An American Exchange Student's Account
of Ten Momentous Days in August, 1991
by Shirley Hayes
In late spring 1991, a young man named Vladimir Koterev accompanied his boss, Igor Bogdanov--a member of the Supreme Soviet of then Soviet Russia--on a speaking tour of American universities. Florida Atlantic University was one of the stops on their busy itinerary. Enthused by some of the advance publicity and planning for Bogdanov's visit, students in our FAU International Business Club followed up on an invitation to organize a student exchange trip. Short months later, as an unexpected consequence of this initiative, 16 of us, 12 from FAU and 4 from other universities, found ourselves in Moscow in the midst of an extraordinary time in Russian history. Of course, at the time, we hadn't a hint of what was to come.
August 10, 1991
Moscow Arrival
We arrived in Moscow too excited to be tired, in spite of a twelve hour flight from New York. As arranged, we were met in the debarkation terminal area by Vladimir Koterev, the same polite, dark-haired aide who had handled such arrival details for the Russian group when they had visited the United States. Vladimir grandly presented each of the women in the group with a welcoming bouquet of roses (the guys got handshakes).
We passed through Passport Control on our own, but the process of getting through Customs was smoothed for us by Vladimir's cohort, Sergei. The customs agent was either told in Russian that we were a bunch of innocents with nothing of interest in our luggage, or that we were an important delegation sponsored by a member of the Supreme Soviet -- both statements were half true. Or Sergei might simply have said. "There's something in this for you if these guys don't get hassled." Whatever his method, we were soon pushing through heavy steel and glass doors into the westering sun of a summery Moscow late afternoon .
Behind the solid grey bulk of the airport terminal, planes roared skyward, their fuselage shapes seeming familiar enough, but blazoned with Cyrillic characters. Aeroflot, Moscovskaya Aerolin, Ukranian Air. We had all been practicing our Russian reading, writing and speaking abilities with varying degrees of success for many weeks, but now that we were actually here, it was unnerving to realize how challenged we were going to be to easily communicate.
A minibus was already awaiting us at the curb, giving us little time to look around. Nothing resembling Moscow proper was visible, and for good reason. It turned out to be quite a drive from the jetport into the city. As we loaded our luggage into the hatchback and onto a rack atop it, we were helped by a thin, strong young man who introduced himself as Andrew. Andrei was his real patronymic--his given name--in Russian. But before too many days were to have passed, he would become, simply and fondly, "our Andy."
A description of our Andy is appropriate here. He reminded us of Barishnykov because of his gaunt build, but of Yakov Smirnoff in humor. When he first greeted us, he was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Democracy for China, June 3-?, 19??" He wore this same T-Shirt for several days, until suddenly he started showing up in T-Shirts given to him by members of our group: "Florida Gators," "Chiles for Governor," etc. Andrew was officially our translator, not a guide, but for those parts of the trip when there was no person along with local expertise, Andrew delighted us with a running parody of guidespeak, cheerfully inventing historic trivia on demand.
Those demands began early, on the bus ride into Moscow. Andrew responded instantly with non-stop quips.
"Yes, the KGB is powerful. The highest echelon handles documents so secret that they are marked, 'Burn before reading.'"
"Rationing? Rationing is a way of life in the Soviet Union. Ration cards are issued in strips for three months at a time. They limit each person to l/2 kilo of meat, and 1 kilo of sugar, and so on for 16 items. Then there are these three blank spaces at the bottom. Those are for air, water, and sunshine."
The beltway for the city of Moscow has a circumference of some 100 kilometers, we were told. To test our mental sharpness after, now, 14 hours of travel, we tried to figure out the radius of the city in miles. The answer we got was about 10 miles, which didn't sound all that big until we further calculated that Moscow must therefore cover an area of 314 square miles! That sprawl helps explain why this city of 10 million people is called "the big village."
The ride from the northwest side of the beltway to the southeast side took us through pretty countryside of white-trunked birch forests and open fields still in their productive growing season. When we arrived at the Institute of Youth, our lodging for the next several days, we drove through a swinging gate into an aging wooded estate that held just a few dormitory buildings. Upon first inspection of the dorm rooms, the students in our group agreed, "Yep, dorm rooms are dorm rooms."
We unloaded and headed inside, some of us anxious to use the facilities. We discovered, however, that there are bathrooms, and then there are bathrooms.
