The two Russian guys were in their 40s and both spoke perfect English, but other than that they were the odd couple. Gennady Alferenko was lithe, charming, funny and energetic. He had come to America before with a ballet troupe and had found the experience delightful. He was back looking for adventure. His friend, Rustem I. Khairov, was large, pudgy, pale and apprehensive.
My client, benefactor, problem, and friend, Harry Kislevitz, a wealthy American of Russian heritage, had attracted these two. Harry had the concept of establishing a sister-city relationship between his hometown, Santa Barbara, and Yalta in Russia. Gennady and Rustem thought it a worthwhile project and arranged for us to go to Russia. Gennady was friends with Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia at the time, so everything was open to us everywhere. There were no formalities and it was easy for them to take us into strange and interesting places. We flew to Paris then on to Moscow. We booked in to the National Hotel in August, hot and humid, and were surprised that the heated towel racks were further stoking the room. They showed us the Kremlin and Red Square, of course, and GUM, the major department store. But it was the spectacular Saint Basil's Cathedral which just enthralled me. A joyous colorful fancy, so unlike the gloomy Gothics of Europe.
We went to a big red-brick building that looked like a factory from outside and we entered it through an inconspicuous small door. Revealed inside was an Old Believer's Russian Orthodox Cathedral with dozens of gold icons gleaming through smoky layers of age and worship. We were introduced to and blessed by the patriarch of the Old Believers, an old man in high gracious space. This was not the only time we saw the deeply spiritual side of Russia underlying the secular state. At Zagorsk, in an Eighth Century stone chapel, simple clean peasants entered reverently and sang hymns in pure angel's voices.
One evening we went to a women's dress shop full of flashy and expensive clothing. Gennady and Rustem walked right through the store and opened a back door to reveal a large nightclub full of flashy and expensive people drinking and dancing. Russia sometimes seemed like those matryoshka dolls — one inside another, inside another.
Moscow was unexpectedly amazing, but we were on a mission and soon flew Aeroflot south to Simferopol Airport in the Ukraine. We were driven in an escorted limousine which cleared all traffic in our way down to Artek on the Coast. Artek is the camp for the Young Pioneers, which is the Russian version of the Girl and Boy Scouts.
Anne got right in to it with the Young Pioneers and we have a happy picture of her in their midst. I have two favorite memories of Artek and Gurzuf, the village nearby, both right on the Black Sea: In Artek one day our lunch consisted of a large bowl of black caviar, fresh from the Black Sea, with a big spoon in it: help yourself. Perfect ripe local tomatoes, freshly baked black bread and butter (Russian daily goods were better than ours, much to our surprise). On a sunny terrace overlooking the Sea.
I got invited to a sauna in Gurzuf next evening. The way they do it is hot and steamy of course, but you get beaten pleasantly with aromatic leafy shrubs and drink walnut-infused vodka. Followed by a run off the dock and a plunge into the Black Sea. Wow!
Then there was business. I stood in front of the Yalta City Council and got to see the commissars in full regalia: suits and scowls. The official photo behind them was Lenin. Gorbachev was in disgrace and Yeltsin was not yet firmly in control. Lenin was safe. They started out wary and formal. But I had years of negotiating with their Chinese counterparts, who had patterned their system on Russian Communism, so I was relaxed and persuasive. When they actually understood what I was proposing they became friendly and helpful.
They showed me two splendid sites, one in downtown Yalta with an ocean view and another in Livadia Nature Park right on the coast for our Santa Barbara Center. I still have our signed and sealed contract in Russian and in English, full of hopeful phrases, for establishing a Santa Barbara Center, built in an environmentally ideal method, for American tourists and Russian people to enjoy each other's company. I read it now and want to cry; it is so sweet. We all want it.
And then comes Vladimir Putin.
We had no idea of what was coming and left Yalta and the Ukraine in high spirits. Gennady and Rustem wanted to go down south to Russia's vacation playground so we flew to Sochi in Georgia and while there learned what “Georgian Style” meant to Russians. “Georgian Style” is about generosity, about abundance, about flair. About Living Large. The officials there rolled out a lavish feast in a lovely rustic garden trellised with grapevines. The many dishes were exotic, delicious, colorful and served with copious amounts of Georgian champagne in artful blown glasses. A bottle of Georgian champagne was so fine that I took it as my only physical souvenir of the Soviet Union.
Then we drove down to Abkhazia, through Gagra, to Pitsunda, our destination. Pitsunda is a vacation beach town on the Black Sea, the Waikiki of Russia. A shingle beach is ringed by hotels each of which is owned by an industry that rewards its best workers with vacations here. We danced in a roof-top penthouse to the Beatles while a TV was showing a speech by the Prime Minister — ignored by everyone.
We noticed that way down here, almost to Turkey, the people looked, sounded and felt nothing like the residents of Moscow. We also met lots of Russians from Siberia who are Asiatic — the first people in the New World. Russia is the largest country in the world, spanning seven time zones, and from the Ural Mountains west it is Europe and from the Urals east, it is Asia.
So back to Moscow. The wives of Gennady and Rustem joined us. Marina and Svetlana were as delightful as their husbands. When I described our late 60s “back to the land movement,” expecting that our tales of goats and firewood would be exotic to them, Marina said, “That's what we did too! We left the city and went to the farthest away place we could and lived in the woods up near Finland.” They did what we did at the same time — neither of us having any clue about the other.
You know that moment that is so outrageous, so unbelievable that you and your companion just look at each wordlessly in a moment you will always remember? Harry and I are sitting in the luxurious comfort of a ZiL, the limousine that the rulers parade in, on our way to the Pushkin Museum, a long way from Montecito. I had one of the best trips ever in Russia and I couldn't wait to go back, in a Russian Winter I'd imagined.
Then came Vladimir Putin.
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