Whenever we swam out from shore, I would hurry Lora as much as I could, reminding her of Melkumov’s order to return to Moscow no later than five. She just waved me off.
At this time, according to Kunavin, Gribanov was sitting near the receiver, listening to the reports from the scene of the events. They told him about Lora’s swimming. Gribanov couldn’t contain himself any longer and called her a prostitute.
In half an hour the prostitute—or, better yet, the mermaid—got out of the water and somehow got dressed. We got into our cars and continued on to Moscow. We split up at the fork near the Danilov Market. The ambassador took Lora home. Along the way they arranged for him to come see her in forty minutes.
Iurii Krotkov, The KGB in Action
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Upon returning to the embassy, Maurice changed and got a new chauffeur, for some reason. He took Boris, as if realizing that he was more dependable.
As soon as De Jean walked into Lora’s apartment, she showed him a telegram lying around on the table, which she had “received” the day before from her “husband.” The telegram said that he was arriving the next day. At the end it said, “Love, your Misha.” (As might be easily guessed, this was a KGB forgery.)
And what followed would have been unbelievable even in the movies. Only in the Soviet Union, where the KGB was all-powerful, could this take place.
Lora and Maurice, naturally, having been left alone, gave way to human temptation.
Gribanov and Melkumov, pressing up against the speaker, or maybe wearing headphones, were listening to everything going on in the neighboring apartment. Perhaps one of them may have even envied De Jean. But they were waiting for the pre-arranged signal, the code word. Lora herself had come up with this word in the private booth at the restaurant at the Metropole. She had to say the word “Kiev” in some phrase. As soon as she said the word, Gribanov would give Kunavin and Misha the go-ahead. But Lora drew it out and out and out, all but frazzling the remnants of Gribanov’s nerves of steel. And Kunavin and Misha got completely soaked in sweat in their geological expedition gear.
“Kiev!” Gribanov and Melkumov distinctly heard, “Kiev.” Lora had clearly said, “Kiev. . . .”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vladimir Azbel, Siberian Adversity
In the 1970’s the Western press was filled with reports about the “refuseniks.” These were Russian Jews who petitioned the Soviet government for exit visas, principally to Israel. Under fierce international scrutiny, the government acceded, and previously unimaginable numbers of refugees left the country. Vladimir Azbel’s story is set within this period. His very relocation to Irkutsk in Siberia was a direct consequence of his family’s filing papers to leave the USSR. Taken from Vladimir Azbel’, “Dva goda v Sibiri” [Two Years in Siberia]. New York: The New Review, No. 116, September, 1974.
In 1972 I was completing the tenth grade of a secondary school in Moscow. During this time frame, our family submitted the required documents for moving abroad. Three months prior to final examinations, I had to leave school since presenting these documents to OVIR [The Department of Visas and Registration of Foreign Citizens] would have led to immediate expulsion. Now, having become a “refusenik,” I had to decide where and how to continue my education. I began by submitting documentation to the division of external studies and took the final exams for the tenth grade. The next problem was more difficult—entry into an institute. I had long planned to enroll in a medical institute, but this was impossible in Moscow. Column five of the questionnaire impeded this [nationality]. Then, on the advice of relatives and acquaintances living in Siberia, in Irkutsk, I decided to enroll in the Irkutsk Medical Institute. Judging by accounts, there was not as much anti-Semitism there as there was in central Russia. This turned out to be true. Without thinking too long, I bought a plane ticket and after a seven-hour flight, I arrived at the capital of eastern Siberia—Irkutsk.
Vladimir Azbel, Siberian Adversity
307
Irkutsk was the city of my birth. When I was one-and-a-half years old, my family moved to Moscow. We came to Irkutsk twice after that to visit our relatives. During these trips we saw Siberia almost in the way that foreign tourists coming to Lake Baikal see it. The beautiful embankments of the Angara River, several new buildings in the center of town, a trip to Baikal, the new city of Angarsk—all this left a good impression. Now, having been a resident of Irkutsk for two years, I observed other, seamier sides of Siberian life.
I had very many acquaintances in Irkutsk; thus I was able to observe the life of Siberian society. From the beginning it was noticeable that the inhabitants of Siberia differed from those of Russia’s western provinces. It was surprising that no one expressed dissatisfaction with their lives. They considered that everything which occurred was in the scheme of things. Thus, for example, in Angarsk (forty kilometers from Irkutsk), the air was constantly poisoned by gases coming from the chemical plants. There were filtration systems, but they only operated during the week. Saturdays and Sundays were off days. The management went to their dachas. But the factories kept operating in order to fulfill the plans more quickly. The harmful gases were released bypassing the filters. This speeded the process but the people in the city choked. No residents spoke against this openly. Protests were heard only within circles of close friends and relatives. If the air was poisoned by gases, that meant that it was the way it had to be. The majority of the population was convinced of this. Generally speaking, very few people in the Soviet Union voiced their protests openly. The majority preferred to remain quiet. This was particularly noticeable in Siberia.
To this day people in Siberia live in the Stalinist atmosphere of terror before the national security organs. Siberians will never engage a foreigner in conversation and never mention their difficult life in the presence of a stranger.
An asphalt road leads from Irkutsk to Listvianichnyi Bay on Baikal, the part of the lake closest to the city. For forty years, only one boat has traversed Baikal. Even if people do reach distant spots on the lakeshore, only the local taiga dweller or hunter can live there. Therefore, the people of Irkutsk, living only fifty kilometers from the lake, go to the Black Sea for vacation even though in terms of beauty there is nothing comparable to Baikal. The mountain ranges and the taiga of Baikal remain as wild, remote, and unexplored as hundreds of years ago. I made it to places which civilization had not yet reached. There were remote Buriat settlements where people led a nomadic life of cattle-breeding and hunting. They spent months in the saddle returning to their own terrain only in winter.
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Chapter Thirty-Two
I also spent some time in Siberian kolkhozes. Students who were not assigned to construction brigades in the summer were obligated to work on a kolkhoz. Beginning with this year, students were forcibly enrolled in construction gangs. Earlier, when the initial brigades were formed, students signed up willingly, since they could earn some money. Under the compulsory system, students working on the most demanding construction projects received less money than workers. Komsomol leaders announced that students were obligated to help the nation that year in achieving the goals of the five-year plan. Thus, the mandatory “third labor semester” was introduced. Nobody protested, even though many were unhappy. In the USSR students were quiet and cowed. They little resembled western students. Every student knew that it only took a criticism of some injustice on their part to be expelled from the Komsomol. (At the Irkutsk Medical Institute, expulsion from the Komsomol signified automatic expulsion from the institute. Thus, students did not even have a say about their vacations.)