At the Institute of Youth, bathrooms were unisex communal facilities with little privacy, no toilet paper, and no soap. The last two features we had been led to expect-most of the world does nicely, thank you, without Charmin and without Camay. Cleanliness, however, had not been a feature of this place since it had been built. The shortages extend far beyond soap to all cleaning products, and there's only so much that can be done with a dirty mop.
First Eve in the Big Village
We were quite happy to leave that place and go out for an evening on the town. The minibus took us into the heart of Moscow, right to Red Square. For dinner we went to a grand place, a mansion built during the Imperial Period. Ballrooms, large dininghalls and possibly library rooms had been converted to several restaurants inside. The one our hosts had chosen for us was called Restaurant Moscow. As you ascend a marble staircase to the two-story gallery, the impression you have is that it would make a perfect location for an art museum. It is also a good place to party, and along with dinner we were treated to a floor show and an orchestra for dancing.
A long table was set for the 20 of us. There were platters of cold cuts, salads, and breads. Lined up, down the center, were dozens of bottles of drinks--Pepsi, Fanta, mineral water, vodka, and champagne with buckets of ice. The toasts started with champagne and then went to vodka. Long after we had eaten our fill, we were surprised to be served hot plates of food, followed by ice cream for dessert-teaching us a lesson, namely, never confuse hors deuvers for the main course!
The dance music and the vodka soon got everyone on the dance floor. Some of the American girls were asked to dance by Russians from other tables. The boldest of these, who literally threw money around, we found out later were the mafia outlaws that give business a bad name in Russia.
To cap off the evening we took a stroll through Red Square, which is well lit up at night and is quite beautiful. We saw the building that houses Lenin's tomb and that world-famous symbol of Moscow, the onion-domed, colorful towers of St. Basil's Cathedral.
Tired, still full, and somewhat stunned from our long travels and experiences of the evening, we were bussed back to our country institute for what proved to be a brief night indeed.
August 11, 1991
Another day in the Big Village
The next day started early. At 4:05 a.m., to be exact. We all agreed that this was entirely too early.
At 60-degrees north latitude there is not a lot of night in the summer. Sunset occurs around 8:00 p.m., sunrise about eight hours later. In view of this, I have a modest proposal for the Russians: that they institute Darkness Savings Time in the summer. By pushing the clocks ahead one hour, they could stroll Red Square in daylight until 9:00 p.m., then sleep undisturbed until 5:00 a.m. Still just eight hours, but somehow it just sounds more civilized.
Breakfast at the Institute was ample. We had our choice of oatmeal, eggs, cheese and bread. Coffee was available, but sweetened hot tea was what the Russians partook. The more adventurous in our group tried the little cups of smetana, a product that is a cross between yogurt and sour cream, eaten with a spoon.
Our morning tour started off with a minibus trip back to Red Square and the Kremlin. We learned that Red Square, or Ploschard Krasnaya, originally meant Beautiful Square. (Red you see, is beautiful.)
We stopped at the somber Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which bears the inscription, "Your name is unknown, But your deeds are unforgettable." A chauffeured wedding party was stopped there because it is a Soviet tradition to lay wedding flowers at the monument. Moscow, of course, had very nearly fallen during the Second World War, and was saved only by the combination of a deadly, terrible winter, and the most heroic sacrifices on the part of the Russian defenders. The patriotic feelings these sacrifices engendered in the citizens of Moscow endures even today.
The Kremlin in Moscow is actually a fortress within the city, with walls that are 6.5 meters thick. The grounds inside include three magnificent cathedrals that date from the l5th century and before. They are topped with gold-leafed domes that shine like the sun.
Outside the Kremlin gates there were some child beggars, gyspy children who appeared pathetically blind. They would have been happy to receive a few rubles, but angry words in Russian from our guide made them open their eyes wide and run away.
Shocking beahvior
At this top tourist spot, foreigners are always approached by hawkers with souvenir goods to sell-- postcards, matrooska dolls, Soviet Army goods... If Andrew wasn't happy to see us engaged in this commerce, then he was positively shocked by our next purchases in a regular shop. The shop was in a tourist hotel, and we found out that they had imported bottled water. The group purchased all they had, 20 bottles, at 200 rubles each. Andrew later explained in a strangled voice that we had just paid, for each small bottle of water, more than he made in an entire month! His stipend as a student was 150 rubles a month. At the current exchange rate of 32 rubles to the dollar, this meant Andrew was earning just $4.69 per month. We had paid $6.25 for each bottle of water, equivalent to two years’ wages for our poor Andy.
