Despite the fact that there were things that I've been mad at dad about, he also did a lot of very good things that a lot of lesser fathers wouldn't have. I'll try to make a point of mentioning those as well as we go along. Sometimes it seemed like how he related to me always resulted in him coming out on top, as the "good guy".
***
The next is a book chapter:
Romerstein, H. & Levchenko, S. (1989). The KGB Against the Main Enemy. Lexington, Mass. : Lexington Books.
Chapter 14: The KGB Today and Tomorrow.
***
This text sort of corroborates some of what we've already discussed, but specifically addressing KGB tactics. On this subject, an affidavit written by the then head of the Los Angeles FBI regarding an FBI agent having been successfully recruited by the KGB:
"One technique used by the Soviet Intelligence Service (SIS) to obtain information is to identify a flaw or weakness in a target person and, through a variety of means, exploit this weakness in order to ultimately convince the target to cooperate with the SIS. Some of the weaknesses successfully exploited in the past by the SIS include money, ideological persuasion, personal rapport with an SIS officer, coercion, flattery, and material assistance." (p. 287)
If the KGB saw me as a potential target as a means to get information from my dad, these are the kinds of things they might have tried in that process.
***
This chapter section is titled:
Line X = Technology
"One of the largest and most significant of the KGB functions is the collection of technology ... This program accords top priority to the military and military-related industry, and major attention is also given to the civilian sectors of Soviet industry that support military production... The Military Industrial Commission of the Soviet Presidium of the Council of Ministers (VPK) coordinates the development of both Soviet weapons and the program to acquire Western technology for those weapons." (p. 289).
Military was a huge focus of the USSR's economic 5-year plans, which is largely why the consumer goods sector was so pitiful - because such a large percent of the resources were devoted to heavy industry, and military technology in particular. So it's not surprising at all that this focus would carry over into the USSR's espionage efforts as well. Of course, it's clear in that context how my father could have been of interest to them.
***
"The U.S. government estimates that in the early 1980s approximately five thousand Soviet military research projects per year benefited from Western hardware and technical documents. During that time more than thirty-five hundred instructions were sent to the KGB to acquire specific Western hardware and documents. The KGB was successful in roughly one-third of the cases. This saved the Soviets approximately a half a billion rubles a year in research costs. Most of these savings were realized by the Ministry of the Defense Industry, responsible for armor and electro-optics, and the Ministry of the Aviation Industry." (p. 290)
I'm not sure I need to comment on this much. I'll just put this in a personal time frame. in the "early 1980s" I was an undergraduate and then Bible school student, worked with Soviet emigrants, and made two extended trips to Europe, including the USSR, E. Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. My father was in working on communications satellite contracts with the U.S. Defense Dept. and probably somewhere in there shifted to SDI, when that federal program started up in 1983.
***
At the top of page 291 it says the U.S. government thinks (as of the time of this writing, I assume, which was 1989) that of the 140 members of the USSR Chamber of Commerce in the USA one-third of them are "known or suspected intelligence officers."
The relevance to my life is that it makes me wonder if other countries have intelligence members in their Chambers of Commerce abroad. I had a curious incident involving someone involved in a different (i.e., not USSR) Chamber of Commerce. Not that that person was trying to recruit me though.
***
This issue of sense of loyalty to one's country comes up again on page 294 in discussing specific US citizens recruited by the Soviet intelligence. Like I said before, this could have eventually been a weak point for me, except for my thoughts about the USSR. Also, I never wanted any part of this stuff anyway, but was drawn into it by missions who thought they had to play according to the world's rules and by virtue of being my father's daughter. I was never interested in these kinds of things, this sort of underworld mentality and all that it seemed to entail. In fact, I'm sick of secrets, which is one reason I'm writing this blog.
