This is an excerpt from my book, The Hidden Europe.
My friend Mimi Wallace told me of her first trip to Russia in 1967. She said, “Our singing group played music at the International Fashion Exhibit. Our playlist was highly restricted. We took an Aeroflot plane from Helsinki to Moscow. It was a Soviet transport plane converted to take regular passengers. The seats faced the sides, not the cockpit. The seats weren’t even screwed down! The takeoff was very interesting!”
I said, “I can imagine you sliding around in your seats. Did they give you food?”
“Our stewardesses were dressed in Army skirts and shirts. We had to hold our food trays on our laps, picnic style. ‘Here, eat,’ the flight attendants said. It was probably the only English they knew. I looked at the mystery meat and said, ‘Mmm, maybe not, but thanks.’”
“How was your hotel?”
“It was one of those ‘modern’ Russian buildings: totally lacking any style. While our guides were ‘checking us in’ (taking away our passports), I was wandering around the lobby. I didn’t see this marble staircase in front of me, and I crashed into it, knocking myself out cold. I was put on a lobby sofa and this very nice lady doctor came to see how I was. She called for ‘vodka,’ which was her cure for a concussion. I drank it right down and asked for a second hit as it was the first liquid I’d had since Finland. She also had a few pieces of chocolate in her pocket. Modern medicine at work!”
“Someday Americans will learn about the magical healing properties of vodka and chocolate.”
“I did feel better after a bit. When I asked if there was anything I could give her in return for her kindness, she pointed to my issue of Time magazine that I had somehow managed to get past customs. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I would like that.’ Time magazine! Oh sure, news from the outside. Who wouldn’t consider that a great gift?”
“How were the rooms?”
“You didn’t get a room key at the Rossiya Hotel. On every floor was a station where a huge Russian woman sat and watched over your every coming and going. She gave you your key (somewhat grudgingly) at your request. And you gave it back to her whenever you left the room. And that meant that whenever you would go across the hall to visit another band member, the huge Russian lady wrote it down and made a phone call! This went on for ten days.”
I said, “I experienced tight hotel security in Russia and Ukraine 40 years after you. But your experience was much more extreme.”
“Yes, we had two personal KGB officers with us most of the time,” Mimi said. “We were told to never sell anything on the street. So what do rebellious New York rock and rollers do? We made a deal with our jeans. It was late at night and we’d been out (illegally) to visit musicians we had met earlier. This was also not allowed, but what the hell. We were alone. We took off our jeans, and then we wrapped our sweaters and jackets around our legs. Then, these two random KGB officers came out of nowhere! Caught naked in Moscow! Yikes!”
“Oh no! What happened next?”
“We made a deal. There were six of us, so we gave the KGB guys three pairs of jeans and the two buyers three pairs of jeans. Everyone went home happy! But try sneaking back into your hotel room past the huge Russian woman without your pants on! Oy vey!”
In Russia, we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: “Turn back at once to Channel One.” — Yakov Smirnoff, Russian comedian
When I asked Mimi about her general impressions of Russia under communism, she said, “Russia was totally grim and depressing. I remember on the street there was a trash can with a broom in it, so I borrowed the broom and posed with it in front of Tchaikovsky’s house. A little babushka ran to me slashing her broom and yelling in Russian. I think during these times Russians were very paranoid, but also completely lacking in a sense of humor.”
Although Mimi abandoned her music career, she dedicated the rest of her life to performing and teaching ballet in New York. I asked her, “So how did your trip end?”
“On the final day of our Moscow visit, I was trying to swat a fly in the bathroom and I stood on the toilet seat to reach it better. Oops! I put a crack in the toilet seat cover. No big deal. I’ll tell the front desk at checkout. Ha, ha, this is not America. The huge Russian woman reported it to the front desk as we were getting ready to leave, and the KGB came to interview me to learn why the toilet seat broke. Really! After trying to explain, I finally got the US State Department to work things out, as Russians were not going to let me leave the country before I paid for the seat.”
“So that’s how it ended?”
“No. We wanted to give the two young KGB officers who had been ‘escorting’ us a gift from America. It was risky, but we gave them an old copy of Dr. Zhivago and a new copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which had just come out. We had smuggled them in our luggage. They were in tears with their thanks. It was a great final goodbye. But I don’t recall giving the huge Russian woman anything. Not a single kopek!”