But we were not yet through shocking the Russians.
On the street there was a big, burly guy with spiked hair and an enormous boa constrictor. For a few rubles he would let a tourist pose with him while he was grappling with his fearsome snake. Jennifer Dawson, who has several boas as pets, walked right up and cuddled the long, pliant reptile’s body around her own. Cooing softly to it, she tamed the big boa and encouraged it to give her a little kiss. For the surrounding crowd it was no longer possible to look at that snake as anything but a sweetie.
Shortly, we headed back to the Institute for lunch, then walked across the road to visit the Kyskovo Palace, which had been built in the 18th century by Prince Pyotor Sheremetyev. Kyskovo was just a summer residence of this very rich family. I don't know how much property they owned, but I do remember that they owned 150,000 serfs.
In the evening we were treated to a concert performance of the Pyatnitsky Chorus. The members of the chorus are frequently on world tour as cultural ambassadors who perform Russian folk songs with great artistry. The musical performance would have been a delight even to the hearing impaired, because the visual aspects were breathtakingly beautiful. The costuming was gorgeous, and the stage movements were a kaleidoscope of color.
As we left the theater, we passed the one single Moscow location of Pizza Hut, and the group found the temptation of comfort food irresistable. There was a chorus of requests to stop at Pizza Hut. For our hosts, such a request was outside of any expectation. We were their guests, and Pizza Hut was an unaffordable hard currency restaurant. We of course said that we would happily treat them to the pizza. The Russians with us had American style pizza for the first and perhaps last time in their lives.
August 12, 1991
Several members of our group wanted to visit the well known GUM (pronounced "Goom") department store. We found it to be a large arcade that had housed independently operated shops when it was built during czarist imes. The Soviet period had not been kind to it, although on the outside it possessed stylishly decorated windows which would catch the attention of any shopper. But whomever was responsible for decorating the windows was not asked to do anything about the interior. The color scheme inside was gray and brown, dust and dirt.
Well, I exaggerate. There actually were a few islands of color inside GUM, and one of them was a boutique of Estee Lauder products. Lipsticks there were priced at 30 cents, which prompted one member of our group to figure on financing her next trip by taking home tons of Estee Lauder products for resale at U.S. prices. Her plans were dashed when she found out that she could not buy even a single tube of lipstick. Goods rationing is so strict that you must be a legal resident of Moscow to buy many things, even with hard currency.
We were supposed to have our noon meal that day with Igor Bogdanov, the democratic member of the Supreme Soviet who was responsible for our trip. Bogdanov had been detained, however, in his home city of Nizhny Novgorod-a circumstance of little significance to us at the time. We partied without him at Restaurant Praga.
The unusual feature of Restaurant Praga is that it is almost entirely set up for private affairs. Suppose you are a Conmmunist bigwig. When you are making private deals, you don't want the proletariat observing such things. You don't even want other Commie bigwigs watching you. So each Commie bigwig wants his own dining room.
Restaurant Praga can be appreciated by anyone with a taste for decadent living. The room reserved for us was called the Garden Room, and it opened onto a private patio. Our multi-course meal had duck pate for starters, filet mignon for the main course, and ice cream as always for dessert. The stemware and china were of high quality, and the waiters had the kind of easy high skill that is required of those serving at state banquets.
In a mellow mood from the vodka at noon, we were ready for a stroll down Arbat Street, the main shopping boulevard for the tourist trade. Andrew told us that prices would be cheaper in the town of Nizhny Novgorod, where we were to go tomorrow, on common items such as the traditional matrooshka dolls, but still we all came back from our stroll with such things as T-shirts that proclaimed, in Russian, "I Am An Agent of the KGB."
August 13, 1991
The trip to Nizhny Novgorod-- city of dissidents
We boarded the evening train to Nizhny Novgorod and found the accomodations clean and attractive. There were four people to each compartment, with bunks that were better than our beds at the Institute. The small table in each compartment was graced with linen and a potted fern. In the morning we were served hot tea from the samovar in our car. That soothed the nerves of some late night partyers who had had their sheets whisked out from under them by the babooshka, who treated them as inert lumps.
