level between new friends, we wanted to be sure that all the Russian students had something to remember us by. After the presentations we did a last bit of sightseeing around Nizhny Novgorod in the company of the Russian students. Eugene sat with me on the bus, and I asked him what had been his expectation of what the American students would be like? "Well, first of all," he said, grinning, "we thought that the students would be future businessmen." It hadn't occurred to them that future businesswomen would be on the trip! But, other than that, the students were much like he expected -- they seemed smart, energetic, and ambitious. The only difference between the Americans and the Russians, I observed to myself, was that while the Americans were indeed ambitious and self-confident, the Russians held few hopes for themselves or their country. Being smart and energetic, I had suddenly begun to realize, was not enough to assure their future. As we drove through the Leninsky District, we found a crowd gathering at the Auto Plant Palace of Art and Culture, a social hall for autoworkers. Yeltsin supporters were staging a rally. "The leaders of the coup should be jailed!" But over to the side there was another group, one with a different opinion. The second group was composed of war veterans, and their speaker was urging cooperation with the coup leaders so that they could later ask for the benefits they deserved but had not been getting. Choosing sides is painful when you don't know who will be the winner and who will be the loser. The demonstration was close to a large department store, which was actually our destination. A previous foray had taken us to a smaller store that had about five types of goods -- wooden ware from the Semenov folk art factory, women and children's clothing, linens and jewelry. The clothing didn't tempt us, and the selection of wooden ware was not extensive. However, Tracy fell in love with a wooden rocking horse which she just absolutely had to get for her nephew. Most of us walked out with small items like enameled jewelry -- things easier to fit into a suitcase than a rocking horse! This large department store looked like it could have been a factory in the ‘40's, with its condition steadily deteriorating since then. It seemed that there were almost as many customers as there were things to buy. Some of the goods were on consignment--shoes, clothing, dishes, etc. Our main interest was the selection of wooden matryooshka dolls. With the help of the Russian students accompanying us, we placed our orders, received tickets, paid for the merchandise at the cashier's desk, then went back across the aisle to pick up our merchandise. We noticed that Russian shopkeepers in this area have an Oriental fondness for the ancient abacus, using its beaded rungs in conjunction with cash registers to calculate totals and change. Dinner that night was a farewell party hosted by the Russian students. Along with platters of cold cuts and bottles of vodka, the students had arranged for us to have watermelon as a special treat. The dinner was not actually a time of goodbyes, however, because the partying went on and on and on, as if no one wanted it to stop. CNN coverage was our link to the outside world, and we would listen intermittently for evidence that the outside world was hearing of popular resistance in places other than Moscow. The most stirring news of the night was a Russian broadcast from Leningrad, where Mayor Anatoly Sobchak courageously denounced the coup leaders and reminded Soviet officers that the Nuremburg court tried not only the initiators of Nazi war crimes, but also those who carried them out. Our worry that night was that the resistance at the Russian Parliament would be crushed by tanks when the crowds failed to disperse at the 11:00 p.m. curfew. The coup leaders had not used force on the first night, and we hoped that they would not do so on the second night. Those ugly toads wanted to win popularity, and killing unarmed citizens might be judged not a wise move. A stalemate looked like a more likely possibility. The resulting paralysis would lead to further deterioration of an already bad economic situation. August 21, 1991 The CNN morning news related unconfirmed reports that three or four people had died in skirmishes, but that the coup had started to disintegrate. Dimitry Yakov had resigned for health reasons, and Valentin Pavlov was confined to bed. But while the world was changing around us, we were scheduled to be on board a boat for a two-day jaunt, heading up the Volga to Moscow. It had been planned much earlier as a pleasure