***
"Some individuals cooperate with the Soviets basically because they are flattered by Soviet attention and favors. Others cooperate out of fear; a time-honored KGB practice is to compromise foreigners visiting the U.S.S.R. so as to make them vulnerable to blackmail later." (p. 304)
This text is referring specifically to the recruitment of "agents of influence", such as cooperating Western journalists. This is irrelevant in my case, but I would like to talk about this quote outside of that context.
I wonder what my trip to Moscow in Dec. 1981 meant vis a vis dad's work. Did people at dad's work know about it? Was there any concern if so?
At any rate, there were times during that trip when I was alone and if there had been any desire to do so, I could have been somehow addressed during those times, but I wasn't. For example, when I left the group to get ice cream (which turned out to be spreadable cheese) for the Siberian Seven in the U.S. embassy - I was alone for that trip to and from the hotel. And I was also alone in getting tickets for some of the group for the Bolshoi Ballet. Or how about when my friend was still at the airport with the rest of the group and I was waiting at the hotel, and the times I was taken around to pay for the extra hotel days, extend our visas, etc. I went on 2 trips like that alone with the Sputnik guide, that there was nothing unusual at all that happened, other than we didn't know what the problem was for us leaving, but that was not a personal thing, but solely regarding martial law having been declared in Poland.
With all those missed opportunities, then, I'm sure that I wasn't on the Soviet Union's radar yet at that point. I still think that didn't happen till when I started working with Soviet emigrants while I was in Bible school.
***
Page 307 of this book discusses a 1987 FBI report in the Congressional Record which describes the connection between the Communist Party USA and the USSR. Although I later became pretty liberal (although I have some political views not usually associated as left-wing, but I'm not alone in that, and some would even say that the left-right dichotomy is a false simplification of possible political views), I already discussed how I wasn't Communist and never agreed with their views. But I actually have never really identified strongly with a party, and I usually don't specific a party when living in a state that asks you to do that when you register to vote. That's why I couldn't vote in the last primary elections, because I lived in a state that required you to indicate a party to be able to vote in the primaries and then I would only have been able to vote for the nominee of the party I'd previously selected.
That's my pesky independent streak, I guess. I sort of like to be able to think for myself instead of being told what to think or being fit into a confining ideological straight jacket. I know that sounds like an American kind of way of thinking, but it's sure caused me a LOT of trouble through the years.
***
That's all for that book, so I'm taking another break. I'm doing my weekly filling of my pill and supplement pouches, and I found out I need a refill. I put that order in and soon I'll have to go pick it up at the pharmacy and work on that plus some other housework that always needs doing.
~ Meg
Showing posts with label 1981. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1981. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
28. Photo Journal (with Commentary)
One of the main reasons I have to jump around quite a bit chronologically is to be able to provide examples of certain things span various periods in my life. But as we move closer to a more detailed analysis of what happened in Vienna, Austria, I'm going to have to make sure I have all my ducks in a row and have covered the major things that need addressing as a lead up to that period.
But for this post, I'd like to present some photos that correspond with things we've already discusses. After all, on the Internet, I could just be anyone and how do you know this isn't all made up unless I provide some evidence to the contrary. And even if it wasn't on the Internet, you may or may not believe me then either. That's a lot of why I began these posts with a couple of major pieces of evidence to increase my credibility and also to hopefully convince you that I might be worth listening to and might have something worthwhile to say. But at this point in the game I confess that I'm getting a little nervous because it's risky for me to be so open about some things.
But for now, let's focus on these photos I've picked out from my modest collection.
***
Pictures 1 & 2: Summer 1980
These two pictures were taken the first summer I began my intermittent work with Soviet emigres.
The first photograph was taken on an evening program we put together which included music, preaching and a skit. Here we are dramatizing the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:23-35), which describes a scene in which a lord asked repayment of debts from servants who owed him. In this process, one beseeches the master to hold off and he will pay him back, and, being moved, the master lets him go. But in turn, the forgiven servant goes asking repayment from those who owe him money. When of of his debtors similarly begs forbearance of him, however, he denies him his request and has him sent to prison. When the master hears this he calls his servant to him and reneges on his earlier kindness and has him punished for nonpayment of the debt. The message is that if we are forgiven, we should turn around and likewise forgive your offenders. I'm the one in the yellow t-shirt.
