A Midwinter's Journey to the Soviet Union

Monday, March 24

I had been standing about two-and-a-half hours, making incremental movements forward toward the Soviet customs agent every fifteen minutes.

Although when I first joined the line I felt nervous, by the time the customs official motioned me to enter the next area I was considerably calmer. The three or four people in front of me went through customs quickly, without any search. The procedure seemed rather simple: the official took the passport, visa, looked at the customs declaration, asked for the cash or gold jewelery for verification, and the person stepped into Moscow.

My turn finally arrived. I put my bags in the platform to the left of the official. He asked me for passport, visa, customs declaration. After glancing at my passport, he withdrew a paper with numbers listed on it, studied it for a few minutes, and told me to put my suitcase on the table-top directly in front of him. I opened it, and he began removing items at a very slow pace, lingering over some of his finds such as the kosher bubble-gum cigarettes, an art book, music tapes, and matzah.

As he discovered the matzah, and soon after, a book on Jewish mysticism, he began muttering, "ah, Jewish, Jewish, Jewish" repeatedly--both to me and to my suitcase. After making a neat stack on the table of the books and tapes, he opened my duffle-bag and repeated the same procedure. The process continued as he attacked my two carry-on pieces. He found a prayer-book in Hebrew, my address book and some letters my mother had written me. The same litany, "Jewish, Jewish, Jewish," began again as he flipped through the prayer-book, and as he opened and skimmed the cards.

When he finished strewing my belongings on the table, he called over two other officials to scrutinize the books, tapes, letters, and magazines in the pile. A few minutes passed. Some words in Russian were exchanged, and my books, tapes, magazines--the whole pile--returned to my bag. I tossed the rest of my belongings randomly into my luggage, zipped them, and dragged them outside to join my friends.

We were a group of six women, and I was the fifth to pass through customs. We all watched, through the glass window, as our friend tossed her clothing, granola bars, and miscellaneous paraphernalia into her huge duffle bag. We were travelling to the Soviet Union to visit refuseniks, peace activists, and the wives of prisoners of conscience. Most of these people are considered less than "ideal" Soviet citizens, and, thus, not proper material for visits by foreigners. Although our intended visits were within legal boudaries, they certainly were not encouraged by Soviet authorities, and could possibly have endangered people whom we saw.

After customs we were transported to Hotel Intourist in the heart of Moscow. After checking in, and eating dinner, we walked to Red Square to telephone refuseniks, and make plans for the following day.

At midnight, the air was biting. Our contacts had been made. After watching the changing of the guard in front of Lenin's tomb, and digesting the impressive splendor of St. Basil's Cathedral we returned in pairs to the hotel.

Tuesday, March 25

During the trip, we always worked in pairs. Melissa Milgram '88 and I visited families together in the first two cities on our itinerary, Moscow and Riga. We did not have any plans that first night to meet refuseniks until 7:30 p.m. and spent the day on a tour of Moscow and at the Pushkin Museum.

Finally, we arrived at the Metro station where we were to meet our contact. We waited for a short man walking with a stick. After a few minutes, a man strolled diagonally across the area outside of the Metro. We approached him and, with only a few words passed, followed his lead and silently reached his apartment.

Like tens of thousands of other refuseniks, the Luries had applied for, and been denied, emigration from the USSR. Their case was unique, though. They had initially been granted exit visas in January 1980, a year after their first application. Three days before their expected departure date, however, Emmanuel Lurie was summoned to OVIR, the Office of Visas and Registration, and informed that his family's exit visas had been cancelled for reasons of "state security." His wife's mother, who had applied with the Luries, was allowed to emigrate, and she now lives alone in Israel.

After warm greetings, embraces, and offers of tea, we sat down to talk with the Luries--Emmanuel, Judith and their two daughters, 10-year-old Bella and 18-year-old Anna. Emmanuel was expelled from his job as an organic chemist and now has a job in the agriculture industry where he said he was very frustrated. Judith, trained as an English teacher, is not employed. The Luries are in a position typical for refuseniks--after applying for visas they frequently are expelled from their jobs or demoted to lower positions in the same occupation. During our trip we met many mathematicians, metereologists, chemical engineers, who now work as boiler-men, photo-developers and bookkeepers. Similarly, school administrators usually expelled students, whose parents applied for emigration, from universities, institutes and high schools.