trek to cap off our Russian odyssey. Whatever news we got would have to be passed on to us by ordinary Russian citizens who happened to be making the trip. We would have no more access to CNN. The students from the Institute were at the hotel before the bus arrived. They brought us flowers as bon voyage gifts, gigantic flowers called georginas, six inches across. We said goodbye with the happy knowledge that there would be a reunion in Moscow, for the students planned to take the much more economical train to Moscow, and greet us when we docked. The Leb Tolstoy The river cruise ship, named the Leb Tolstoy, was most impressive. Better than the S.S. Norway, said one person in the group who was familiar with the boat from Florida to the Bahamas. Our cabins were well laid out, and the public rooms were very attractive. There was an indoor pool, two bars, a lounge with a dance floor, and a game room with TV. We were, as far as we could tell, the only foreigners on the boat. There were perhaps 100 other passengers, leaving the boat far from filled to capacity. The crew was hospitable enough, but didn't know English -- except for one person, Andrei Kuzmichev, a singer with the band. Kuzmichev was as eager to talk with us as we were to talk with him, and he became the major source of news for us about what was being broadcast on Russian radio and television. Yet words often failed him, and he had to use pantomime to supplement his limited English vocabulary. In school the curriculum had apparently not included words to be used when describing a political coup. Pantomime proved a poor substitute for conversation in these circumstances, but word games helped. Andrei gesticulated weirdly. We responded. "Bars!" He hopped up and down, gesturing for more. "Cages!" "You mean barricades"? Or "blockades?" Eventually we got the main ideas. Andrei told us a little about himself and his family. He was 30 years old and lived in Volgograd with his wife and young daughter, Anna. He had been born in Magnetogorsk in the Ural Mountains, a place famous for its deposits of iron ore. Andrei's father, who was, unsurprisingly, a steel worker, had wanted Andrei to become an engineer. He had done so, specializing in steel rolling production. But his work didn't make him happy. As a hobby, Andrei began to study family archives and trace connections. He had questions that prompted him to interview members of the oldest generation in his family. He found that what they remembered of Russia’s past taught him things that were not in history books. By the time that Gorbachev took power in 1986 and loosened freedom of speech, Andrei had learned enough to change his mind about the true effects of the Bolshevik Revolution. His own personal revolution came three years later, when he told his father that he was abandoning his career as an engineer and going to try to earn a living as a musician. Did he regret giving up his engineering career? The slim blond-haired man with an expressive mustache was quick with his response. "Music is to me my breath, my soul." His favorite music? American jazz. Dave Brubeck in particular. Andrei, along with a million other Soviets, has a dream of someday emigrating to the United States. The quota these days, he tells us, is 50,000 per year, so Andrei figures that his number would come up in about 20 years. "That's not so bad," he says. "I'll only be 50 then." A little later, during a more thoughtful exchange, he confided, "These three days have been very hard on us. We are very afraid. We are tired of the Bolsheviks. Life in Russia is very hard. We want to live, to laugh, and to work." Andrei said that even before he saw Yeltsin standing on the tank in front of the Parliament Building, he felt that Yeltsin was very brave. And if Yeltsin made a promise to the people, he said, Yeltsin would always do his best to keep it. Conditions might be against him, and make it impossible for his vows to be fulfilled. But, he said, "Yeltsin can be counted on not to make empty promises." We hoped that was so. The radio that played over the sound system on the boat was tuned to Radio Rossiya, the independent station. If the leaders of the coup held on and went after pockets of resistance, even the captain of this boat could be identified as having promoted opposition to the Committee of State Emergency. We heard appeals to the soldiers who were supposed to counter the resistance. "You soldiers are sons of Russia, and we urge you not to shoot your own people." There was also a call to have the "criminal band" leading the coup to be jailed for 10 to 15 years, if they could be captured.