The second photo was taken on a retreat that we put on for the emigrants. Here we are in a group photo. I'm sitting down at the end on the left.
We did a lot of other things, including leading English classes, helping with material needs as we were able, providing a Russian library they could borrow books from, having Russian vacation Bible school, and the like.
That summer I was full-time, if only for the summer, but later on when I lived and went to school there I also helped out as I could, such as manning the emigrant center once a week in the morning and doing some visitation.
***
Pictures 3 & 4: Sept. 1981, France
These pictures were taken during the ten-days I was a delegate with the Seattle-Nantes Sister City exchange.
The man in the front on the left in the first picture is Mr. Noyes, the one who physicist who worked with my father. He is taking with Lise, who is from Seattle, but worked in the sister city office in Nantes; she was also the one who picked me up the first night when I came in so late after that timing mix-up with the trains that I mentioned in an earlier post. Even though I was very wiped out after the long trip and short night sleep I still arrived in time for the official welcoming of the group by the mayor at city hall the next morning at 9 a.m. prompt, and there's a newspaper photo of the group from that morning which I should have somewhere.
The woman to the right who looks like she's talking was the mistress of the family who I stayed with after the first night. She came on several of the excursions with us as she was available to do so. They had 3 lovely children, and I remember meeting them for the first time the next morning (we had a long day and the kids were in bed by the time I got there in the evening) and they were all ready for school and lined up to meet me. They were very sweet kids.
The second picture was taken on one of our excursions, this one to the salt marshes where the famous "fleur de sel" is harvested. If you're unfamiliar with that salt, you can read with David Lebovitz has to say about it here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2006/09/fleur_de_sel_de_1.html.
We really were taken on some wonderful excursion and treated to some fabulous food (and wine) while on that exchange. The mayor of Seattle was supposed to be with us, but the election was in November, and so he felt he had to attend more to campaigning.
***
Pictures 5 & 6: Oct. 1981, Klender Dijk Park, Holland
When S., the Italian gal in our group and I went to Amsterdam on one of our long weekend breaks from studying in Belgium, we took a day trip to this windmill park, which includes trails and historic village-type buildings. (I really like those outdoor museums!). We didn't stick together as a group once the bus brought us there, and in the second picture here you see S. on a bridge over a canal as we wandered around the park.
I don't know what S. would think if she saw these pictures, because her major was photography and she had some lovely photos.
***
Pictures 7 & 8: Oct. 1981, Madrid
The top picture here is of the 4 of us (I'm in the back on the left) at a restaurant in Madrid that we found and liked so much that we went back to it. Not only was the food wonderful, but with the strong dollar we got a full meal, with appetizers and dessert and wine for about $5!
Then in the second picture we were sort of given special attention and the musicians singled us out and played for us which was kind of fun too. It felt like a real local place that Spaniards frequented, rather than a tourist spot, which was an extra draw for us too.
***
Pictures 9 & 10, Nov. 1981, Stockholm & Copenhagen
After our group settled down for another month of study, this time in Germany, we once again took advantage of the long weekends to travel around. This trip to Stockholm was the longest trip I took on a weekend break, but the weather was gray in Stockholm, so I didn't want to show you my dismal outdoor museum pictures from there. You'll just have to trust me that this picture of my exchange student friend was taken in Stockholm. We had train transfers in Copenhagen which gave a little time to explore around, and you'll probably recognized this famous mermaid statue from the harbor there.