By this time, Frank Virella and Our Andy were becoming good chums, and Andy said he felt a real kinship to Frank. He surmised that somehow they were related, this ethnic Russian and this American of Puerto Rican/Italian descent. Putting his arm around his pal, Andy announced to us that he and Frank were descended from the same great-great-great-great ape.
We knew nothing about the city of Nizhny Novgorod before our arrival, but that had not stopped us from having preconceptions. “Novgorod” literally means “new city,” so we expected The architectural style that is cuphemistically known as “Soviet realism” blights only a part of Nizhny Novgorod. Many of the avenues are lined with gracious l9th century buildings like those found in Vienna or Paris. On the narrower streets, ancient trees form a green canopy, and flowers brighten public areas.
At the center of Nizhny Novgorod there is a kremlin. Yep, another fortress. The place dates back to bow and arrow days, 1212 A.D. Their first kremlin here was made of wood; the "new" kremlin was built of brick in 1515. It's two kilometers long, making it only the second largest in Russia. It has 15 towers. Five are square, and serve as entry points to the interior; eight are round, built for garrisons. (Yes, that accounts for 13 of them. I don't know what the other two are.) The kremlin housed the original settlement, sitting high on the embankment above the Volga River, though of course the modern city has expanded far beyond.
Hotel Oktyabrskaya, our lodging for the stay in Nizhny Novgorod, was situated with a great view at the top of the Volga embankment. It was built in 1987 for the Communist elite, and it is ranked in the top ten hotels in the Soviet Union. We could have guessed that from the fact that there were color TVs and bar refrigerators in the rooms. The cost for these accommodations, we found out later, was a pricey 200 rubles per night for foreigners; for Russians the cost was more reasonable at 20 rubles, or 63 cents. Andrew got to stay with us, a welcome change in accommodations from the dorm room which houses him, his wife and his young baby.
After checking into the hotel, we headed off to one of the most important places to visit in Nizhny Novgorod, and that is the place where Andrei Dimitryevitch Sakharov lived in exile.
Sakharov is one of the most famous dissidents Soviet Russia has produced, but many other political prisoners have been held here. For centuries Nishny Novgorod has been a way station to Siberia. The city was renamed for the Soviet author, Maxim Gorky, in 1932 and closed to foreigners. Nizhny Novogorod, or Gorky, was therefore a logical place for Brezhnev to choose when he exiled Sakharov, the honored physicist who had dared to speak out against the war in Afganistan.
Sakharov (in Russian it's writen Caxapob and pronounced "Sa-Hka-rov") was born on August 21, 1922. He studied physics and had a brilliant career that included pioneering the design of the Soviet H-bomb. But after his first wife died and he met Elena Bonner, he devoted his life to the protection of civil rights and intellectual rights. When he was restricted in exile, he lived in a four-room flat and was rarely granted the right to have any visitors except relatives. He had no telephone for seven years. One day a phone was put in, and it was for a special call. Gorbachev wanted to tell him that he was to be freed.
Although grateful for that call, Elena Bonner turned bitter toward Gorbachev, because it was after a public argument with Gorbachev that Sakharov had a fatal heart attack. She didn't think Gorbachev deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, and when he won it, she wanted to give back Sakharov's Peace Prize, so that his name would not be associated with Gorbachev’s. Sakharov of course is still revered today, and his memory is kept alive in Nizhny Novgorod. His flat is now a museum dedicated to depicting his life. Andrew made sure that we had a bouquet of flowers to leave there in memoriam.
When a member of our group noted that Gorbachev didn't seem to be too popular with Russians (an approval rating of no more than 15%), the comment was made that our own president might be more popular overseas than he was at home. Someone suggested that we trade Gorbachev for Bush. Andrew was indifferent to the deal. One politician for another. The deal he would take, he said, was to trade Gorbachev and rubles for Bush and dollars.
