visiting Russia

[Zebra]

Voronezh

on a river with the same name. …. i found out by google …

btw ….. german writing: Woronesch

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I visited the Soviet Union for two weeks as part of a trade union delegation organized by the “Soviet-American Friendship Association” in 1986 after Gorbachev was made leader. We went to Moscow, Leningrad and Baku in now what is Azerbaijan. Very interesting, and made somewhat weird because it happened during the Chenobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine. I was at that time a union and political activist and wanted very much to see where the Gorbachev reforms might lead. But of course two weeks meeting ordinary people, workers and officials and visiting famous sites was not enough to give one much more than impressions.

As a young political guy deeply involved in the Vietnam Anti-War Movement, I had already been behind the Iron Curtain once earlier on my own — in August 1970, on the 2nd anniversary of the crushing by tanks of the great reform movement in Czechoslovakia led by Communist leader Alexander Dubcek, who was eventually eliminated by the Russians.

Prague, my destination, was then a sad, beautiful and tragic place, and I met many people there who had suffered persecution or were simply deeply depressed after the crushing of Dubcek’s “Socialism with a Human Face” reform movement. A young graduate student I met introduced me to a highly cultured family whose members had a long history supporting other democratic and social-democratic parties before Stalin. I visited their home. After Stalin’s Communists took over after WWII, despite being kind of socialist, the grandfather and some uncles were arrested or persecuted. Their family history went back generations as trade union leaders, democrats, intellectuals, doctors, etc. That visit was a real eye-opener for me and taught me a lot.

 

[AlexanderPK]

Voronezh

Remember once when coming back from the south the road police bastards ambushed me on the outskirts of the town while I was riding at a staggering 70 kmph where the town proper had ended but there was still no road sign in sight saying it had. Had to buy my way out of the usual seven lives prescribed for that egregious misdemeanor. Try as I could never saw the sign after.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Yes. Would not rush back.Several years behind the west.

 

[leftwinger]

I visited the Soviet Union for two weeks as part of a trade union delegation organized by the “Soviet-American Friendship Association” in 1986 after Gorbachev was made leader. We went to Moscow, Leningrad and Baku in now what is Azerbaijan. Very interesting, and made somewhat weird because it happened during the Chenobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine. I was at that time a union and political activist and wanted very much to see where the Gorbachev reforms might lead. But of course two weeks meeting ordinary people, workers and officials and visiting famous sites was not enough to give one much more than impressions.

As a young political guy deeply involved in the Vietnam Anti-War Movement, I had already been behind the Iron Curtain once earlier on my own — in August 1970, on the 2nd anniversary of the crushing by tanks of the great reform movement in Czechoslovakia led by Communist leader Alexander Dubcek, who was eventually eliminated by the Russians.

Prague, my destination, was then a sad, beautiful and tragic place, and I met many people there who had suffered persecution or were simply deeply depressed after the crushing of Dubcek’s “Socialism with a Human Face” reform movement. A young graduate student I met introduced me to a highly cultured family whose members had a long history supporting other democratic and social-democratic parties before Stalin. I visited their home. After Stalin’s Communists took over after WWII, despite being kind of socialist, the grandfather and some uncles were arrested or persecuted. Their family history went back generations as trade union leaders, democrats, intellectuals, doctors, etc. That visit was a real eye-opener for me and taught me a lot.

Funny, all that yet you work day and night to support communism (a Police state), Election fraud, jailing of political opposition, torture of citizens right here in the USA.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

A sad story about how easy it is to get false impressions or be misled as a visitor to a country with a different political culture …

In Baku in 1986 our group were guests at the big yearly “MayDay” demonstration. There were floats from all the local factories and technical institutes and high schools, decked out with Communist symbols and calls for unity and peace for mankind.

All the city leaders and hundred of old WWII war veterans were sitting in the temporary stands erected on the plaza, decked out in their uniforms with all their medals shining. It was organized and disciplined, if seemingly boring. There was constant piped in military music and speeches and even fake cheering broadcast over the speakers.

I noticed that on the colorful floats and marching behind them were young students all shouting & performing their own marshal art exercises. This seemed strange to me and I asked our translator why that was. He said that it was just a colorful tradition in Baku.

I thought I was a pretty politically savvy guy, but at the time I accepted his explanation.

It was just a few years later when Soviet rule collapsed that I finally realized what those marshal arts maneuvers and grunted shouts of the differently dressed student and even worker groups must have really signified:

Baku descended into ethnic terror, with majority Muslim Azeris attacking and driving out Armenian Christians, purging residential complexes and even whole neighborhoods, while most Russians also soon fled the country entirely.

 

[Blaster]

I have only been to Russia once. I met a young Russian woman named Olga that was a big fan of rock music and was impressed with western culture. She and I spent some wonderful evenings together.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I have only been to Russia once. I met a young Russian woman named Olga that was a big fan of rock music and was impressed with western culture. She and I spent some wonderful evenings together.

Reminds of a pretty young female guide we had in Baku. She took us to a famous monument of — if I remember correctly — some 19 local Soviet leaders who were executed by the Whites during the civil war. Also I think there was a statue to a famous woman of the same revolutionary period throwing off her veil. Anyway we talked about women in Aizerbaijan (she was Azeri).

Sure, she agreed, her own grandmother was very much like the sad Afghan women. The Russians were then fighting the Muslim fanatics in Afghanistan while the U.S. was helping and even giving stinger missiles to Muslim “freedom fighters” there. When I asked how things were in general in Azerbaijan, however, she put on a sad face and said they were still pretty terrible.

She was honest, I’m sure. She told me, between deep drags on her cigarette, that she was dating an East German engineer living temporarily in Baku, and her dream was to move with him back to East Germany, where life and opportunities were far better.

I wonder if she ever got to fulfill her dream and go to East Germany. Perhaps now she is married, has children & grandchildren, and lives in the West? Or not.

 

[Ringo]

An American and a real Christmas in Russia.

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