Meeting My Soviet Contemporaries

...YOU ARE NOT IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY' Meeting My Soviet Contemporaries BY SONNY SONNENSCHINE The young people who gather to watch the changing of the guard in Red Square have long since returned to their homes The last sidewalk vendor has counted his receipts, put away his wares, and boarded up his stand The wide streets that mir-roi the vastness of the nation itself are empty, save for an occasional taxicab hurrying to some late-night destination Only helpless drunks, wearied policemen, and those who wish to speak in safety are out in the small hours of the morning "Let me tell you a story," said my fnend and companion in Moscow, whom I shall call Kolya, as we walked down a silent deserted street, "It is about a student who visited the USSR, just as you are doing, and went to a news kiosk to buy a copy of Soviet Russia, one of our official government newspapers The operator of the stand was a wise old Russian who had lived through the Revolution and when he heard the student's request, he said, 'Soviet Russia has been sold ' 'Well, asked the student, 'can I buy a copy of Pravda [Truth]9' 'No,' the old man responded 'there is no truth 'Certainly you must have Tiud [Labor],' the student said 'Aha, replied the old man, 'this we have Labor is the only thing left' " He hesitated for a moment as what might have been an official car sped past "That joke," said Kolya, "is worth eight years in Siberia " As we approached our destination, Tchaikovsky Street, I thought about the 13 hours that had passed since I first noticed Kolya sitting alone in the restaurant where I chanced to stop for lunch After buying two chebunkis (meat pies tried in grease) and a cup of strong, sweet coffee, I turned to him because he looked to be about my age, and he nodded to me to sit down "Do you speak English9" I asked "A little bit," he said, "do you speak any Russian9" "Also a little," I replied "Then I guess we can talk," he said, and with that we made each other's acquaintance He was of medium height and had a cheerful expression His short blond hair and disciplined bearing suggested that he might be a military man Instead, he was a young lawyer We soon became friends, and walked together for the rest of the afternoon and evening "Then it is understood," Kolya said, "we meet at the statue of Marx opposite your hotel " My reverie interrupted I looked up We were standing on Tchaikovsky Street "Yes," I replied, "tomorrow at 8 30 p m , at the statue " "Tomorrow is today already," Kolya said, "but never mind, just be there on time " With that he disappeared in the direction of Arbat Street, and I started the long trek back to my hotel Alter waking, I spent the afternoon and early evening at the Lenin Library, and then met Kolya at 8 30 according to plan "We will be on our way m a moment but first we have to do a little shopping...

...who had finished up some important legal work and was in an unusually ebullient mood ' I always like coming to the National Cafe," he said, "they have the prettiest girls m Moscow here Do you see that girl over there9" he said, pointing to a tall and beautiful redhead "She is a 'Russian-American ' She comes to this cafe every night looking for rich foreigners That is why she is dressed like a Westerner, tourists and African students buy her clothes and she sleeps with them The boy she is sitting with is a notorious black market operator You can tell he is no ordmary Russian because he is wearing a button-down shirt He probably spends his time with the Russian-American girls when they are not busy with foreigners " As the weeks passed, I became as acute as any young Muscovite m recognizing Russian-Americans Kolya had a way of commenting on them whenever we were out together, not always disapprovingly One evening as we passed the National Cafe on our way to dinner, he said, "They risk a lot for American cigarettes and Western clothes In a sense they are freer than most people They certainly were freer than the only Russian girl I knew at all well Her name was Alia Kolya had introduced me to her Alia and I saw a film one evening, and several nights later we went for a stroll "You know," she said, "my mother is so worried She told me I must be very careful of the kgb " "But we have done nothing," I said "I know," she replied "My grandparents also did nothing and they were shot m a Siberian prison camp " I did not see Alia after that except to give her a small gift, a map of Paris with pictures of the principal sights Ordinarily it would not have made much of a gift, but for Alia, who studied French, it was priceless "Such a thing," she said, "simply cannot be bought in the USSR We have no maps of foreign cities on sale here " Kolya asked about Alia after I stopped seeing her, but he had anticipated what the trouble was "It is very dangerous," he said, "for Alia to see you This is the Soviet Union, not the United States do not forget that " I never did remember as well as Kolya would have liked On a crowded bus I would mention something vaguely political, and he would freeze At cafes I would speak a little more English than was safe for him or tor me On the telephone and in my hotel room I would make remarks which, in the light of what was probably constant surveillance, were unwise But I did get some idea of the life led by Russians my own age how they, squeezed between the secret police and the official orthodoxy, are left with little of their own except for the evenings spent waiting in line in front of Gorki Street cafes and the gatherings in the apartment of a friend where they can drink vodka "I have something," Kolya said, "that I want to tell you before you leave " We were sitting together in the cavernous Sverdlov Square metro station My tram was leaving for London from Belorussky Street Station early the next morning "I am planning," he said, "to visit the West " "Is that possible...

