Crossing Boundaries

It has been difficult and sometimes impossible to discuss in a casual fashion my three-and-a-half-week journey to the Soviet Union. It was a compact and concentrated time—the intensity left me reeling. I find I am still sifting through and sorting out memories of my Soviet experiences to understand their meaning and deal with my emotional response. Many months have passed, and I still feel like I ate a large, rich meal that hasn't digested.

Two themes do emerge from the journey: it was an experience of paradox and surprise. Before leaving, I considered myself a sophisticated traveler, informed, prepared, and highly educated about the Soviet Union. I regarded the trip as a fact-finding mission; after years of working on issues of peace and disarmament, I was finally traveling to the Soviet Union.

I intended to probe the hard issues and to press for answers to the questions so often put before me. I packed three large empty notebooks and a ridiculous assortment of pens. I regarded the trip as a journey that would be predominantly an intellectual experience, rather like the way I visit museums—studying each scene with care and then moving on.

The trip was not at all what I expected. Yes, I discussed sensitive issues and asked hard questions. But far more than an intellectual experience, it was a journey of the heart. I did not fill the three notebooks I had so carefully packed, but, almost daily, I played my guitar and sang with newly-made Soviet friends. (My guitar—that cumbersome addition I decided at the last moment to take along!)

How unexpected that "the enemy" would greet us with arms outspread, offer us bouquets of roses, buy us rounds of vodka, toast our children and theirs, and dance until the sun rose over the Volga River. Imagine my surprise when Soviets repeatedly invited us into their homes, served us caviar on bakery bread, stuffed gifts into my purse, and said with feeling: "Come back again, and stay longer." They related to me as an individual, as I related to them. There was a mutual unspoken understanding that each of us was not to be confused with our government's administration.

The experience was also one of deep paradox; things were not always as they seemed. The greatest paradox and,.contrast was the gap between the USSR as "the other great world power" and the standard of living of most Soviet citizens. This is the nation that can produce and deploy SS-20s, the same country in which it is nearly impossible to buy a hairbrush. This nation can match the United States with advanced military technology, but department stores total shoppers' bills with an abacus.

I expected to visit "the other superpower." Instead I found a country that felt far more like the Third World nations I have traveled through. During the entire stay, I kept thinking about the expression so popular in the U.S. peace movement today: "You can't have both guns and butter." The Soviets certainly do have guns, and they certainly do not have butter. Their diet is limited; potatoes, bread, and cabbage are staples. Paper products are hard to find; envelopes are a rare commodity and tissues are non-existent.

This superpower is a poor nation with a struggling economy. The technology created for its advanced weapons systems has not even begun to trickle down to everyday life. Museums in the Tartar Republic exhibit shower heads in the display cases, a proud indicator of modern inventions.

I found a nation in lock-step competition to keep up in the arms race and eager to present Americans as the aggressive enemy. But I also found Soviet people who look to the West with a mixture of envy and awe. Our clothing, our heroes, even our subway chatter fascinated them.

After spending three days exploring Yerevan, in Armenia, with a newly-made Soviet friend, I said to him upon leaving: "Levon, what can I send you from the U.S.Books, poetry, tapes?" After thinking for a long time, Levon finally said in his perfect English: "There is nothing you can send me. You are a window on the West. Just return and talk to me for another three days."

SINCE COMING HOME I have shown my slides and talked about the Soviet Union at numerous engagements. American audiences—whether they are church groups, the Kiwanis Club, university students, or peace organizations—respond to the slides of Soviet people. The beautiful architecture and pastoral scenes interest them less than the blurry shots of Soviet families boating in Gorky Park, old women selling roses on street corners, babies in prams, and lovers in the park. Soviet faces move American people.

Propaganda abounds in both countries. There are myths and stereotypes, untruths and fears. And yet, after seeing 121 slides of Soviet citizens at work at construction sites, in line for apples, performing Siberian dances, and singing alongside Americans, people seemed to come away with a different feeling.

I remember the question posed by Wendell Berry in his poem "To a Siberian Woodsman":
Who has imagined your death negligible to me
now that I have seen these pictures of your face?

Andrea Ayvazian was director of The Exchange Project of the Peace Development Fund in Amherst, Massachusetts when this article appeared. In July and August 1984, she visited the Soviet Union with the Volga Peace Cruise.