If your profile occupation is true, and this trip was for work, you almost certainly have more interesting stories than this. Wasn't there a major cold war nuclear scare in 1983? That wasn't you was it? On account of the Russkies seeing a fresh-off-the-plane American wipe his a** with their newspaper of record?
Last edited by bundabergdevil; 03-18-2020 at 09:04 PM.
Well, my visit was not in fact work related, BUT the Russkis definitely suspected me of being up to something, and as such it turns out I was followed everywhere (unbeknownst to me)...back then virtually 100% of visitors had to be part of a package "tour" in which you traveled in a group and got to see little that was real...I was there because a friend of mine had just gotten her PhD in Russian literature from Stanford and was studying at Moscow State University...and, because she had been to the Soviet Union many times, she knew lots of people, so every night I got to hang out with these interesting people, have dinner with them..many were dissidents...after I left several of them were approached by the KGB, asking what I was up to, told them where we had met (we did take circuitous routes thru the subway, etc, but not circuitous enough)...most nights I could detect they'd gone through my clothing (I'd place things in a certain way)...
You can't imagine how heavy handed these KGB types were...one day my student friend went back to her room as she had forgotten a book, and there was a slew of guys inside her room going thru her stuff...brazen...
A year earlier, she had a summer job with the U.S. Dept of State, giving public talks in Moscow (part of some exhibit or something)...she met a lot of people who chatted her up.
One day she spoke with someone briefly, the next day he showed up holding an envelope, gave it to her, and she was immediately grabbed by the KGB, told her she was a spy and had to leave the country.
The State Dept told the Russians "you guys are full of crap," and the Russians said OK, you can stay...really laughable but ugly stuff...
I did a trip by myself from Moscow to Leningrad (st. pete now), long train trip, all by myself...when we got to Leningrad I got off the train kind of wondering how my ultra limited Russian would get me a cab to my hotel, but as I stepped on the platform I was immediately "greeted" by a guy who knew my name and knew exactly where I was on the train, even though there was no assigned seating...very creepy...
Reminds me of my mother's story from when we lived in Seoul. She would often take people up to visit the DMZ/Joint Security Area as our company compound had gotten to know officers stationed there. One of the times she went, she asked if she should stay at the officer's club since she had been up there so many times. They assured her the the North Koreans already had a file on her so staying back wasn't necessary. I always figured they might have had one on me as I went multiple times as well. Fortunately, our surveillance wasn't as up close an personal as yours. (Although she later started working with someone associated with the president on his English. He would come over the the house for those. Wonder if that made it into her file.)
They were very very good at keeping track of people. Utterly paranoid.
One of my first mornings in Moscow (I had to stay in a hotel as they wanted the American dollars, and I had no place else to stay) I was having breakfast (never anything more than very good bread, butter and tea) some guy walks up and
sits down at the table across from me and starts asking me questions...brazen! He asked me what I liked best "about Soviet Union." Nothing came quickly to mind...depressed society in gray and white, crappy food, overt oppression, I finally came up with "Russian chocolate. I like Russian chocolate." He stared at me for about ten seconds, then started laughing and said "Russian Chocolate! Russian Chocolate! Very Clever!"...and away he went.
To get back to laughter, this is absolutely brutal:
Proper social distance.jpg
Duke / carolina is a better rivalry, but UM/tOSU is one of the best in all of sports and the level of contempt between the fanbases far exceeds that of the Devils/heels.
Any thoughts as to why a local Harris Teeter is out of onions? Onions? Really? WTH?
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
queue Bill Raftery
-jk
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?