...I asked "I don't know," he replied, "it is not easy " "Perhaps," I said, after thinking it over for a moment, "you could manage to escape " Kolya shook his head "I had a friend," he said, "who tried to escape to Turkey by swimming out to sea from the beach closest to the Turkish border He was almost two miles off shore when he saw steel nets ahead of him and armed men m boats waiting to shoot anyone out of the water The borders are sealed tight It is impossible to escape To leave the USSR you must have permission " We sat in silence as the late-night subways rumbled through the station "Well," Kolya said, "I guess this is good-by " "I hope we will meet again, Kolya," I said "Yes," he said slowly, "I hope so too Maybe you can take me to the top of the Empire State Building...

...he said We walked down to Gorki Street, where we stopped to buy several kinds of fish and some herring From the fish market we went to a bakery and bought two loaves of bread Finally and, I was to leam, most importantly, we bought the vodka Loaded with provisions, we got on the Moscow subway After a 20-mmute nde, we emerged in a desolate area marked by rows and rows of identical "mushroom" buildings, so-called because of the way they have sprouted in the last five years Then we took a bus to the city periphery In front of us was a group of newly constructed high-rise apartment buildings, standing like sentries over the barren plain Picking our way through the mud, we passed building materials and equipment for the one building that was still incomplete "Be sure," Kolya warned me, "not to speak any English until we get into my apartment The people in the building must not know I have been visited by a foreigner " He gave me his hat, which I pulled down over my face and we hurriedly walked in Upon opening the door to his two-room apartment I was met by the sound of the Beatles singing nothing less than "Back in the USSR " I entered the smoke-filled living room and was introduced around to the 10 men and women there, all of whom looked to be in their early 20s One of the men, Yuri, a powerfully-built athlete, was Kolya's best friend He proposed the first toast "We drink," he said, "to friendship between the Soviet and American peoples, and everyone, myself included, gulped down a full glass of vodka without pause Quick.' said Kolya "bite into this fish I grabbed the fish, the stench of which cannot be described, bit into it, and then choking and gasping, struggled to swallow it Yuri's girl fnend went off to get onions to kill the taste of the fish so I would be in condition for the next toast Slowly the group started to focus its attention on me-apparently an American visitor in one's home is a great novelty "Tell me," said Yun, "do you like the Beatles9" "Yes, I do," I answered, "but I did not realize that people in the Soviet Union knew of them " "You must be joking," Yuri replied "The Beatles are the most popular musicians in Russia Of course, this is want to know our methods " "Only what you care to tell," I responded "It is nothing," sard Kolya "You know how it is Things circulate It is impossible to buy the Beatles' records legally, but they can be purchased on the black market And if you receive a gift from abroad you may keep it One succeeds in getting an album, someone else makes a tape, a second tape is made from the first, and so on The tapes pass from hand to hand The same thing with newspapers " "We even, said Maxim, "get Swedish pornography But that, of course, is a dangerous thing to have around One student at our university once had some, and he burned it because it was causing such a commotion I myself have read Cradle of Erotica The book was so tattered that I think 30 people must have read it before me I stayed up all night reading because I had to give it to someone else the next morning It was fantastic " not reflected in what we can buy " Yuri motioned to Kolya, who walked over with an album of Polish jazz "This," Yun continued, "is what we can buy if we want jazz It is classical music, only they step up the time a bit " Maxim then told of his experience in a record shop earlier that week "I was trying to find a gift for my sister There was a large display labeled 'Music of Friends,' containing records from East Germany, Poland, Rumania, and so on I was tempted to inquire if they had any 'Music of Enemies, but I lost my nerve " I asked Kolya how he managed to acquire the Beatles' tape we were listening to "Ah, he said, "you I offered to buy Maxim a copy of Cradle of Erotica "Do you think," I asked, "that the authorities would let it through''" He smiled "Are you kidding9" It was time for another toast, and now Ivan a bespectacled engineer who grew up with Kolya, proposed, "America and Russia united against China" I drank without enthusiasm, but my misgivings did not seem to be shared Yun tried to explain "You must remember we are a threatened country You know about the atrocities committed m the battles over Damansky Island Chinese troops are stationed all along our eastern frontier and there will be repetitions of such incidents, of that I am sure "We have always felt that with the Americans it is possible to talk We may not always agree, but at least we understand each other This