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

Then Blue Eyes stopped, turned to me and asked, in Russian, whether I was searching for the synagogue. “You are Jewish, aren’t you?” he asked.

I was absolutely stunned by his question. “Yes,” I replied, “I would like to visit the synagogue.”

“It’s right here,” he smiled, pointing to a nondescript one-story building consisting of three rooms around an open courtyard. “I knew this was where you wanted to go.” Blue Eyes’s eyes twinkled with special delight. He led me inside. Carved into the courtyard wall was a large Star of David. On both sides of the star was Hebrew script. I also saw three pages, apparently ripped from a prayer book, nailed to another wall.

“You see,” explained Blue Eyes, “we have only three prayer books in the whole community, and only very old people come here to pray.”

“What about younger people?”

“They rarely attend services, and we have no real rabbi, only an old man who has memorized all the prayers. He worries that soon there will be no Jews in Bukhara.”

He told me that there were two groups of Jews in Bukhara, one group that came here centuries ago and another that came in the early 1940s to escape the Nazi onslaught. They would all like to leave the Soviet Union, he said. “They are very, very unhappy.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Would you want to leave?”

“Oh, yes” he replied, “I would love to go to Israel, and now it’s possible.” His blue eyes teared up. “Maybe one day, maybe one day.”

Later, after dinner, I walked from the hotel to the park near the city center. What I saw blew my mind. Everywhere people were drunk, and hooliganism was widespread and unchecked. Gangs were fighting against other gangs, blood was being shed, but militiamen, observing the brawls, did nothing to stop the fighting, maybe because they were afraid to intervene. Drunks were staggering down Lenin Street, punching bystanders and fondling women. Everyone was singing and cursing. I wanted to watch this incredible scene like something out of Dante’s Inferno , but not get into any trouble myself. I sat down on a park bench. Nearby, on another park bench, a man was making love to a woman. A Russian sitting near me, possibly offended by the sight, tapped the man on his back. “There is a foreigner here watching you. Have you no shame?” he asked. “So what?” was the man’s response. “I’m a foreigner here, too.” He continued his lovemaking, and no one passing by seemed to pay any attention to it. It seemed as if everyone was letting off steam, and no one, most especially the militiamen, cared one bit.

By reading, rumor, and through the stories of other travelers, I had heard a lot about the Bukhara bazaar, an unusual marketplace about twenty minutes from the city center, and I wanted to visit it. Maybe I could see the city’s famed rug weavers there. I didn’t have much time. Later that morning I was scheduled to fly westward to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and then on to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, by train; but because nothing in the Soviet Union ever went directly from one place to another, I would first have to fly eastward, back to Tashkent, before being allowed to fly westward to Baku. It was Intourist’s maddening way of distracting passengers from sensible pursuits and earning more money. The director of the hotel, who had unhappily learned of my discovery of the Bukhara synagogue the previous day, wanted to make sure that I would not wander off by myself once again. He assigned an official Intourist guide to be with me at all times and to make sure that I got to the airport in plenty of time for my Tashkent-bound flight. The director’s aim was to get me out of town as quickly and uneventfully as possible. It did not work out quite that way.

Instead of walking to the bazaar, we took a bus. The bazaar, with many broken-down stalls of fruits and vegetables, was open to the blazing sun. I asked the first tradesman I met if he could direct me to the rug weavers. His first instinct was to help, but the minute he saw my official guide he decided to say nothing. He just frowned and moved on. I turned to my guide. “Can you please help me? You know I don’t have much time.” Clearly under orders to be helpful, if necessary, he nodded and went looking for directions. While waiting, I pulled my camera out of my traveling bag and started taking pictures of the peasants selling watermelons and grapes. Almost immediately, as if waiting for a pretext, a militiaman approached and asked for my identification. I had no official document with me, because my passport was still back at the hotel. I told him that I was an American tourist. I told him he could check with my guide, who would be back in a moment. I continued taking pictures. The militiaman put his hand in front of the lens and then, rather abruptly, held my arm and “suggested” I go with him to police headquarters. Instinctively I pulled loose of his grip and informed him that I was about to leave soon for the airport. I did not have time to go with him. But suddenly I found myself surrounded by a dozen other militiamen, who must have been waiting nearby.

“You will come with me,” repeated the lead militiaman, who was a sergeant.

“Are you arresting me?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Then why must I go with you?”

The sergeant explained that until he verified who I was, I would have to obey him. I realized that I was on the brink of a possible “incident,” which the U.S. embassy always tried to discourage, and I urged him to call the hotel. I did not want an incident. I knew the hotel director would confirm that I was an American tourist (indeed, one with a diplomatic passport) and the sergeant would then have to let me go. But for reasons beyond me, the sergeant refused to telephone the hotel, telling me that instead he was going to call his immediate superior at police headquarters and tell him that he was holding a foreigner who had no identification and who, in addition, was taking pictures. A large crowd formed around us. We all waited while the sergeant called to get instructions.

After a few minutes he announced in rather somber tones that I would, in fact, be detained (he avoided using the word “arrested”) and brought to police headquarters. I knew that eventually, after his superior had checked with the hotel and learned that I was an American diplomat, I would be released. But by then I would likely have missed my flight and thrown my schedule into a mess, a situation that was not that easy to resolve in central Asia. I decided on the spot that I had no option but to stand my ground. I was guilty of no wrongdoing. I told him, and everyone who had gathered around us, that I was an American diplomat traveling through central Asia for pleasure and learning; that I had the permission of the Soviet Foreign Ministry; that the sergeant was in clear violation of international rules governing the treatment of diplomatic personnel; and that I intended to submit a formal protest to Moscow authorities.

“What is your name?” I demanded.

The sergeant, who had earlier conveyed an air of authority, seemed now to look uncertain and, I thought, afraid.

What would Ambassador Bohlen do? Try diplomacy, he would advise, and so I did. I suggested, with a gentle smile, that there was a way out of this conundrum—that the sergeant really ought to call the hotel, as I had asked him to do before, verify that indeed I was an American diplomat, inform his police superior what he had learned, and then let me catch my flight. I added, in a serious tone, that if he refused, I would definitely submit an official protest in Moscow and he and his superior would both be responsible for what I called “a gross violation of diplomatic norms.” The sergeant, trying desperately to reestablish his authority, especially as the crowd got larger by the minute, grabbed me by the arm and announced that he was going to take me to police headquarters, and that was final. I again pulled loose and refused to go with him. I urged him, please, to call the hotel. I understood that he needed a way to save face, and I had to catch a flight and wanted to avoid an “incident.” I decided to tell him in a loud but polite voice that I was “wrong” to have taken pictures without asking permission. Then I placed a cherry on top of my apology, telling the crowd that I had had a wonderful visit to Bukhara, that I loved the people and looked forward to my next visit. Many people smiled and applauded in Soviet style. A few actually shook hands with me. Whatever tension was accumulating seemed magically to disappear.