I was rarely there on business and sometimes on holiday. Most often I was “exploring” places I was not allowed to be. The Soviet Union, including the previously independent countries it occupied, had strict limits on where one could go and when. Let’s just say I considered those limits to be more like “guidelines”.
The following paragraphs summarize some of the my experiences. A few had some potential for “incidents”; others involved irony or curious interaction
East Germany/East Berlin – Post-War Germany was administered by “The Allies”: the French, British, Americans, and by the Russians. The Russian part—”East Germany”—had rigid, guarded borders. Berlin, situated like an island within East Germany, was similarly divided and governed by a council of those four occupying nations.
However, when the flow of Berliners from the brutally governed Russian Sector became too large and embarrassing, the “Reds” built twelve-foot, nine-inch-thick wall to contain the folks unlucky enough to live in that sector. In addition, escape from the East was impeded by landmines and menacing, heavily armed guard towers. That all started in 1961; The Wall stood as a frightening symbol of oppression for nearly thirty years.
I drove across East Germany into West Berlin at least six times. The route was prescribed. No deviation nor interaction with East German citizen/captives was allowed. Regardless, I decided to have a look at a typical East German town. It didn’t take long to realize that my modern, silver Ford Taunus looked like an Apollo spacecraft compared to the decrepit, fume-belching Russian Ladas and East German Trabants. (Trabant bodies were made of pressed layers of paper and glue. Stories abound about pigs and mice eating the car bodies if the vehicles were kept too long in confined storage.)
In the forbidden town, I got astonished looks from townsfolk. Then they started pointing and shouting. When I saw an official-looking black Lada with markings, I decided it was time to get out of Dodge-burg.
West Berlin was a thriving, bustling city with modern conveniences and even a trendy nightlife. The food and shopping were fabulous…and expensive. It was like a German Paris. (That comparison would make any French person vomit.)
Tourists and family members from West Berlin could get a day-pass to enter East Berlin. On entry, they were closely scrutinized by humorless East German guards. “Checkpoint Charlie” was the main point of entry and return. All visitors had to remain within the city limits and exit East Berlin before 10:00 pm.
In contrast with swanky West Berlin, East Berlin was a bullet-riddled, decaying city; it was dark, depressing, and dirty. The streets had been cleared of the war’s rubble, but many buildings were still in disrepair. The people looked, dressed, and and acted like prisoners. Shop shelves were bare and transportation was confined to lumbering busses, a run-down trolly system, and a few shabby cars.
On one of my trips into East Berlin, I joined a business friend named Ian. We walked around the city, and we noted the sites we had seen in old films, most notably the heavily-damaged Reichstag…the former seat of government. Newsreels show victorious Russian soldiers atop the Reichstag waving Russian flags. Eventually we bored of viewing squalor, so we boarded a train east; we didn’t know where it was going, and this outing wasn’t in the East Berlin tourbook.
On the train, I tried to chat (German) in low tones with a local woman about living conditions. She gave me a frightened look and said she could say nothing.
Ian and I got off the train after an hour. We were hungry. The small town was drab, and the shops had little to offer. We sat in a cafe—the only customers—and the German proprietor was friendly, and he served us snacks and juice. He could tell we were “not from around there”, but he didn’t react negatively.
Then we walked the few blocks to the center of town. Uh oh! A platoon of East German uniformed soldiers was setting up an anti-American rally. A PA system was being tested; numerous crude anti-American placards had been mounted around the city square. Because of our haircuts and clothes, we knew we stood out, so we moved on quickly.
We walked a bit more, then we decided to head back to East Berlin. It was 6:00pm. At the tiny train station we asked about train departures. The LAST train for the day was arriving/leaving in fifteen minutes. Whoa! Had we missed that, we would have been classified as fugitives when the border’s deadline passed.
When the train came into view, we were relieved to be heading back. We climbed aboard the train, but we nearly panicked to see the train loaded with East German military officers. We managed to find seats across from each other, but Ian and I stayed silent the whole trip, not wanting to expose the fact that we were Westerners. I could have handled a simple conversation in German—Ian could not—but my accent would have screamed Auslander! (Foreigner!)
