In 1986 the Iron Curtain was starting to lift and the Soviet and American people got their first glimpses of each other. That year Katya Lycheva traveled to the United States with the mission of peace and even met with the President Reagan.
Few days ago I saw this article from some Russian publication of that time and translated it for the blog. It’s funny how even as late as 1986 the article had to include a mandatory “evil Americans” paragraph (highlighted).
Katya’s Doves:
This photograph shows Katya Lycheva. She is talking about the trip to the USA she took last spring with the delegation of the Soviet Committee for Peace.
Katya was welcomed with warmth and hospitality. Children and teachers were waiting for her in schools. They decorated their classrooms, painted greeting banners and made souvenirs for her.
From city to city a welcoming wave of warmth and hospitality was rolling with an increasing power. Chicago, New York, Washington D.C…. Children wanted to find out what Katya likes, learn her favorite songs.
When during the first days of the trip in one of the schools in Brooklyn Katya started singing “Solnechny Krug” (Sun Circle) no one knew the song and could not join in. But days later in Los Angeles the whole audience was singing with Katya “May there always be sunshine”!
However, today’s America showed Katya its hostile, slanderous, malicious underside. The enemies of peace and disarmament tried their best to harm Katya’s mission. They asked sneaky questions at press-conferences. They tried to catch her off-guard to take embarrassing pictures. They threatened her over the phone and tried to intimidate her.
Despite all these efforts, she showed up at all scheduled meeting happy, smiling and calm like the day before and again the children tried to reach out to her together with those adults, who want peaceful, wonderful life for everyone on this planet.
Katya came home, but in the hearts of hundreds of American children remained the feeling of gratitude to her, for the first time they got to learn the truth about our country. They also cherished white paper doves with the addresses of the Soviet boys and girls written on their wings – addresses of friendship.
Katya Lycheva honorably carried out the mission started by her little American counterpart Samantha Smith.
The sky’s bright blue.
The sun is up high—
This is the little boy’s picture
He drew it for you
and then wrote there for you.
Just to make clear what he drew.
Chorus:
May there always be sunshine,
May there always be blue skies,
May there always be my mama,
May there always be me!
Exactly 20 years ago, on July 8th, 1988 I had to report for duty at the local draft station. Several hundred young men gathered in the yard waiting for their fate to be decided by chance and lucky or unlucky circumstances. We all wore old clothes and had backpacks with personal items, we all tried to act brave pretending that this was just another day in our so far mostly care-free lives. In reality, for many of us it was the first day of our adult lives. Most of us have never been separated from our parents for more than a few weeks, many of us never traveled far away from home, we stood there looking like we could care less but our future couldn’t have been any more uncertain.
In the middle of the yard on a desk there were stacks of personal files. Once in a while an officer walked in (they called them “buyers”) with a requisition for a certain number of people and grabbed a handful of files from the top of the stack. That simple act decided where the draftee would spend the next few years: the most unlucky ones were stuck for 3 years in the Navy where being short almost guaranteed a submarine; the others got the Army and shorter guys didn’t fare much better – they were a perfect fit for a tank. In 1988 they were still sending people to Afghanistan, so your file being on top in the wrong time could ultimately decide if you would come home in a zinc coffin. And then there were locations – anywhere from remote posts inside the Arctic Circle, to scorching desert sands; mountains, faraway borders, big cities, resort towns, or somewhere deep in the woods where you’d see people once in 6 months – military was everywhere and all these places needed new “meat”.
My parents didn’t try our “Jewish luck” – a friendly (bribed) officer kept taking my file off the top of the stack until a good buyer showed up. I ended up only a few hundred miles away in the engineering regiment. My parents were happy – I was not too far, I never found out how much money and favors did it cost my Dad. I was happy – I didn’t end up in some horrible dump. “Friendly” officer was happy – he had a reason to celebrate. And the Soviet Army got one of the most worthless soldiers in its history.
That hot day in July of ’88 is still with me. Anxiety and fear long ago faded away but I still remember the buyer grabbing my file from the stack, like a hand of fate grabbing my life and pulling it into a mysterious unknown future.