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Clock Tower of Moscow University
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kostroma & the Romanoffs In 1913, which sounds like such a long time ago to we young Americans, there was a celebration of 300 years of the Romanoff dynasty. Kostroma is known as the cradle of the Romanoff dynasty, because it was here that Mikhail Romanoff came in 1613 to escape the Polish invasion, and to reassemble his followers for eventual return and victory. But of course, ironically, in 1913, the Bolshevik revolution was hiding unseen, only four years in their future. The last czar of Imperial Russia was Nicholas II. He and his wife, Alexandra, had one son and four daughters--Maria, Tatiana, Olga, and Anastasia. The family was assassinated--all but Anastasia, the toddler, who was smuggled to freedom--in 1918 while exiled to Siberia, in the town of Ekaterinburg, which the Communists then renamed Sverdlovsk. All Czarist structures, memorials and even place names throughout Russia were expunged. The Royal Family pictures, only now finally on display at Kostroma, have been public for a bare two years. Long thought destroyed, some of their belongings and hoarded trappings of their various residences have begun to appear in museums. The iconostasis of the cathedral was gilded with five kilos of gold. The top row of icons had the traditional Old Testament figures, representing the forefathers of Christ. The second row was of prophets from the New Testament. The third row was called the Deis row; the fourth, the holiday row; the fifth, the local row. The second icon on the local row, we learned, indicates the name of the church--in this case, the Trinity. There are no pews in the Orthodox church, because the faithful all stand, out of respect, during the service. This is no small sign of reverence. Holiday services can last 4 - 5 hours!
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August 21, 1991 3:15 p.m. We were glued to the radio-or rather, to the company of our radio translator. The Russian Parliament was called into session. The Communists stayed away to avoid a quorum which could take action. Yeltsin informed the remaining deputies that the leaders of the coup were attempting to flee Moscow. They immediately sanctioned Yeltsin's order to have the leaders of the attempted coup stopped and put under arrest. August 21, 1991 5:00 p.m. It was reported that troops and tanks were pulling out of the center of Moscow, to the cheering of throngs on the street. After dinner that night, as our boat sailed slowly up the waters of the Volga, we celebrated the good news of the day by listening to Andrei's jazz band and drinking champagne. It was the same fine quality champagne we had sampled elsewhere, and at 25 rubles per bottle (or about 80 cents), we didn't pay much attention to who was buying rounds. Andrei entertained us far into the night with American pop standards and Beatles classics. August 22, 1991 To Kostroma, cradle of the Romanoff dynasty The news on the radio this morning was still good. Gorbachev had spoken to President Bush by phone. Gorbachev was expected to be back in Moscow to meet with Yeltsin in the afternoon. Five of the coup leaders had been arrested, although their names were not going to be released until the last one was caught. Ensnared in a strange sort of time warp, our boat docked for us to take an excursion into Kostroma, a city of 300,000 that had been founded in 1162. Katherine the Great gave the city its emblem of a golden boat. Today it is a textile center, the flax capital of the north. It also has a timber mill and a furniture plant. But amongst tourists, what it is most famous for is the Kostroma monastery, founded in the 13th century by a Mongolian Tartar. The Mongolian had been a Moslem, until one day, sick and in a delirium, he had a dream in which he was told that he would become well if he would build a Christian monastery. This he had done, apparently living long and well enough to see it accomplished. In a later century, Boris Godonov banished the Romanovs to Kostroma. The Trinity Cathedral at Kostroma was built in 1652. The gallery of the cathedral was a gathering place for exchange of news and conducting commerce before evening vespers. A fresco along one wall had a remarkable satire on the hypocritical conduct of some monks. St. John was shown at the foot of a ladder with 32 steps representing human sins, and a czar was potted in boiling water. The vividness of all this punishment may possibly have inspired more pious behavior in the commercial transactions that occurred along the gallery. While we were in this ancient cathedral, we learned of how the Russian Orthodox Church had reacted to the ongoing coup. Alexy II, head of the Orthodox Church, had publicly come out in opposition and had excommunicated the eight ringleaders. It was a symbolic move on his part, because good Communists are not churchgoers and therefore would not suffer much with excommunication. But Alexy II’s declaration no doubt had its share of effect on the outcome. Back onboard the boat once more, we caught a television address by Yeltsin. In a stirring