1df8ca99   
   XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   XPost: soc.culture.nordic, soc.culture.baltics   
   From: holman@mappi.helsinki.fi   
      
   In article , David Friedman   
    wrote:   
      
   > In article   
   > ,   
      
   >   
   > I read the book _The Russians_, written, if I remember correctly, by a   
   > U.S. reporter (or two reporters?) who had been Moscow correspondent for   
   > the New York Times.   
      
   The author was Hedrick Smith. I've had a few beers with him when he was   
   visiting Helsinki.   
      
   The manner in wich I came to meet him is extraordinary, and is worth   
   recounting.   
      
   I am a graduatre of the Bronx High School of Science (class of 1962), a   
   famous New York high school, many of whose graduates eventually wound up   
   living abroad, temporarily or permanently.   
      
   I have lived in Finland since 1966.   
      
   One day, probably in 1973, I was walking along a street, Bulevardi, in   
   Helsinki, when the female member of a couple walking from the opposite   
   direction stared at me incredulously, her eyes almost popping out. She   
   said: "Eugene Holman, what the *hell* are you doing in Helsinki!?" Ely,   
   the lady, was a former high school classmate. She had married a diplomat,   
   was stationed in Moscow, and was in Helsinki for the first time on a   
   shopping trip. After recovering from the shock, we agreed to have dinner   
   and drinks that evening at a local restaurant, and Hedrick, also in   
   Helsinki on a shopping trip, was also one of the guests.   
      
   As a reporter who tried to understand the USSR by going native to the   
   extent that was possible, he learned how the USSR worked at the grassroots   
   level. Quite differently than a western country, but efficiently enough to   
   provide most of its citizenry with a guaranteed lower middle-class   
   standard of living if they played along and did not rock the boat.   
      
   > It was a very interesting description of a society   
   > different in a variety of ways from its image in the U.S. at the time.   
   >   
   > I suspect yours would be too.   
      
   It would be indeed, but Hedrick knew it inside and out, my hands-on   
   experience was limited to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Tallinn.   
      
   The most extraordinary thing that ever happened to me in the USSR occurred   
   in 1989. Every summer since 1985 I had chaparoned and guided exchange   
   students, mostly from the USA, who had spent a summer in Finland ad then,   
   before returning to their home countries, made a four-day trip to   
   Leningard, just to experience the difference.   
      
   One Saturday afternoon, as we were leaving the Russian Museum, one of the   
   boys in our group complained of severe stomach pains. When we got to the   
   gigantic Pribaltiyskaya Hotel, where we were to have lunch, we took him to   
   the hotel's first aid station. The physician in charge examined the boy   
   and said that she suspected accute appendicitis. We ordered an ambulance,   
   and the boy, I, and a few of his closest buddies, were taken across town   
   to the hospital that specialized in dealing with foreigners. The doctor   
   there was competent, but her English was limited to 'pain', 'yes', 'no'. A   
   quick examination showed that the hotel physician had been correct. The   
   boy had accute appendicitis and had to be operated on immediately,   
   otherwise there was the possibiity of it repturing and him dying.   
      
   The hospital, which looked more like a medieval dungeon than a health care   
   facility and had a large graveyard next to it, did not inspire confidence.   
   Needless to say, the poor kid almost went ape when he got there and saw   
   the facility. I tried to get the telephone number of the local American   
   consulate, but was initially told that it was classified information. I   
   was told laterthat a pack of cigarettes or a few dollars would have   
   provided the information. Eventually they relented, and I went off to the   
   center of Leningrad to the meet the American consul. The consul, who lived   
   in a sumptuous flat in central Leningard, assured me that these types of   
   incidents happened all the time. He helped me access a secret telephone   
   line that allowed me to telephone the kid's parents in Michigan. I will   
   never forget the conversation:   
      
   Eugene: Hello, this is Eugene Holman, the guide for the Youth for   
   Understanding trip to leningrad. I have some unpleasant, but not horrible   
   or tragic, news for you about your son, Gil.   
      
   Mom: What????   
      
   Eugene: Well, he came down today with accute appendicitis and will have to   
   be operated on. We are due to leave tomorrow, Sunday, and will have to   
   leave him behind. The local American consulate has marine guards who will   
   go to see him daily and monitor his progress. Getting him back to Finland   
   will be a problem, though.   
      
   Mom: I'm going to come immedtately. Can you let me speak to the local   
   consular official?   
      
   Eugene: Of course. I'm sure this will work out alright. Goodbye.   
      
   Gil was operated on that evening, and everything went well. Our official   
   Intourist guide, Svetlana, made sure that we diverged from out schedule   
   and visited Gil in the hospital Sunday morning before our departure.   
   Soviet-American relations were smooth enough back then that Gil's mother   
   was granted a special visa and was in Leningrad on Monday evening. Gil and   
   his mom flew to Finland on Thursday. Since nobody in the hospital spoke   
   English, I had left Gil a Russian-English-Russian dictionary. Pedant that   
   I am, I had insisted on teaching my captive audience in the bus on the way   
   to Leningrad the cyrillic alphabet, so Gil was not at a total loss when   
   using the dictionary. The hospital itself, completely on its own   
   initiative, dug up an intern who had recently spent a year in the United   
   States on a Soviet-American academic exchange to visit Gil once a day,   
   speak English with him, and calm down a kid who was initially totally   
   terrified.   
      
   This was a very difficult time in the USSR, and people were concerned with   
   far greater problems than an Amerian kid whose appendix was acting up.   
   With the exception of the hospital officials who initially tried to   
   convince me that the telephone number of the American consulate was a   
   state secret and thus inaccessible to me, I met with sympathy, empathy,   
   and a desire to cooperate and help that I will never forget. The   
   experience demonstrated to me that even people living in a "dictatorship"   
   ­ if the USR was that any more in 1989 ­ are people, with the same   
   everyday concerns and problems that people have everywhere else.   
      
   Regards,   
   Eugene Holman   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)