Another politician we found none too popular was one whose name and face were everywhere: Vladimir Lenin. For a while the problems, of Communism were blamed on the perversion of its doctrines by its followers. The founding father was excluded from this criticism. But lately, people have even dared to criticize Lenin. Frank found that out, one day in Moscow, when he was looking at the subway map. A young Moscovite by gesture asked to borrow the pen in Frank's shirt pocket; the fellow used the pen to strike out the name of Lenin from one of the subway stops. If graffiti of that sort catches on in Russia (we didn't see the random writings so common in New York), there will be plenty of Lenin remembrances to deface.
Students to students
Late in the afternoon we went to the Institute of Foreign Languages to meet the Russian students who would be with us for much of the week. The meeting was held in a classroom set up with a large U-shaped table. The Russians sat on one side and we sat on the other, although two brave souls from opposite camps had to sit next to each other.
All twelve of the Russian students were male (we noticed that right away). Eight of the American students were female (they noticed that right away). The Americans started with a round of self introductions: "Hi, I'm Lori... Hi, I'm Kerstin... Jennifer... Susan... Tracy... Rika... Carol... Frank... Jeff... Rich... Stuart... Surresh..." Then the Russians introduced themselves: “Hello, I'm Stava... Vadlm... Gaslo... Oleg... Sergei... Eugene... Dimitri... Dimitri... Andrei... Andrei... Andrei..."
We looked across the gap between us and saw a lot of Andreis and several Dimitris. We lobbed a conversational ball toward them and it fell flat at the net. "What are you studying now?" "What do you like to do when you're not studying?"
Silence.
We chatted on as if a conversation were taking place. Frank talked about what it's like to be a college student in the United States. Tracy talked about extracurricular activites.
Silence.
The Russian professor Mikhail Ivashkin, director of linguistics studies, said a few things. American professor Charles Newman also spoke up.
More silence.
Then one of the Russian students spoke up, and we were fascinated by his story. It was Yvegeny (Eugene, to us) who spoke. He told us about a translation job he had done for a Dutch businessman who had wanted to contract with a Russian shipyard for ten barges. The Dutchman wanted barges in several sizes to fit canals of different widths. Yvegeny had therefore traveled to the seaside town of Arkhangelak on the Arctic Circle, where a former Soviet Navy shipyard was supposed to be converting its output to peace-time products. But the director of the shipyard didn't like the idea of making custom orders. "I'll build you barges,” he said. “Any size you want -- but all of the same size. I'll make you fifteen barges instead of ten. But they've all got to be the same.”
Eugene obviously had felt frustrated when the negotiations broke down, with himself in the middle. We could identify with him, especially because he actually sounded like an American, speaking English with not a trace of accent.
That was one story. What about the other seven students? None volunteered a word. Oddly, the little speaking we had heard from them had also been, like Yevegeny’s, close to perfect. It didn't seem that the barrier was language. Some of us exchanged puzzled looks.
Once the formal meeting broke up, we found out in about 30 seconds that what had held the others back was neither shyness nor lack of fluency in English. The formality of the circumstances had been intimidating to us all, but apparently even more so to the Russians. Out of the confines of the room with its oppositional seating, the Russian students eagerly latched onto individual Americans to engage in conversation. The first bonds of friendship were quickly formed.
August 14, 1991
The music we had been hearing on the AM radios was almost always historically ancient rock and roll. It was therefore of great significance that Frank caught notice of something I would have missed: Believe it or not, Metallica's "Enter Sandman" was aired in Nizhny Novgorod just one day after its (Western) world-wide release. Nizhny Novgorod is without a doubt a true city of culture.
This day was a dress up day for us. We were to look like American business people scheduled for meetings with local officials. Our first session was with no less than the Chairman of the Committee for Economic Reforms in the Gorky Oblast.
So what's an oblast?
In brief, an oblast is a good-sized geopolitical unit of government. The Gorky Oblast, for example, is bigger than Belgium and Holland combined. It has a population of 3.7 million. Nizhny Novgorod is the main population center for this area, and it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has 75 research centers and manufacturing plants that produce automobiles, jet airplanes, elecronic equipment, nuclear power equipent, and many types of military goods. The forested northern regions of Gorky Oblast have historically supported industries for paper and wood products manufacture. Unfortunately, reforestation was not being practiced until recently, consequently the area has become an importer of wood for its factories. Joint ventures with Finland are modernizing their practices.
