1965, the first year of the era of Leonid Brezhnev who would command the Soviet Union for 18 years.
As head of the image and media relations of an important Florentine metallurgical industry, I had the task of coordinating the setting up of a pavilion at an international fair that was to be held in the Sokolniki park.
A very interesting experience for someone like me who was also a city councilor in Florence for the Liberal Party and declared anti-communist.
But having the opportunity to visit the so-called 'paradise' of the Soviet Union live, unlike the Italian comrades who were camouflaged by the section leaders, was a very interesting prospect. Although dangerous.
There was no direct flight to Moscow and you had to stop in Vienna and from there take an Aeroflot Tupolev 104, the one with the windowed nose of military derivation.
On that first trip the hotel was the Ukraine, an integral copy of the Waldorf Astoria in New York in which foreign guests were concentrated to prevent contact with the population. They were building the huge Rossyia just behind the Kremlin.
I go into my room and the phone rings. I pick up the receiver and a woman's voice in almost perfect Italian says to me: "Okay, Oscar, I'm Svetlana. When will we see you?"
This procedure would repeat itself as often as I went to the Soviet Union for work over the next few years.
A way like any other to hook up the foreign visitor in agreement with the hotel reception, to steal information for the KGB who controlled the telephone line of the hotel room.
The female component in the experience of foreign visitors was decisive: the most attractive girls did their utmost (it must be said) to get married by the unwary professionals of other nations who were captured by the Slavic charm.
It had also happened to a well-known political exponent, who had returned from a long visit to Moscow married to an effervescent blonde who, once catapulted to the Italian capital, after a short time had left him to run into the arms of other substantial (in terms of personal wealth) Italian boys.
Your editor, far from marriage plans since he had not yet found a soul mate among the many offers in liquidation, had a nice opportunity to exchange views with a Natasha he met in a Moscow cafe.
One afternoon we were walking in an avenue of birch trees made ultra romantic by the autumn colors; in those days I used to smoke a few cigarillos, just to give me a tone and I didn't like it.
I had pulled out of my pocket a box of Swedish matches with which I had lit the tool and had thrown the unlit match, continuing to talk to Natasha, but she had disappeared from my side.
I turned around and saw her pick up that match from the ground and put it in a small box she had pulled out of her jacket.
I can assure you that I felt like a worm even if the girl had acted automatically without wanting to give a lesson in civics to the unwary and boorish foreign friend.
The secret police required that each stand in the exhibition hall had an interpreter.
A nice girl from Reggio Emilia had happened to us, obviously a member of the Italian Communist Party who had facilitated her presence in Moscow to study at the Lomonosov University.
These interpreters at the end of the day had to draw up a report to the political commissioner telling what they had seen and heard in the eight hours of presence in the stand with the foreign guests.
It was necessary to be very careful and avoid easy jokes about the Moscow disorganization perhaps on the wave of a few glasses of vodka. It was mainly the French who had been expelled from the Soviet Union in a few hours for having said who knows what in their pavilion at the fair.
Our nice spy interpreter from Reggio Emilia told us that the Italian comrades were not much loved by the Soviet population, as they arrived with suitcases full of super-used clothing which they then resold at a high price using the illegal exchange with the ruble.
In the Moscow of those years, everything worked out anyway: if you arrived at a hotel restaurant and maybe it was after nine, you would find doors closed and inflexible managers. But the doors, the managers, the kitchen and everything else would start up again as soon as you loosened a large tip.
Often if you became friends with some Muscovites you were asked to go to one of the various Berioska-birch trees (where foreigners could buy for dollars) to get something they would never find in state shops. And they gave you the dollars to do it.
For those who had to stay in Moscow for a long period of time, life was not very easy.
Foreign journalists were forced to live in the district controlled by military sentry boxes in Kutuzovsky Prospekt.
Those who went to visit them had to issue passports to the policemen at the gate. Inside the apartments it was known that every conversation would be recorded and so it was best to turn the volume on the turntable to maximum.
There were many dramatic stories they told you: every journalist got open air tickets because in case there was some illness it was better to jump out of the Soviet Union.
The women remembered hallucinatory stories of gynecological wards where only a pair of rubber gloves was used for intimate visits to patients. That pair of gloves was used throughout the dormitory.
The toilet paper they had to buy in Helsinki in Finland.
Great success could be had if one got a pack of the Italian singer Celentano records and women's stockings that cannot be found in Moscow.
Every time you went out to buy something you had to get an 'avos'ka', the net bag to make daily barters by exchanging anything with your neighbor. On each floor of the hotel there was an official who checked that no women were brought into the room. Behind the homage of a pair of socks and a Celentano LP, an elephant could also enter the room.