***
Pictures 11 & 12, Summer, 1983, Austria
These pictures were taken the summer I was on a short-term summer ministry, stationed in Vienna. Specifically, these two were from my work in the refugee camp at Bad Kreuzen. Austria had set up dorm-type apartments for refugees from all over, but many from Eastern Europe at that time. Hungarians, Poles and Czechs were amongst those we spent time with. We did a lot of different things while there including just chatting or going mushroom picking in the woods around the town. But we also had Bible studies and children's groups and helped with language learning and the like. We were always careful to time our visits after the meal times, because otherwise they were likely to give us the lion's share of their food out of their generosity.
The top picture is taken of me and a Hungarian women we visited a lot when I was with the refugee camp team. While each of the people in the refugee camps had various claims for requesting refugee status, this woman had a somewhat unique situation because she had to colored children, and because of that she wasn't well accepted.
On the week's we were at the refugee camp we actually lived in another nearby town in a gasthaus where our room and board were both provided. As we were preparing to leave for the summer our hausfrau, the woman that ran the house, gifted us a bottle of wine, which you see in this photo. I kept in touch for a long time with a bunch of people from that summer, including some of the people on our refugee team (and also some of the refugees we worked with).
***
I hope you understand that I'm not just showing you these pictures just for the heck of it, but to let you get to know me more and to give you some more evidence to back my words so that hopefully my credibility will be built up as I continue on. I don't exactly have concrete evidence for every little thing I say, so I have to at least show you that my story is reasonably credible.
These pictures show fun times and fun things, but not everything along the way has been so pleasant.
But for this post, I'd like to present some photos that correspond with things we've already discusses. After all, on the Internet, I could just be anyone and how do you know this isn't all made up unless I provide some evidence to the contrary. And even if it wasn't on the Internet, you may or may not believe me then either. That's a lot of why I began these posts with a couple of major pieces of evidence to increase my credibility and also to hopefully convince you that I might be worth listening to and might have something worthwhile to say. But at this point in the game I confess that I'm getting a little nervous because it's risky for me to be so open about some things.
But for now, let's focus on these photos I've picked out from my modest collection.
***
Pictures 1 & 2: Summer 1980
These two pictures were taken the first summer I began my intermittent work with Soviet emigres.
The first photograph was taken on an evening program we put together which included music, preaching and a skit. Here we are dramatizing the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:23-35), which describes a scene in which a lord asked repayment of debts from servants who owed him. In this process, one beseeches the master to hold off and he will pay him back, and, being moved, the master lets him go. But in turn, the forgiven servant goes asking repayment from those who owe him money. When of of his debtors similarly begs forbearance of him, however, he denies him his request and has him sent to prison. When the master hears this he calls his servant to him and reneges on his earlier kindness and has him punished for nonpayment of the debt. The message is that if we are forgiven, we should turn around and likewise forgive your offenders. I'm the one in the yellow t-shirt.
The second photo was taken on a retreat that we put on for the emigrants. Here we are in a group photo. I'm sitting down at the end on the left.
We did a lot of other things, including leading English classes, helping with material needs as we were able, providing a Russian library they could borrow books from, having Russian vacation Bible school, and the like.
That summer I was full-time, if only for the summer, but later on when I lived and went to school there I also helped out as I could, such as manning the emigrant center once a week in the morning and doing some visitation.
***
Pictures 3 & 4: Sept. 1981, France
These pictures were taken during the ten-days I was a delegate with the Seattle-Nantes Sister City exchange.
The man in the front on the left in the first picture is Mr. Noyes, the one who physicist who worked with my father. He is taking with Lise, who is from Seattle, but worked in the sister city office in Nantes; she was also the one who picked me up the first night when I came in so late after that timing mix-up with the trains that I mentioned in an earlier post. Even though I was very wiped out after the long trip and short night sleep I still arrived in time for the official welcoming of the group by the mayor at city hall the next morning at 9 a.m. prompt, and there's a newspaper photo of the group from that morning which I should have somewhere.