Agriculture is another area enterprise that has suffered due to neglect. It is already difficult for a region to feed itself when the weather permits just a short growing season. Poor crop rotation habits, and a lack of fertilization materials, have made matters even worse. Another problem area is pollution control. "We have not been attentive to that,” one of our reforms committee hosts admitted. “We are situated where two great Russian rivers come together, and unfortunately the industry of this city is spoiling them."
The next speaker started out, "Dear friends, we want to reconstruct our house, which has been constructed very badly... In the West, you routinely apply pressure to reduce prices, for the benefit of the consumer, by decreasing costs. But here in Russia there has been no such philosophy. Our production figures have always been inflated. My own job, until recently, involved going to the Committee on State Prices and lying to them." Essentially, the philosophy had been, “tell the leadeship what they want to hear.”
One overriding preoccupation for all of Russia’s citizenry is the chronic shortage of housing. State policy is that every person should have at least 7.5 square meters of living space (that's 81 square feet).. If you have less than that, what you get is your name on a waiting list. And if you have, say 8 square meters of space, you officially don't have a problem.
*****
largely because she cheerfully anticipated our wants and needs before they were expressed.
FAU students eyewitnesses to history in Russia
August 19
The knock on the door at 7:30 a.m. was not the usual wake-up call. Andrew said urgently, “Something terrible has happened! I'll tell everyone the news just as soon as we are all together.” It didn't take me long to get dressed that morning.
“There's a report on the radio that Gorbachev has resigned,” Andrew said. “No reason was given. A state of emergency has been declared and will last for six months. I don't know any more than that, because the news is given in a recorded announcement that is merely repeated periodically. All regular broadcasting has been suspended.”
"Will we get more news later in the day?"
"No, I doubt it. This sounds like something from the Brezhnev era! It may be 20 or 30 years before we know what has really happened. Our children may know more about this day than we will every know."
Andrew was imagining the end of glastnost. The end of any hopes for a better life. He didn't want to talk about it at all, but being Andy, he couldn't help but joke about it with a bit of black humor. "Hey, maybe Russia could leave the Soviet Union and become part of the U.S. We do connect at Alaska, you know."
We found that we could help Andrew with some information not available to most Russians. The Hotel Octoberyska was equipped with a satellite downlink, and we had access to CNN. The official word, we learned from CNN News, was that Gorbachev had supposedly resigned for health reasons. A state committee of hardliners had replaced him. The state committee included his hand-picked vice president, the head of the KGB, the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Interior, the head of the State Police, and three others. Andrew replied sardonically that he knew the composition of the state committee without being told.
Our plans for the day were to go on as scheduled. As our bus headed for the nearby town of Semenov, Andrew sat by himself at the back of the bus. He closed his eyes for a while but it was hard to tell if he was really sleeping. Yes, he said, he did fall asleep, but he had a bad dream. "Isn't it good to be back to reality," someone said in full irony. Andrew's response was immediate and sharply depressing. "It will never be good again."
The radio on the bus had an update on the news:
· The Union Treaty, which was to have been signed on August 19, has been withdrawn. It will be amended before it is resubmitted to the republics.
· The laws of the republics are hereby rescinded. The only valid laws are those of the Supreme Soviet.
· All demonstations are banned during the six month state of emergency.
· The policies of the State Committee are being designed to restore the respect that used to be shown for the power of the Soviet Union. It is intolerable that elements in the West express pity for Soviet peoples.
At this time of cataclysmic change, we were driving into a town that looked like it had not changed in a century. Women gathered at the water pump, an indication that their houses were without running water. The major factory in the town produced handpainted folk art, a 300 year-old tradition.
The folk art factory in Semenov produced brightly figured wooden trays, goblets, and small pieces of furniture. Artisans labored at long tables in rooms filled with potted plants, lit by natural light. It was an hospitable environment, and the workers didn't seem rushed. They chose their own designs, we were told, but first had to get each new design approved by a council of their peers. A council met to evaluate the merit of designs and to assess when an artist was ready to move to a higher ranking. At the bottom are the apprentices. At the top are artists who are allowed to sign their work.
The factory didn't have any goods for us to buy-everything was produced to a schedule. So we returned to Nizhny Novgorod to do our shopping.
The department store we visited did have a few pieces of folk art, but not nearly the selection that we knew was being produced at the factory only kilometers away.
