Marvin Kalb - The Year I Was Peter the Great - 1956 - Khrushchev, Stalin's Ghost, and a Young American in Russia

On July 23, I drove sixty-five miles on the Leningrad road to Klin, a small town known now as the home of Peter Tchaikovsky, one of Russia’s most prized composers. Actually, Tchaikovsky lived in Klin for only fifteen months, starting in May 1892, but for the first time in his vagabond life, he felt he had a home. It was there that he finished his Sixth Symphony. The house was large and yet modest, bright red in color and yet subdued. His desk was a wooden table, and his bed, in the same room, was like a cot. He loved his garden, where he regularly walked and rested.

Now the garden was open to visitors. My friend and I thought we would enjoy a picnic lunch there. We were not the only ones. We shared a table with an old man and woman. Soon we were in conversation, and when we told them we were Americans, they were wide-eyed with incredulity. “It doesn’t seem possible,” the man said. “A few years ago, we thought we’d never be able to meet Americans again.” He explained that he had lost both of his legs during the war (in Russia the “war” was always World War II) and had lived in Klin ever since. I offered to share our lunch with him and, we assumed, his wife, but he declined. As I told them about America, Harvard, my parents (both of whom were born in Eastern Europe), and my family, I noticed that the old man’s eyes welled up with tears, and as we talked, he began to cry openly. The woman explained that they were both Jews and had few friends. Their life in Klin was lonely. Occasionally, during outbursts of anti-Semitism, they lived in fear even of their neighbors. A postmidnight knock on the door could have meant their arrest. She asked if I was Jewish, and when I said yes, she smiled and, with sadness, told us that in 1904 her mother had expressed her wish to emigrate to the United States, but her father, who had the last word, decided that Russia would be a better place for his family. “So, you see,” she said, “if it were not for him, I’d be an American.” I could not help but think that if my father and mother had not decided to come to the United States before World War I, I might have shared their fate.

On July 27, after a terrifyingly rocky three-hour flight in an Ilyushin-14 from Moscow to Kiev, as the Ukrainian capital was then called, I vowed I would never again fly in a Russian plane. No seat belts. People smoking on takeoff and landing. Passengers standing in the aisle. Restroom unbelievably filthy. Yet it was a vow I was repeatedly to violate when I took many other trips through the Soviet Union.

Kiev, though, was worth the experience—for many reasons. It was, first of all, my mother’s birthplace. It was, and remains, a beautiful city with a rich history. It was the capital of what historian Pares called “the first Russia,” known too as Kievan Rus. At the time of my visit it was the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of fifteen republics in the Soviet Union. After 1991 it was to become the capital of an independent Ukraine. Although I reached the hotel at a time when most good boys were asleep (it was almost midnight), I decided to take a walk.

My first impression was that Kiev did not sleep. What I saw was a city of cobblestone streets, trolley cars and hills, and many parks. Couples walked arm in arm, hugging, kissing, teasing. In a city where housing was tight, park benches served as private places for lovemaking and mating. It was all so different from Moscow. Kiev was southern, Moscow northern, and if the Russian capital was never quite sure her seams were straight, Kiev walked with a distinct pride, knowing they were. At 1:30 a.m., the trolleys were still crowded, people were still standing on street corners, and Kiev refused to end the night.

Back at the hotel I met Patrick O’Regan, a British diplomat, and Leo Haimson, an American scholar. O’Regan told a story about Russia’s rush to restore her old churches. It was a national obsession. During a visit to an old church, known for its fabulous Rublev frescoes, he saw an old worker energetically chipping away at a wall with still visible Rublevs. Piece after piece fell to the floor. O’Regan was as puzzled as he was angry.

“Why are you chipping away at the frescoes?” he asked. “They are invaluable.”

The old worker looked at the diplomat with contempt. “I am not chipping away at the frescoes, you fool. I am restoring them.”

Haimson had a better story. He had just been to Leningrad and had been given permission to visit the storehouse of the Russian Museum. He expected to find discarded works of Russian painters. Instead he found hundreds of paintings of Stalin.

Before going to sleep I ordered breakfast for the next morning. I asked the hotel manager, who took my order, whether he thought the hotel would have oranges. “We don’t have oranges in Moscow,” I explained.

“Of course,” he answered. “We have everything. This is Kiev.”

At 7:30 a.m., as requested, a waiter knocked at the door. He had my breakfast, but he had no orange. “Not today,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

After breakfast, I left for the Khreshchatyk, Kiev’s beautiful main street, a gathering place for leisurely strolls and angry demonstrations. A young Ukrainian walked alongside me for a block and then asked, “Are you an American?” My reply was an affirmative nod. “I knew it,” he said with the pride reserved for finishing a tough test. “I could tell by the way you walk.”

“By the way I walk?” I was puzzled.

“Yes, you walk very freely, not the way we walk.” He was obviously referring to my ducklike walk, the kind that used to infuriate my army sergeant.

The Khreshchatyk was a broad boulevard, now bustling with traffic, but during World War II it had been destroyed. Major “remont,” or renovation, started in 1946 with tall, Soviet-style buildings on both sides. Trees and flowers happily obstructed much of the view, leaving behind a feeling of an old, lived-in Kiev, disturbed only by the occasional black limo racing down the center of the boulevard. Last week, I noted in my diary, these limos were called ZISs, short for Zavod Imena Stalina, meaning “factory in the name of Stalin.” When one needed a limo, one ordered a ZIS. Now the ZIS has been renamed ZIL—“factory in the name of Lenin,” infinitely safer after the Khrushchev speech.

The Khreshchatyk was a historic boulevard that screamed “Ukraine” to a visitor from any other part of the Soviet Union. “I’m different,” it proclaimed. “I’m me.” It conveyed not only a feeling of youthful energy but also a link to the past, a place where a Ukrainian poet such as Taras Shevchenko could stride while creating sentimental odes to Cossacks and damning condemnations of Russian leaders such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. I enjoyed the simple pleasure of buying an ice cream cone from one of the many vendors on the Khreshchatyk and then finding a park bench and watching people, young and old, strolling by, many of them seeking an adventure they may never find.

In the afternoon I visited the Kiev Pechersk Cathedral and Monastery, whose golden cupolas glistened in the bright sunshine. Located on an elevation on the right bank of the Dnieper, it was surrounded by a yellowish wall, which from a distance looked like a giant snake frozen into the green mountainside. The cathedral, called the Lavra, was built in the tenth century on orders of Yaroslav the Wise. It ushered in the golden age of Kievan Rus. For Russians the Lavra had special appeal. It was believed to be the first Orthodox church in Russia, and the famous Russian Chronicles, recording the early history of Russia, were written there by monks. Though the cathedral itself no longer served as a church, a number of smaller churches within its massive walls were open to the public. Each was overcrowded. On a pathway to one church were the ruins of another, leveled by the Germans in the early days of World War II. I saw an old lady bow down before the ruins, touch her head to the ground, cross herself, and, with tears in her eyes, whisper a prayer. Religion remained a powerful force in a nation governed by atheists.