The Luries were glad to see us and said they hadn't had visitors for about three months. Over dinner, we talked about nuclear arms, Central America, housing in the USSR. Like other refuseniks they were not hopeful about their future. Since 1979, the Soviet Union has clamped down on Jewish emigration. The 1979 emigration high of 51,320 fell to a 1139 low in 1985.

By the time we left, we had exchanged addresses and hugs. We felt very close to the Luries. With only a limited time to meet these people, the usual process of developing a friendship accelerated, and emotional bonds solidified rapidly.

Two others in our group had more problems reaching their ultimate destination. After more than three paranoid hours riding the Moscow subways, Shoshana Robinson '86 and Rebecca Sheridan '86, lost and discouraged, decided to try one last address. They followed directions to the very outskirts of the city, found the apartment building and rang the bell.

A white-haired man with owlish glasses opened the door, took one look at the two Americans with over-stuffed knapsacks, and said softly, "Welcome." Yureii Medvedkov took their coats, and offered them tea. A glance around the living-room, accompanied by Yureii's explanations in English, gave visual evidence of the Medvedkov's many friends in the West. Dozens of familiar American "no-nukes" bumper-stickers were pasted to the walls and bookshelves. Hanging on the wall above the couch were two patch-work sections from the "women's peace ribbon," a five-mile long needlework collection which was wrapped around the Pentagon and other Washington buildings last summer in a symbolic statement against nuclear armament.

The Medvedkovs, Yureii and his wife Olga, are members of an unofficial Soviet peace group, The Moscow Group to Establish Trust Between the U.S. and the USSR. Their goal is disarmament, and they see "trust-building" as the best hope for peace. The group has a core of 11 people, with about 1000 supporters who have at different times attended their seminars and discussions.

In the Soviet Union anything "unofficial" is basically illegal--only the government's own "peace group" is sanctioned. Consequently, members of the Medvedkov's group are harassed by the government, which tries to discredit them as "anti-Soviets." Many have been subjected to arrest or forced detainment in psychiatric hospitals, where they undergo dangerous chemical and physical abuse.

That night, Dina Zisserman joined the group at the Medvedkovs. Dina's husband Vladimir Brodsky, a surgeon and neurocardiologist, is serving a three-year sentence in a labor camp under charges of "malicious hooliganism." His "crimes" include standing in front of the Academy of Sciences building with a sign that read, "No one will survive a nuclear winter." Once in prison, Brodsky began a hunger strike in protest of his imprisonment, and his health rapidly deteriorated. Officials offered to release him if he renounced the Trust Group; he refused.

Yureii and Olga Medvedkov, Dina Zisserman, and many other members of the group are also refuseniks. To Yureii Medvedkov, the right to emigrate is one of a broad slate of human rights that are indivisible from peace activism. "To be a peace activist is a right," he insists. Refuseniks, by applying to leave have already crossed into a realm of dissent which sets them apart from ordinary Soviet citizens. While simply wanting to leave is not usually considered dissent in Western countries, a desire to leave is considered tantamount to treason in the Soviet Union. As a result refuseniks are in a difficult position. They are not usually dissent activists, yet they no longer keep up an appearance of complacency with the system.

We all came back to the hotel, but most frustrating of all was not being able to share our experiences, and discoveries among ourselves. Seeing what we suspected were electric bugs on the ceiling restrained our conversation. We asked each other, "how were the museums?" As each pair responded, "oh, the museums were wonderful, much better than we ever expected," we knew the day had gone well.

Wednesday, March 26

By 1 p.m. we had arrived in Riga, the capital of Latvia. The official guide at the hotel informed us that "lunch was at two, excursion at three, and dinner at six." By 7 p.m. we were out to meet another family. Melissa and I linked arms, as much to appear inconspicuous as for reassurance and security, and walked down Lenina Street looking for our first family.

We found the correct address without much difficulty and were taken to Lev Fabricant's home. Lev opened the door of his home, greeted us with "shalom," and quickly introduced us to his wife Olga, and their two children, Eli and Leah. In their living room, decorated with a couch, a few chairs and a crib, we spoke.

Lev and Olga have been waiting for visas for about six years. In these six years, they have become the leaders of Jewish activity in Riga. They hold seminars on historical, cultural and religious topics attended by about 20 to 25 people. The whole group consists of about 100 people. Olga told us that in November their home was searched for about 10 hours, and many important books and religious articles confiscated.