The trip seemed to last hours, yet none of the officers initiated a conversation. Perhaps they were just bored and glad to be heading home.
At the station in East Berlin, we stepped off the train and started jogging to the border. We got there at 9:30pm: a half-hour to spare. We were winded and sweaty, and we received some sideways looks from the border guards, but we were processed through Checkpoint Charlie. Once in the West, we stopped at a bar and chugged a couple—okay, many—beers.
Moscow – As part of my job, I had to recruit a person to manage the Russian distributors for our company’s products. Gorbachev was in charge, but Russia was still “the Evil Empire”, so Westerners still had to tread lightly.
In Istanbul, our European Distributor Manager and I interviewed a capable Russian national who we eventually hired to be our “Rep’ Manager” in Moscow. Weeks later, I met up again with the Russian (“Vlad”) in Moscow to set up/file our business documents, rent office space, etc. I carried a LOT of dollars—Western currencies opened many doors in Moscow—and we used my American Express card liberally. All seemed to work due his knowledge of “the back doors into doing business in Russia”.
In my free time, I was a tourist. On Moscow’s dusty, potholed streets, Marlboro cigarette hard-packs were the second-favorite currency. After struggling to attract taxis by holding out two fingers—peace-sign style…the local method—I was told that a pack of Marlboros in that same hand/gesture would result in screeching brakes. Yup. Many doors were opened with Marlboros.
At the Bolshoi ballet, a gorgeous Russian woman approached me during the intermission and asked if I wanted to go to her place. I had the good sense to decline. I later saw her with another, older American businessman inside a “Westerners Only” shop. He was buying her tons of western goods. Looking back, I am confident she was a KGB agent. Mr. Big-Bucks—the patsy who accepted her offer—may STILL be living a life defined by Russian blackmail.
Back to business. Eighteen months later and after I had moved back to the States, a briefcase with ten thousand dollars in cash went missing somewhere between our European Distributor Manager and Ivan, our Russian employee. I know that at least one of them got fired.
On another trip to Russia, I bought some military items—insignia, hats, flags—at a street market. At the airport for my departure, I was stopped by a burly Russian officer who checked my bags. He confiscated the Russian military stuff and started talking at me in pigeon-English.
“Kootish banglong,” said Big Ivan. I assumed I was under arrest, and I was feeling something pucker below my belt, backside. I said, “Puzhaluysta?” (“Please?”), and he repeated his gibberish. After four of these exchanges and with beads of sweat oozing down my temples, I got it. He was just trying to use a few English words with me, properly said as ”Good evening.” “Oh, sank you, my comrade,” I croaked. “Very goot Anglishh”. Why was I talking with a goofy accent?
He smiled, and I moved on…to the men’s room.
On that same trip, our group was scheduled to view Lenin’s body in its small tomb at Red Square. The night/early morning before that, I shared a full bottle of Stoli’ with two others. One was a Russian local who we smuggled into our Westerners-only hotel, and we solved the world’s geopolitical problems. Getting ready for the Lenin visit, I was in very bad shape. It was the worst hangover ever. Fortunately, the “floor ladies” helped me. They were plump, babushka-wearing ladies who sat at desks on every floor to monitor guests. On that morning they were angels, and they brought me soup and some curious-smelling elixor.
Thanks to them, I made it to the bus and to the “Dead Communist Tour”. I concluded, however, that Lenin looked a lot better than me on that day. After the viewing, I bolted from our group, caught a taxi—Oh thank you Marlboro—and I stumbled back to our hotel and into my bed.
Hungary – In Budapest, I again I bought some local items, this time small antiques: a clock, some frames, a small oil painting. I also met up with an autograph collector and bought a photo signed by First-Cosmonaut (and first man in space) Yuri Gagarin. And again at the border, this time by car, I got caught.
The Hungarian guards searched the car and found the wooden items and the painting. In German worse than mine, they informed me that it was illegal to take “antiquities” out of Hungary. Fortunately, this looked more like a confiscation than an arrest, but I wasn’t sure.