The woman to the right who looks like she's talking was the mistress of the family who I stayed with after the first night. She came on several of the excursions with us as she was available to do so. They had 3 lovely children, and I remember meeting them for the first time the next morning (we had a long day and the kids were in bed by the time I got there in the evening) and they were all ready for school and lined up to meet me. They were very sweet kids.
The second picture was taken on one of our excursions, this one to the salt marshes where the famous "fleur de sel" is harvested. If you're unfamiliar with that salt, you can read with David Lebovitz has to say about it here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2006/09/fleur_de_sel_de_1.html.
We really were taken on some wonderful excursion and treated to some fabulous food (and wine) while on that exchange. The mayor of Seattle was supposed to be with us, but the election was in November, and so he felt he had to attend more to campaigning.
***
Pictures 5 & 6: Oct. 1981, Klender Dijk Park, Holland
When S., the Italian gal in our group and I went to Amsterdam on one of our long weekend breaks from studying in Belgium, we took a day trip to this windmill park, which includes trails and historic village-type buildings. (I really like those outdoor museums!). We didn't stick together as a group once the bus brought us there, and in the second picture here you see S. on a bridge over a canal as we wandered around the park.
I don't know what S. would think if she saw these pictures, because her major was photography and she had some lovely photos.
***
Pictures 7 & 8: Oct. 1981, Madrid
The top picture here is of the 4 of us (I'm in the back on the left) at a restaurant in Madrid that we found and liked so much that we went back to it. Not only was the food wonderful, but with the strong dollar we got a full meal, with appetizers and dessert and wine for about $5!
Then in the second picture we were sort of given special attention and the musicians singled us out and played for us which was kind of fun too. It felt like a real local place that Spaniards frequented, rather than a tourist spot, which was an extra draw for us too.
***
Pictures 9 & 10, Nov. 1981, Stockholm & Copenhagen
After our group settled down for another month of study, this time in Germany, we once again took advantage of the long weekends to travel around. This trip to Stockholm was the longest trip I took on a weekend break, but the weather was gray in Stockholm, so I didn't want to show you my dismal outdoor museum pictures from there. You'll just have to trust me that this picture of my exchange student friend was taken in Stockholm. We had train transfers in Copenhagen which gave a little time to explore around, and you'll probably recognized this famous mermaid statue from the harbor there.
***
Pictures 11 & 12, Summer, 1983, Austria
These pictures were taken the summer I was on a short-term summer ministry, stationed in Vienna. Specifically, these two were from my work in the refugee camp at Bad Kreuzen. Austria had set up dorm-type apartments for refugees from all over, but many from Eastern Europe at that time. Hungarians, Poles and Czechs were amongst those we spent time with. We did a lot of different things while there including just chatting or going mushroom picking in the woods around the town. But we also had Bible studies and children's groups and helped with language learning and the like. We were always careful to time our visits after the meal times, because otherwise they were likely to give us the lion's share of their food out of their generosity.
The top picture is taken of me and a Hungarian women we visited a lot when I was with the refugee camp team. While each of the people in the refugee camps had various claims for requesting refugee status, this woman had a somewhat unique situation because she had to colored children, and because of that she wasn't well accepted.
On the week's we were at the refugee camp we actually lived in another nearby town in a gasthaus where our room and board were both provided. As we were preparing to leave for the summer our hausfrau, the woman that ran the house, gifted us a bottle of wine, which you see in this photo. I kept in touch for a long time with a bunch of people from that summer, including some of the people on our refugee team (and also some of the refugees we worked with).
***
I hope you understand that I'm not just showing you these pictures just for the heck of it, but to let you get to know me more and to give you some more evidence to back my words so that hopefully my credibility will be built up as I continue on. I don't exactly have concrete evidence for every little thing I say, so I have to at least show you that my story is reasonably credible.
These pictures show fun times and fun things, but not everything along the way has been so pleasant.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
19. Stuck in USSR
After all this minor chit chat and theoretical discussion, it's perhaps time to have a little action. This entry actually doesn't have anything to do with the really big problems I later faced, but it was certainly a good training ground for later experiences.
