These
Old Boots…
Slogged in the Russian snow….
These boots took me to a lot
of places. Since they remind me
of days slogging in the snow along the Neva in Russia
photographed them with this
Soviet sailor’s hat.
It was time for them to go. I haven’t worn
them in many years, yet I felt sad about putting them in a charity bin, but now some
deserving soul might be able to get more miles out of them.
I bought them when we moved to New Hampshire
Then
we got sent to the Soviet Union . I was assigned as Naval Attaché in Moscow USSR --especially its navy
Most of our trips consisted of
catching the midnight train from Leningrad Station in Moscow ,
en route Leningrad (now St. Petersburg
Our job was to observe as much as
possible of the construction of new warships at the many shipyards in and
around Leningrad Neva River
Some of the time, we would park our
Niva and get out and walk, often in heavy snow, to get the best look at a
particular intelligence target.
The KGB knew when we had filed to
travel to Leningrad
Usually our routine included a walk
along Lieutenant Schmidt’s Embankment of the Neva , where we could see a lot of ships tied up all along
the embankment.
Slogging in that snow along Schmidt’s
Bank was a cold exercise.
Ships
tied up along Schmidt’s Embankment, Vasilyevsky
Island
Women’s Day in Leningrad
At Schmidt’s Bank hundreds of boats and often warships
and submarines tied up. Many
of the smaller, lighter draft boats were awaiting a schedule to move up the
canals that cut across Russia Leningrad
Whenever we would take these walks, we tried to take
along our cameras and collect photos of interesting things. Photography in this area was forbidden, however.
The KGB assigned an elderly “goon” that attachés named
“Fats.” He and some of his
associates generally were around to follow us wherever we walked, or drove, and
to make our job harder, or impossible. They wore the red armbands of “Druzhniki,” or
“concerned citizens.” Sort of
like elderly volunteers who operate as school crossing guards, except these
were assigned to look after the foreign “spies.” The Soviets considered all foreign diplomats
spies—they hadn’t changed their attitude toward foreigners in centuries.
Peter and Paul Fortress, from across
the Neva
One day, March the 8th, 1983 to be exact,
it was International Women’s Day. Now, in fact, the Soviets didn’t care
much about women’s rights, except the right of old women to stand in the street
all day long in the winter, smashing ice with a heavy iron rod.
But this day, as we arrived to do our job of
collecting intelligence in Leningrad
I was traveling with my assistant, Pierce
Crabtree, a big, burly former Navy football player. With no KGB to bother
us, we went wild photographing shipyards and ships and everything we could
see. We were driving a Soviet
“Niva.” 4 x 4 vehicle.We
thought this would be a great day to check out some radar installations near
the Czars’ summer palace at Petrodvorets. However, somewhere between Kipen’ and Ropsha, we got
stuck in the snow.
If the KGB had been around, we would not have been
able to get that far. Now,
free to travel, we had gone and gotten ourselves in trouble. The snow was pretty deep.
Fortunately, along came a bus full of
Russians. The driver and some of the passengers
got out and helped push us out of the snowbank.
The KGB would
NOT have helped us out of the snowbank, but these Russians were like good
neighbors you meet anywhere in the world.
Those boots took me through all that snow. Not only in Leningrad, but also in Riga,
Latvia; Tallinn, Estonia; Volgograd (Stalingrad); Kiev, Ukraine; Irkutsk,
Khabarovsk and Nakhodka, Siberia and many other places.
I’ll miss those
boots, and I kind of miss all that snow.
Here are some items
the Personal Navigator offers:
Memories of the Russian
Court, First Edition, Reprinted, November 1923 by
Viroubova, Anna 1923 New York, NY: The MacMillan Co. "It is with a prayerful heart
and memories deep and reverent that I begin to write the story of my long and
intimate friendship with Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas II….and of the
tragedy of the Revolution which brought on her and hers such undeserved misery,
and on our unhappy country such a black night of oblivion." The author tells of life at
court in St. Petersburg
V.O.K.S. Published by the
Soviet Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Vol. II No.
4, 1931 Yoffe, Yakovlev, Semyakin, Mikhailov,
Tsypkin, et al 1931 Moscow, USSR: VOKS, Trubnikovsky
Pereulok, 17. V.O.K.S. (Vsyesoyuznii Obschestvo Kulturniyi Svyazii
Zagranitsiy), All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
was founded in 1925 and widely recognized as Stalin's heavy-handed effort at
foreign propaganda. "The
Planning of Science"-- how
it is done with the new Five-Year Plan, by the new socialist people. The
language of the "Dictatorship
of the Proletariat" referring
to the "shock-brigade
troops and the storming detachment of Communist Youth" is so obviously immature, in its
attempt to speak to a sophisticated foreign audience, yet satisfy all the
propaganda needs of an ignorant bureaucracy at home. "Tecnics of the Future" by Academician A.F. Yoffe. talks of
new ideas for harnessing solar energy, and efforts to harness water power
(Volkhovstroi, Svirstroi, Dneprostroi). Poem "Industrial
1931" by Vassili
Semyakin, a worker in a Moscow Co-operative Candy Factory. "The Fight for the Metal" story by N. Mikhailov, worker at
the "Sickle and Hammer" Sheet-rolling Factory produces a fanciful
story of the massive effort in the factory to fulfill the Five-Year Plan.
Photos and text tell story of return of Maxim Gorki to Moscow Communist University USSR Union
Detskoye Selo --Parks and
Palaces Tourist Guide for
Intourists [in English] N.
Arkhangelsky, Editor 1934 Leningrad , USSR : Park and Palace Dept., Leningrad Soviet Union , this little Stalin-era guide was produced
for English-speaking Intourist visitors to St. Peterburg, and especially for
the 26 kilometer trip to
Tsarskoye Selo, renamed by the Soviets "Detskoye
Selo" or "Children's Village" in 1918, reflecting the Soviets'
uneasiness with the history of the Tsars. In re-naming it, the Soviets
designated this village one for caring for children, and this text states that"formerly
the domain of a privileged few, have become a source of education and
enlightenment" for the
masses. In 1937 it was re-named "Pushkin".
Text in this little book tells about life in the time of the Tsars, but is
generous with the Soviet approach. Photos show Catherine
Palace , Gala Hall, Amber Hall, Large
Throne Hall, White Hall, Drawing Room, Private Chambers of Catherine II, Alexander Palace Catherine
Palace
Peterhof --Parks and
Palaces Tourist Guide to
Tsar's Summer Residence near Leningrad [in
English] N. Arkhangelsky, Editor 1934 Leningrad , USSR St. Petersburg Soviet Union . Photos show Mon Plaisir, Study and Chair of
Peter I, Large Fountain Cascade and Palace, front staircase, Chesma Hall, Peter's
Hall, Picture Hall, Gothic Chapel, Railroad Carriages of Nicholas II, more.
Dust jacket features
drawing of Fountains. 64
pp. 10.7 x 14.4 cm. Paper booklet with dustjacket, minor wear and chips on
dustjacket, booklet very good. (8121)
$35.00. Travel
Posev Ezhenedelnik
Obschestvennoy I Politichestkoi Mysli (Weekly Social and Political Thought),
with Zarubezhnoe Prllozhenoye (The Sowing, and anti-Bolshevik Journal, with foreign supplement), Sunday, 27
December 1953. [In Russian] 1953 Munich , Germany USSR Munich
Soviet Theatre ca. 1950 Moscow ,
USSR
Hitler Marches in the Soviet Zone of Germany Bonn , Germany
Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net
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