As they started to pull my treasures from the trunk, I retrieved the Gagarin autograph and some Hungarian currency…Forints. They were very impressed with the signature and the 1,000 Forints I slipped them. Yep, I pulled out big money. They let me keep everything, and it only cost me about $5.50.
On another occasion in Budapest, I climbed into the back seat of a four-door Lada, and I shut my door. As I sat, I wrapped my hand around the center post between the doors; oops, the front door was still open. After my friend climbed in front, he closed the door on my hand. Not to worry: the Russian car’s tolerances were so bad, that neither the door nor the door jamb left a mark on may fingers. I wondered to myself, “With this sh*tty craftsmanship, how did the Russians beat us to space?”
Czechoslovakia – Prague is now a world-class city, but during the Cold War it was soot-covered and depressing. From our hotel window, the city’s skyline looked like a horror/fantasy movie set. Wife Julie called it, “Gotham City”.
On the street, I was often mistaken for a German, and locals would whisper “Wechsel?” as they passed. That means “Exchange”: they wanted to exchange Czech Koruna for dollars. They could buy otherwise-unavailable products on the black market with western currency. I would always say “no”…wanting to avoid the illegal practice. I already had a room; a cell in a Russian-operated gulag didn’t appeal.
Nothing involving potential trouble happened during Prague visits, probably because I didn’t break any laws. But I had an interesting, related “brush-with-fame” experience. Shirley Temple Black—the child star-turned-diplomat—was appointed in early 1989 by President George W. Bush to be Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Folks in “Soviet Satellite Countries” were rebelling…testing the resolve of Russia’s new leadership. Ms. Black ultimately helped facilitate the “Prague Spring” which lead to Czechoslovakia’s release from the Evil Empire.
Back to early ‘89: Ms. Black’s full-time residence was in Woodside, California, not far from our company. Knowing that, I sent a letter asking her to be a celebrity guest at a Management Speaker Series at our company headquarters in Mountain View, California.. (I did that with a lot of other celebrities, and many did participate.) I sent the letter just before heading to Europe and a stay in Czechoslovakia.
Here’s the irony: on the day I was in Prague and actually looking at the American Embassy building (the exterior of HER office), Shirley Temple Black called MY office in California to personally tell me that she regretted that, due to her new assignment, she could not participate in the Speaker Series. My coworkers were thrilled to talk with her, and they said she was very cordial. Glad for them. (Drat!)
Ukraine – I participated in a “cultural exchange” which took a group of American Human Resource professionals to a few European places including Kiev, Ukraine. Although this was still during the Cold War, we had no problems with “the occupiers”. We did have an interesting session with, supposedly, the top thinkers in the Ukrainian HR world.
A nice fellow passed out copies of his book. It had just been published, and he was keen to share with us his state-of-the-profession insights. As he started talking, we (the audience) started flipping through the pages of his book. We saw different shaped heads and body types and facial types.
These differences, he stated, were “markers” for better or worse employment candidates. He moved quickly to summarize chapters and provide his “analysis”. To a group of respected American HR Professionals, he might as well have been describing witches, curses, and potions. We were so incredulous, we asked many questions to determine if we were misunderstanding his thesis. Nope. “People with round heads and dark hair make the best employees. Square-faced blonds, not so much.”
The pretty African-American HR pro’ next to me whispered, “I can only imagine what he has to say about me.” Fortunately, she was smiling; we all knew he was an idiot. We were polite, and we kept the books he gave us…only to show the folks back home how backward some so-called HR Professionals were,
Estonia – The HR cultural-exchange group moved on to Tallinn, Estonia. The locals disliked the Russian occupiers so much that they refused to put Russian Orthodox churches on city maps. It was a wonderful piece of passive-aggressiveness, but it was a problem for us tourists: cathedrals serve as great landmarks.
Another shame, we missed a local uprising against the Russians by less than a week. As with the “Prague Spring”, citizens of Soviet-occupied cities could see the collapse coming. And it emboldened them. Riots and protests took place. We were told that the city hall, a place we visited, had been taken over by pro-independence activists the previous week. Drat #2. Missed it.