The background I'm going to give you first off, was unknown to us going through what we did until later, some parts took months to piece together. I was with an American group December 1981 in Moscow, and a friend, who also happened to be an assistant leader of the group, and I were going to leave the country separately and take a couple extra weeks to return to the States, eventually flying out of London. We didn't intend to stay in the USSR though. We were traveling by train to London, and my friend wanted to leave the USSR via Romania because she wanted to see Bucharest. We were hoping to spend Christmas outside Rome with some acquaintances we had, but something happened with the mail and we hadn't heard back, so that was uncertain. Our separate flights out of London were in the beginning of January 1982.
We didn't know though that while we were in the USSR martial law had been declared in Poland. We knew of the ongoing unrest there with Solidarity, of course, and had very explicitly asked not to be routed through Poland. We were supposed to pick up our train ticket out of the USSR in Moscow, so we didn't know until much later (or it didn't sink in) that they had actually booked us through Poland.
I tended to write my journal in incomplete sentences, but I'll clarify in brackets where it seems particularly unclear. Here is a quote from my journal entry of that trip:
17 Dec. '81, Thurs.
7:30 [a.m.] leave for airport rest of group (me back to bed)
plane leaves 20 hours late - Lufthansa (switch from Aeroflot)
[Later my dad told me that the airline switch and the fact that they were served German food on the plane indicates that the planes were flown in just to bring people out of Moscow].
K. [my friend] & I still have no train tickets
- she calls me to tell me we might be able to leave the 20th
- a woman from Sputnik takes me to their head office via bus to buy tickets [these bus rides alone were surreal. Picture this: me, a bus drive and the tour guide alone in a huge luxury bus.]
-wait in hotel room - others still haven't left
18 Dec. 81, Fri.
- about to leave room when woman from Sputnik calls to say I need to pay for hotel. I wait for her and then we go back downtown to Sputnik's central office. Back to hotel where K. is sleeping
[Every day of our extended time in Moscow was interrupted by demands for us to pay for, pick up or arrange something or the other related to our stay or trip out. Also, K. had just returned from the airport where she was seeing the group off as the last of her responsibilities with them.]
19 Dec. 81, Sat.
Sleep in late. Wait for Marina [a local official] to bring us our passports & visas. She's sick - bad cold.
We leave hotel about 1 p.m. Tried to find food Beriozka [Beriozkas were the hard currency stores, and some of them specialized in food items. Our hotel was] Too far out in boonies. Then shop at Gastronom [grocery store] - I'm sick of junk food - starving & have headache. [We hadn't paid for meals for the extra days at the hotel because the food there was so bad. We had trouble finding other food though.]
Return individually to hotel. Early to bed.
20 Dec. 1981
Sleep in. Went to bakery, bought juice and nuts at berezka. Our taxi left at 3 pm for Kievskii station. Train left 4:40.
21 Dec. 1981
After passing Kiev in early morning K. noticed notice [i.e., sign/poster in the train hallway] of our route. We'd be going through Chop, not a Romanian border crossing. Had no Hungarian visa.
That evening we had to get off the train at the border after a thorough checking. We [K. and I only] were driven to a customs building-border offices to get transit visas. We left there about midnight. Were driven a short distance on to a bridge, stopped half-way and were met by Hungarian border patrol on foot. We carried our luggage across the border/bridge to Hungarian border control building. They were very friendly to us. We walked 1 km. to train station. 2 hour difference from Moscow. Had to wait about 2-2 1/2 hours. Went to Budapest. We were there a few hours - had to change train stations. Bought records. We took 1:05 pm train to Zagreb. Arrived at 8 p.m.
I'm going to stop there. We were really wiped out at that point and ended out spending Christmas in Pula, on the Adriatic (now in Slovenia).