is not true of all peoples Some nations do not have even this much in common It is not only a matter of the Chinese The West presents problems for us as well You know that m the last war we suffered 20 million dead Not a family in all of the USSR was unaffected Now the Germans are again powerful, they are too powerful, and too dangerous "When Czechoslovakia was invaded we were told the Czechs were about to sign a military agreement with West Germany Everyone thought, Dubcek is a good man, but a German alliance is not good, it must be prevented Now, however, we know that we were not given the true reason for the invasion We can get bbc and the Voice of America, and if you listen to them and Radio Moscow together, you begin to arrive at the truth," Yuri concluded With more conversation and more vodka, the evening moved on At one point I was asked to dance with Tama, by far the most beautiful of the girls The Russians, who dance the way I remember Americans dancing 10 years ago, were interested in the latest Western steps, which I, unfortunately, did not know The party lasted until 1am Afterward, five people took me back to the hotel I spent every evening during the rest of my stay with some member of that original group We went to the cinema, to gatherings at the apartments of friends and night after night we went to the cafes One evening I was taken to hear a Moscow musical group calling itself the "Russian Beatles," playmg at a cafe near the Peking Hotel The place was packed People had lined up an hour and a half before the performance was scheduled to begin so they would be sure to get in Once inside, the crowd of mostly young people listened with enthusiasm as the Russian Beatles sang, "You said ver not home, on ze telephone, zot's a he On the way back from the cafe we met one of Kolya's friends, who asked him how his speech was progressing Kolya, I noticed, had been trying to write something during the performance "It's going very well, he said "I only have a few more paragraphs to copy " "You see,'' he explained to me later, "I am the secretary of the Komsomol branch at our office, and tomorrow I must give a speech about Lenin I have been copying my speech out of Political Self-Education, the Communist Party magazine " "Won't it be recognized9" I asked "I doubt it," he said "You must remember that nobody will be listening '' Several days later, I received a call from Yuri and we agreed to go with his girl friend to the mam cafe in the Moscow Park of Culture We were late getting theie and, as often happens, the cafe was not only full but the line outside was almost 100 yards long Yuri suggested a slightly underhanded stratagem Instead of taking our proper places, the three of us walked to the front and I began knocking on the cafe's heavy glass door A few minutes passed befoie "Uncle Sasha," a huge old man with the beard of a prophet came to see what was the matter As final arbiter of who enters one of the city's most popular cafes, Uncle Sasha has achieved a reputation of almost legendary proportions among Moscow's young people At six feet, tour inches and 250 pounds, he looks capable of holding off an army —and that, every night, is exactly what he must do When he emerged from the cafe, several in the crowd began to cheer and Uncle Sasha, blocking the entranceway with his bulk, traded insults with them Finally, he turned to me I began speaking to him in English He looked at me in bewilderment, hesitated, and then with a servile smile opened the door and let Yun, Yuri's girl friend and me into the cafe On the way in I said that I felt a little bad about getting ahead of all of those people who had to Ime up in the cold but Yuri hardly saw things my way "Try to remember," he said, "that you are not in your own country We do not respect queues, which are part of our daily life, as if they were some divine institution Today I had to buy a winter hat because the one I have on is falling apart I spent two-and-a-half hours in queues so I could discover that in the middle of winter there are no winter hats m Moscow Each time I avoid a queue I save hours for myself Every person in that crowd would do what we have done " While we waited tor a table I noticed that Yuri was still agitated But this time his grievance struck me as somewhat ironical, given what had just transpired outside "Goddamn Russian people,'' he said, "everything for foreigners If you are a Russian you are treated like dirt, but for foreigners there is everything On the radio all you hear is 'American imperialists,' 'German levanchists,' but when they come here it's 'Oh please, American dollars, German Deutsehe-marks anything you want " We sat down and immediately were treated to an example of what Yun was complaining about The waitress watched us come in and went back to her chair in a far corner of the cafe to read a newspaper We waited for an hour and then left "If you had spoken in English," Yuri said, "we would have been served right away Unfortunately, we also would have been noticed There are kgb men in every cafe Speak English and you are served and watched Speak Russian and you are ignored by both the waitress and the kgb " Shortly thereafter, Yuri and I went to the National Cafe, this time with Kolya...