One evening, in the hotel, I approached the orchestra stage which obviously played only Russian folk tunes and I started a conversation with the head of the band, a nice saxophonist. When I told him I was a former Italian professional singer he asked me to sing something with them. I asked them if they knew any American standards. He smiled smugly and we agreed on 'The Lady is a Tramp' which we performed together as if we'd been dating for who knows how long. Big applause from the many people present. They played fantastic.
Every time I returned to Moscow I did not fail to bring a box of reeds for his instrument to his saxophonist friend as they were nowhere to be found and he was forced to scratch the old ones in order to continue playing.
In Red Square every day you ran into an endless queue of Soviet citizens who wanted or had to parade in front of Lenin's mummy. To avoid spending a few hours in the Moscow polar cold it was enough to arrive at the police control at the entrance declaring "italijanski delegazia" and they miraculously let you pass.
To enter the Kremlin museum you had to stop in the vestibule to wear canvas overshoes so as not to damage the wooden floors.
In that environment there were some signs with the words: "no smoking". Those signs were written only in Italian.
_______________________________________________________ Oscar:
I'm always fascinated by your lovely stories and realize that our lives have paralleled one another in many ways. I went to Moscow in 1974 when I was an aide to U.S. Senator J. Glenn Beall, Jr. of Maryland. He was on the commerce committee and the U.S. was doing a grain deal with the Soviets at the time. We stayed in the Rossia which was apparently under construction when you were there nearly a decade before. We were watched, followed, and guided every step of the way. At one point I met the director of the Kirov Ballet in a bar, we managed to converse in each other's limited German, and he confessed that his dream was to live in Rome where he believed that the Italian Communists had the right approach. But I had also been a musician before being drafted during Vietnam and did make a point of searching out musical groups to a very limited extent in Moscow. Didn't realize you were also a singer and now I'm back to music playing lead trumpet for two local big band jazz groups where your "Lady is a Tramp" would fit in perfectly. One of these days we'll have to get together if you're ever back in DC and we'll swap stories. Enjoy your blog.
Paul Paolicelli
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Oscar,
What a great read. Thank you.
All the best,
Grant R. Berning
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WOW! You were in Moscow in 1965...
I was there only a few days in August 1991, to take the Trans-Siberian train to Irkutsk (Lake Baikal), and from there the trans-Manchurian to Beijing, for a long journey through the Gobi desert, up to Kazakhstan before returning to Moscow.
Almost 30 years after your trip, it was still very difficult to travel to and across Russia. Individual tourism wasn’t usually allowed, only groups could apply for a visa to cross the country and enter China. We were a couple and after a lot of paperwork (listing in our visa application ALL the places we would stop for a quick visit and get back on board during the long trip), eventually succeeded. Upon landing at the airport we were escorted by the police to a central hotel (of their choice) where the minute we were in our room, the telephone rang and, sure enough, it was a lady who wanted to talk with Andrea, my partner! Just like you described.
The few days we spent in Moscow were quite difficult: in that period the USSR was breaking up and they were starting to pull down lots of statues, first and foremost those of Lenin, with tanks and armored vehicles on the streets.
The day we had to take the train we were escorted from the hotel to the station, and literally put on the trans-Siberian train. The police didn’t leave until the train had left the station (we could see them from the window). During the whole time of interaction, they didn't say a single word. I wonder whether anything has changed since my trip....
Thanks for sharing with all of us your adventures!
Love from Los Angeles,
Emanuela Appetiti
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caro Oscar
grazie dei bei ricordi moscoviti che mi mettono malinconia...noi con Bruno abitavamo al famoso Kutusovsky Prospekt con le garitte militari ,felici di aver trovato un miniappatrtamento assegnatoci dal MID dopo lunghi mesi di parcheggio all'hotel Ukraina dove non c'era la cucina,,accanto a noi abitava nelle stesse condizioni,il Nunzio Apostolico,im perpetua attesa di ottenere un alloggio del suo livello..durante la notte le famose fanciulle di cui parlavi lo importunavano bussando alla porta/anche alla nostra../erano gli anni '90 e vedemmo scendere dal Cremlino la bandiera dell'URSS sostituita con quella della Russia,,poi una mattina all'alba sotto le nostre finestre sul Kutuzovskij c'erano i carri armati..e arrivo' Eltsin ,tempi difficili ma che ora quasi rimpiango!!speriamo di ritrovarci presto da qualche parte..intanto approfitto per augurarvi un buon Thanksgiving con i ragazzi,,,qui siamo tutti separati e impauriti,un abbraccio a te e Franca
Renata
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