oration, he declared the putsch -- the attempted coup -- to be over: "We used as our argument the will to defend our rights. Our armament was the people who surrounded the Parliament. I would like to thank the chief of the airborne assault and thank the doctors and lawyers who rendered assistance in this difficult time for our country. People from all levels of society, from the villages to the cities, even including the mines, all helped bring us success." "The [neo-Stalinists] thought that the Communist Party would help them, but it is not reliable. Investigations will be organized. The coup leaders should be taken to court, and this process has already started. What they did was against justice, against human rights. We must protect our future against any repetition of this! We managed to succeed without our National Guard. Why was it not active in defending our Russia?" "Now, a lot of high officials say that they had nothing in common with the State Committee. But my idea is that all those who executed orders should be taken to court. Our freedom is not stabilized yet. That must be our goal, to strengthen democracy!" "It is necessary to work on new agreements with the Republics, to reflect the experience we gained in these three black days. Yesterday we decreed that Soviet property in Russia belongs henceforth to Russia. And last night we called for resignations of people known to have supported the coup. The main result of this coup fiasco is that democracy will prevail!" Schevernadze spoke next: "Dear Moscovites. Now we can express our disgust for those people who were waiting to see who would win. In the long run we will know their names. I thank everyone who sided with our president of Russia." The captain of the Northern Fleet followed Schevernadze to the microphone. "I speak for all the soldiers who stayed with the people at the Parliament. Maybe I was lucky to be here for those 72 hours. In the whole of Russia I can say that there are many other soldiers like me--officers and soldiers who did not betray their country or their people." The mayor of Moscow, Gavril Popov, spoke next: "Dear Moscovites. It was you they wanted to make slaves of, and it was your victory. The people of the '60s were witnesses of the toughest time of our country, and they used their experiences here. And in the resistance to the coup we could see what our young people could do. The democratic powers in established [councils] provided stable structures that proved their strength. But the main reason why we won is your activity. You who have not had even enough food. You have gained this victory. That we can meet so freely today is thanks to you." Bela Kukova, newswoman from Leningrad: "Thank you for your existence. We understand that if we are together we will always win." The next speaker asked for one minute of silence for those killed. That pause put the recent events in perspective, because many more lives could have been lost. The speaker then asked, "Where is the great Russia of which we can be proud? That Russia," he said, "came into existence today." Into another time warp: Yaroslavl We were taken back in time once more when the boat docked at Yaraslavl, a town even older than Kosstroma. Yaroslavl was founded in 1010 A.D. We toured a folk museum which illustrated how people lived in medieval times. Returning to our boat, we happened to meet three Americans who were on an Intourist excursion. They envied the indoor pool on our boat, and were unhappily amazed that we were paying just 25 rubles for bottles of champagne that cost them $10. Vodka for them was $2 a shot, or about $20 a bottle when it was available. Cannily, they stocked up on a supply from our boat. On our way up the Volga to Moscow we went through locks constructed to raise the water level 26 feet; the other two handled a 36 foot change. Going through the locks took a lot of time, but time was something we had. The passengers amused themselves in various ways. The only thing that I found surprising was to come upon two Russian kids playing the distinctly capitalist game of Monopoly. It was a day of celebration, and it happened to be my birthday. So with millions of celebrating Russians and 15 warm-hearted Americans, I had a great day. August 23, 1991 The boat stopped at the quaintly named town of Uglich, whose existence was first chronicled in 1148 A.D. Today it is known for its clock factory and for cheese making. As we toured, we were followed by a small group of young boys who were eager to sell us postcards, Soviet medals, books, and other memorabilia. Stuart assumed the role of chief negotiator, relishing the opportunity to use his bargaining skills. When I was ready to pay $5 for a belt, Stuart insisted that I not have it unless it could be gotten for $3. My contribution to the negotiation was to make personal threats toward Stuart for messing up my deal, but fortunately he was able to secure my prize for the amount of my money that he was willing to pay. Another stop was at an unoccupied island in the middle of the Volga. The only activity here was fishermen seining at the water's edge. There was also a beach just large enough for two friendly