In Kiev the Soviets wanted to separate K. and I so that one would stay and take care of the necessary visas and the other would continue on to the border, and wait for the other of us to come with the visas. K. vehemently declined to let them separate us - she knew how to work with them better than I did. They kept saying the Hungarians wouldn't give us visas and asking why we would come without visas. This kind of talk continued at the border house.
The exchange at the border between the USSR and Hungary though was completely surreal. We were out in the middle of nowhere with only trees around in either direction and a small ravine-like ditch between the two countries. The border patrol on both sides were armed and you'd think it was an exchange of spies or something. In Hungary they were very apologetic for us being inconvenienced and they gave us a bit to eat and drink too. It was like night and day the difference between the two sides of the border.
Also, in our Soviet train there were three berths in our cabin and the third one was taken, at least part of the way, by a kind lady that we got to know a bit.
So this was sort of my first introduction to that part of the world. Of course, I didn't tell you about what we did (before the trouble leaving the country, I mean) while we were there, such as going to Zagorsk, going to the Bolshoi ballet, visiting Lenin's tomb, going to a public sauna, or meeting up with the Siberian Seven [Pentecostals from Siberia who fled to the U.S. embassy trying to emigrate; see this Time article about them: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925232,00.html] in the U.S. Embassy. Some of these things were done in free time, not as part of the group activities.
K. and I only found out about martial law in Poland when we were able to contact our families in the USA, who told us. Things were pretty free in Yugoslavia and Hungary but information was evidently controlled, at least in this case.
At this point I don't think I was having any fall-out from my Dad's work, though. It wasn't too long though that that started to change, although it took a while to experience some things that seemed clearer on this point. In 1981 I think our problems leaving the USSR were just because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time. But it sure makes for dramatic story telling. That scene at the border crossing is forever etched in my mind. All we lacked was some kind of spy/thriller soundtrack in the background to complete the scene.
Moral of the story: try to avoid being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if you can't avoid it, be sure to bring lots of (healthy) nonperishable food to carry you through it.
~ Meg
The background I'm going to give you first off, was unknown to us going through what we did until later, some parts took months to piece together. I was with an American group December 1981 in Moscow, and a friend, who also happened to be an assistant leader of the group, and I were going to leave the country separately and take a couple extra weeks to return to the States, eventually flying out of London. We didn't intend to stay in the USSR though. We were traveling by train to London, and my friend wanted to leave the USSR via Romania because she wanted to see Bucharest. We were hoping to spend Christmas outside Rome with some acquaintances we had, but something happened with the mail and we hadn't heard back, so that was uncertain. Our separate flights out of London were in the beginning of January 1982.
We didn't know though that while we were in the USSR martial law had been declared in Poland. We knew of the ongoing unrest there with Solidarity, of course, and had very explicitly asked not to be routed through Poland. We were supposed to pick up our train ticket out of the USSR in Moscow, so we didn't know until much later (or it didn't sink in) that they had actually booked us through Poland.
I tended to write my journal in incomplete sentences, but I'll clarify in brackets where it seems particularly unclear. Here is a quote from my journal entry of that trip:
17 Dec. '81, Thurs.
7:30 [a.m.] leave for airport rest of group (me back to bed)
plane leaves 20 hours late - Lufthansa (switch from Aeroflot)
[Later my dad told me that the airline switch and the fact that they were served German food on the plane indicates that the planes were flown in just to bring people out of Moscow].
K. [my friend] & I still have no train tickets
- she calls me to tell me we might be able to leave the 20th
- a woman from Sputnik takes me to their head office via bus to buy tickets [these bus rides alone were surreal. Picture this: me, a bus drive and the tour guide alone in a huge luxury bus.]