When I was a kid we didn’t have Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa (the latter is due to the lack of African-Ukrainians). We had New Year, with Ded Moroz and Snegurochka, “New Year’s” Tree, presents, and obligatory toast at midnight. New Year was the only Soviet holiday that wasn’t associated with any communist or revolution bullshit.
People dressed up, even at home, the table was covered with hard-to-find delicacies and drinks. Then my Mom made me take out the trash one last time, which involved going 3 floors (81 steps) down to the cold and dark yard. Then everyone waited.
Few minutes before midnight the General Secretary of the Communist Part of the USSR would congratulate the Soviet People with another giant leap toward communism made in a previous year and wish them to make even more giant step next year.This is what it looked like in 1971. I only expect a few readers to recognize who this is, Leonid Illyich Brezhnev died before some of you were born. I know it’s in Russian but I am sure you’ll recognize every other word being “socialism” or “communism”. Brezhnev loved himself a long speech. He could go on for hours but he knew that vodka and champagne are getting warm and people restless. But there was no escape: all three channels had the speech on. Soviet people had to be congratulated whether the wanted it or not.
When the General Secretary finally shut up, the Kremlin Kuranty rung midnight, the universal signal to start the festivities. That’s when we toasted New Year, my Dad would go outside and leave a bag of presents right behind the door, I don’t think we even wrapped them. We usually didn’t stay up for too long. I am still not a night person. I still like New Year better than all the other holidays combined. Nobody is born, no miracles of burning oil, just a clock of life ticking along, all the bad things are behind you and a brand new, bright and shiny year is ahead.
This year I will be celebrating in St.Louis with a bunch of other Russians, old style. Even three months of Christmas music every year can’t make us forget who we are.
I wish you all a Happy New Year, I hope that you will prosper, win a lottery, don’t get sick and have fun.
P.S. To all the beautiful women who want to date me next year: I will be appearing here starting January 2 so you know where to find me.
Couple of weeks ago unbeknown to you the Russian population of this Metro Area has doubled for a few days. A surprising number of Russian-speaking coaches, parents and participants arrived to Kansas City for the U.S. Fencing North American Cup Tournament. There were of course many others (some of them even Americans :-)) but the number of foreign languages spoken at the Bartle Hall that weekend was indicative of a huge European influence on the sport of fencing. Among the participants was my niece from New York City which gave me a good reason to see the sport for myself. I spent two days at Bartle Hall watching and taking pictures, and while my photos are nothing to write home about, the people with good cameras probably had better things to do, so this is all I have.
Fencing may not be as popular as other sports but it’s lightning fast, physically demanding, psychologically challenging and beautifully choreographed. It doesn’t hurt that fencing may be an asset for college admissions. For kids like mine who don’t seem to enjoy team sports this is an attractive option. There are a few local clubs in Kansas City, one was started by a famous Russian Coach who since moved on to become a head coach at Ohio State and the other one still has a Russian Coach.
Here are just a few out of almost 300 photos I took with my slow camera.
In this video I slowed down the motion a little just to demonstrate ballet-like quality of fencing.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPDpdezHTx0
This video is a short clip of one of the final bouts.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H2nCganaWc
By the way, commonly used word touché originates in fencing (not to confuse with the Yiddish word tuches which means something entirely different).
For the longest time a trip to Argentina has occupied the top spot on my imaginarybucketlist, patiently waiting for its time. Talking about my dream to visit Argentina became such a part of my life that after finally getting it done, I might be at a loss of subjects to discuss in a polite conversation. In any case, the trip and the country of Argentina turned out to be everything I imagined it to be and much more, and became the longest, the most expensive and the best trip of my adult life.
When I was growing up© every able-bodied male over 18 years old was drafted to serve 2 years in the Army or 3 years in the Navy. Very few people were able to escape the draft based on health and other reasons. Going to college resulted in getting the lowest officer rank but even then a person had to serve some time and if you quit or got kicked out of school, guys in uniform came looking for you without delay. Threat of the military service was probably the single largest stimulus for getting into and staying in college for any male.