The conversation turned to politics, President Reagan, Central America, the arms race and Israel. Although we conversed freely on all these issues, when we asked for details about other refuseniks in Riga, prisoners in labor camps, and recent arrests Lev's voice fell to a low whisper and he removed a "magic slate" from the wall. He wrote what he could not speak onto the board and then erased the words. He gave me the names of people in Riga who wanted invitations from Israel and the names of refuseniks who wanted visitors. My discomfort and surprise at watching adult men and women use toys meant for children disappeared as I saw the "magic slate" among many other families during that week. We left after midnight and quickly returned to Hotel Latvia, and to our room that overlooked a church that had been converted to a planetarium.

Monday, March 31

After almost two days in Riga, a managably small city, Leningrad struck us as sprawling, huge, and complex. We switched teams in Leningrad; by 2 p.m. Rebecca Sheridan and I set off. Three hours later we were sitting with Misha Borlov and his family. Borlov's name has been changed. He is a scientist who was expelled from his job after applying for a visa in 1980. A few years later, officials voted to strip him of his Doctor of Science degree because of his "anti-political activity." Similarly, his wife, a chemist, is now unemployed. His daughter Marina, a bright woman who reads English literature voraciously, now baby-sits full time. Before applying to leave, she was studying chemical engineering; the university failed her and forced her to leave school.

Over dinner the conversation wandered from discussion of John Irving, Faust, and palm-reading, to recent arrests of Hebrew teachers in I eningrad, strategies to increase emigration, other minorities' problems in the USSR, and the Borlovs' personal frustration over their situation. He said, "we are like birds in a cage--we can go anywhere within the 17 Soviet Republics, but nowhere else." The Borlovs have not received mail in two months; they know that friends abroad as well as from inside the Soviet Union have been writing. Despite this isolation, and continued restrictions on their ability to work and study, the Borlovs were not bitter. We saw them once again on Sunday, and Misha told us with a mixture of hope and pessimism, that, once again, he was filing applications for visas on Monday.

Friday, March 28

As the Borlovs submitted their applications once again, we trudged through muddy streets looking for another address. We ascended an unlit staircase and knocked on a door. A man with dark hair tumbling over a youthful face opened the door, looking first surprised and then very happy. Flustered because he had not shaved, and was wearing a ragged t-shirt, Sergy, whose name has been changed, rushed off to change clothes, leaving us in a tiny sitting-room.

The door opened and a girl entered. "This is my daughter," Sergy called from another room. We met the 16-year-old Natasha who told us that she wants to be an artist. Later Sergy told us, trying to hide the tears in his eyes, that he fears for Natasha's future: "What if she fall in love? She can only marry Jewish, and among Jewish, only refusenik. But what if she fall in love with someone else? It is going to be tragic for her."

Other Russians and Jews, fearing guilt by association, will have nothing to do with them. This family has been trying to emigrate for six years, and no longer bothers to apply for an exit visa every six months. "When the children were young, it was not so bad. We had hope that we can leave. But now, it has been such long time. What if we have to stay here for rest of our lives?" Next year. Natasha will apply to a university, and her parents fear that continued visa applications will hurt her chances of being accepted.

A few minutes later another reason for Sergy's apprehension became apparent. Olga, eight-years-old, burst into the room, grinning at us, cager to pose for a picture. Her mother explained to us that Olga is "very gifted in everything." When Olga sat down at the piano and began to play one of her compositions, we realized that her mother's words reflected more than parental pride.

Olga has a piano teacher who does not know that Olga is a refusenik, and both parents fear that if the teacher finds out, she will cut off the lessons. And further visa applications could cause her status to become known to the teacher.

Later we asked them why, if the Soviet authorities hate Jews so much, don't they just allow them all to emigrate? Sergy gave us two reasons, first that "they keep us to sell." When the Soviets want something from the U.S., for instance the sale of grain, he said they let a few Jews go to "prove" that they are making progress on human rights. Secondly Jewish emigration sets a bad example for other minority groups in Soviet society. In 1979, after large numbers of Jews were allowed to leave, "everyone wanted to emigrate," Sergy said. "It was a bad political mistake, and they will not repeat it."

Our last visit Monday night took us to Lev Blithstein's home at almost 11 p.m. We found an old, sweet man urging us to try Russian candy. He told us that he has been waiting 11 years to join his wife and son abroad, and meet the grandchild whom he has only seen in photographs. After a short talk, Lev led us to a bus stop, embraced us and said with tears in his eyes, "I envy you girls, that you can leave tomorrow morning."