-wait in hotel room - others still haven't left
18 Dec. 81, Fri.
- about to leave room when woman from Sputnik calls to say I need to pay for hotel. I wait for her and then we go back downtown to Sputnik's central office. Back to hotel where K. is sleeping
[Every day of our extended time in Moscow was interrupted by demands for us to pay for, pick up or arrange something or the other related to our stay or trip out. Also, K. had just returned from the airport where she was seeing the group off as the last of her responsibilities with them.]
19 Dec. 81, Sat.
Sleep in late. Wait for Marina [a local official] to bring us our passports & visas. She's sick - bad cold.
We leave hotel about 1 p.m. Tried to find food Beriozka [Beriozkas were the hard currency stores, and some of them specialized in food items. Our hotel was] Too far out in boonies. Then shop at Gastronom [grocery store] - I'm sick of junk food - starving & have headache. [We hadn't paid for meals for the extra days at the hotel because the food there was so bad. We had trouble finding other food though.]
Return individually to hotel. Early to bed.
20 Dec. 1981
Sleep in. Went to bakery, bought juice and nuts at berezka. Our taxi left at 3 pm for Kievskii station. Train left 4:40.
21 Dec. 1981
After passing Kiev in early morning K. noticed notice [i.e., sign/poster in the train hallway] of our route. We'd be going through Chop, not a Romanian border crossing. Had no Hungarian visa.
That evening we had to get off the train at the border after a thorough checking. We [K. and I only] were driven to a customs building-border offices to get transit visas. We left there about midnight. Were driven a short distance on to a bridge, stopped half-way and were met by Hungarian border patrol on foot. We carried our luggage across the border/bridge to Hungarian border control building. They were very friendly to us. We walked 1 km. to train station. 2 hour difference from Moscow. Had to wait about 2-2 1/2 hours. Went to Budapest. We were there a few hours - had to change train stations. Bought records. We took 1:05 pm train to Zagreb. Arrived at 8 p.m.
I'm going to stop there. We were really wiped out at that point and ended out spending Christmas in Pula, on the Adriatic (now in Slovenia).
In Kiev the Soviets wanted to separate K. and I so that one would stay and take care of the necessary visas and the other would continue on to the border, and wait for the other of us to come with the visas. K. vehemently declined to let them separate us - she knew how to work with them better than I did. They kept saying the Hungarians wouldn't give us visas and asking why we would come without visas. This kind of talk continued at the border house.
The exchange at the border between the USSR and Hungary though was completely surreal. We were out in the middle of nowhere with only trees around in either direction and a small ravine-like ditch between the two countries. The border patrol on both sides were armed and you'd think it was an exchange of spies or something. In Hungary they were very apologetic for us being inconvenienced and they gave us a bit to eat and drink too. It was like night and day the difference between the two sides of the border.
Also, in our Soviet train there were three berths in our cabin and the third one was taken, at least part of the way, by a kind lady that we got to know a bit.
So this was sort of my first introduction to that part of the world. Of course, I didn't tell you about what we did (before the trouble leaving the country, I mean) while we were there, such as going to Zagorsk, going to the Bolshoi ballet, visiting Lenin's tomb, going to a public sauna, or meeting up with the Siberian Seven [Pentecostals from Siberia who fled to the U.S. embassy trying to emigrate; see this Time article about them: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925232,00.html] in the U.S. Embassy. Some of these things were done in free time, not as part of the group activities.
K. and I only found out about martial law in Poland when we were able to contact our families in the USA, who told us. Things were pretty free in Yugoslavia and Hungary but information was evidently controlled, at least in this case.
At this point I don't think I was having any fall-out from my Dad's work, though. It wasn't too long though that that started to change, although it took a while to experience some things that seemed clearer on this point. In 1981 I think our problems leaving the USSR were just because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time. But it sure makes for dramatic story telling. That scene at the border crossing is forever etched in my mind. All we lacked was some kind of spy/thriller soundtrack in the background to complete the scene.
Moral of the story: try to avoid being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if you can't avoid it, be sure to bring lots of (healthy) nonperishable food to carry you through it.
~ Meg
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