people. We wandered down a path through the birch forest, and some of the Russian passengers went mushroom hunting. After an hour of relaxation, we headed back to the boat. The political events of the day seemed surreal. President Mikhail Gorbachev returned to Moscow, and curiously the Russians didn't seem to care. Ho-hum. He was definitely not the man of the hour. The speech he gave upon his arrival referred to disloyal Communists that he wanted out of the Party, but the people of Russia had long before given up trying to distinguish between a good Commie and a bad Commie. They wanted to get rid of the Communist Party itself. Gorby still didn't get it. Gorbachev's greatest humiliation came that afternoon, when he appeared before the Russian Parliament with Yeltsin. Andrei reported that Gorbachev said, "Blah , blah, blah." Gorbachev was sharply questioned about his actions and his intentions, and Andrei observed that he was like a fish in the water. (Here pantomine substituted for the zig zagging that Gorbachev did in response to the questions). While Yeltsin was cheered, Gorbachev was jeered. He was put in the uncomfortable position of having to sign Yeltsin's decree nationalizing the assets of the Communist Party. August 24, 1991 The Leb Tolstoy docked in Moscow at the hour of the memorial service for the three young men who were slain in the resistance to the coup. Thousands witnessed the service, and traffic into central Moscow was blocked off. Our first glimpse of the city, however, showed some remarkable contrasts to what we had seen in the pre-coup days. Nowhere did we see the Soviet flag. Instead, the white, blue and red Russian flag was flying in key locations. At the overpass where the young men had been killed, flowers were piled up in an impromptu memorial. Make-shift barricades had been hastily constructed in front of the Russian Parliament. Political graffiti had suddenly made its appearance in a city that had never experienced such things. The most significant change, in the minds of many Russians, was that the statue of Felix Derzhinsky, founder of the KGB, had been pulled down the night before. Iron Felix had started the reign of terror and had maintained a tentacle-like grip on the whole of Soviet society. To feel really free, Russians had to tear down the symbol of the KGB. At the Russian Parliament, more familiarly known world-wide by then as "the White House," citizens who had stayed with the vigil recorded their feelings in graffiti on the walls: "We stood here to die, but we overcame, to live." "A good Communist is a dead Communist. But fascism is bad in any dress. Let us learn to live in a democratic society." "Let the KPSS [Russian for the Communist Party] live at Chernobyl." "Unafraid youngsters saved the democracy and unafraid boys and girls will save the economy. So let us begin at once." "Mikhail Gorbachev---tell me who is your friend and I will tell you who you are." "Lukyanov--For the jury everything is clear. The 'baby' is yours." With so many people coming to the White House to see the nerve center of resistance at the time of the coup, it became a free speech center after the coup was broken. One speaker implored the crowd to help roust Communists in the other republics. Religious figures proselytized for the Church. Anonymous people put their own poetry on the wall. And one disgruntled employee of the Banner of the Revolution Machine Construction Company sealed the fate of his boss, a certain Ivan Rumyantscv, by posting a message from his boss to his managers instructing them to "support the coup and keep control of typewriters and photocopiers." The major effects of the attempted coup were turning out to be what no one had anticipated. Apparatchniks like Ivan Rumyantscv were being discredited and the Communist elite were losing their privileges and power! Is it possible? Change was now occurring more rapidly than anyone could have expected. But the mood of the people was subdued. The major preoccupation of many people before, during, and after he coup was, "How can I feed my family?" Gorbachev was not a person who could provide the answer to that question; he was being ignored by the Russsian masses and leaders alike. That he was still regarded in the West as being a key figure was curious to the Russians, an indication that Western leaders didn't fathom what was going on. The Western misconception of the moment made Gorbachev seem to be a large figure on the world stage. Myths and misconceptions linger even when confronted with facts. Favorite myths provide comfort, and so they tend to get pushed aside not by facts but by new myths. Is Yeltsin a leading statesman or a confrontational populist demagogue? Are the Russian people temperamentally suited to deal with a market economy? Are Russians and Americans fundamentally different or the same? Andrew provided us with the answer to that last one, in an expansion of his and Frank’s vodka-enhanced insights of so many days, long ago, on the evening train to Nizhny Novgorod. We now believe, he intoned, that we are all descended from the same great-great-great-great ape.
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