Strolling through Nizhny Novgorod, several of us stopped at a grocery store. There was a fair variety of fruits and vegetables, but the student who was with us commented that anything available is not affordable, and what is affordable is not available. Indeed, most of the people in the check-out line had only a few items, and those were generally things picked up with ration coupons. Our purchases were more frivolous. We got bottles of Pepsi for 79 kopeks each.
As we left the grocery store, we spotted a small crowd huddled outside the door. There was a type-written announcement taped to the doorway, and people were reading it in silence. It was a statement by Boris Nicholyevitch Yeltsin which had been sent to the city by fax, and posted around town by some brave souls. Yeltsin was telling his people that he was resisting “the illegal actions of the self-proclaimed State Committee.”
“I know how you feel,” he said. “I am challenging their authority and declaring their decrees invalid. I will oppose them in every way I can and for as long as I can.”
Yeltsin's stance seemed awesomely brave. There was not much doubt in that crowd that any resistance would be crushed, although Yeltsin himself might be spared because of his visibility. But anyone who signed on to his resistance might not be so lucky.
Yeltsin's supporters were energized by his exam-square where they held a ralley. As they passed by some onlookers joined them in the street Their Gorbachev,___________________
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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.
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.
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They ________________________items, and while Ivashkin was "playing Santa 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 this morning 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, told us 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 and one of the Andreis said that their 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 business management teaching 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 more 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 business men.” 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 a future. You had to believe in it as well.
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. It's hard to decide who to bet on when you don't know what the outcome will be.
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 matrooshka 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 to pick up our merchandise. We noticed that Russian shopkeepers in this area have the Oriental fondness for the ancient abacus, using its beaded rungs in conjunction with cash registers to calculate totals and change.
The group split up on the walk back to the hotel. Some of us stopped at a bookstore and browsed
inside. It was a pleasant place. Another stop was at a record store. The manager of that store was most happy to help in selections. My original idea was to buy a couple of folk music rercords and one classical. Instead of three records, I walked out with a dozen, all purchased for 47 rubles, or about $1.50.
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 apparently was judged not to be 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. Originally, it had been planned 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 goodbyes 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, to 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 of our group familiar with the boat to the Bahamas.
Our cabins were well laid out, 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 did not know English--except for one, who was a singer with the band. His name was Andrew Kuzmichev.
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.
Andrei Kurzmichev was ignominiously reduced to pantomine to supplement his limited English vocabulary. In school the cirriculum had apparently not included the words to be used when describing a political coup. Pantomine 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?"
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, named for its deposits of iron ore. His father, who was, unsurprisingly, a steel worker, had wanted him to become an engineer. Andrei had done so, specializing in steel rolling production.
As a hobby, he had begun to study family archives and records stored away. Eventually his interests prompted him to begin interviewing the oldest generation members still alive, about what they remembered of Russia’s past. He suddenly found himself learning things that were not in the 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 Russia, the independent station. If the leaders of the coup held on and went after all 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.
August 21, 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 prevent there from being a voting quorum. Yeltsin informed the remaining deputies that the leaders of the coup were attempting to flee Moscow. They immediately sanctioned Yeltsin's order to have them stopped and put under arrest.
August 21, 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 timeless 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
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, though their names were not going to be released until the last one was caught.
Caught 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 Moslem, until one day, sick and in a delierium, 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 Romanoffs to Kostroma.
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First, a few salient facts.
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.
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!
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 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 *********______ 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.”
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.
We passed the river port of Rybinsk, a city of 500,000 and the location of a hydroelectric station. Its industries include shipbuilding, flour milling, hide tanning, and lumber milling. The port handles trade in grain, petroleum and lumber and is further linked to Leningrad by a navigable canal.
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
Today 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 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." He 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 Dzerhinsky, 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. 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 but 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 myth of the moment made Gorbachev seem to be a large figure on the world stage.
Myths 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.
"Three Days that Shook the World"
*News Accounts and Commentaries
Pulbished in the European and Russian Press
*An hour-by hour account by the Financial Times, August 22, 1991:
Monday, Aug. 19
07:00 - A statement on Tass, the Soviet news agency, announces that Yanayev has taken over as president "due to Gorbachev's inability to perform his duties for health reasons."
08:15 - Tass reports that a state of emergency has been imposed for six months. All power in the country is transferred to an eight-man State Committee for the State of Emergency.