By Ilya Magid

FOREIGN TREVEL FOR SOVIET CITESENS
1. Meeting between Mother Daughter
2. Dictatorship Developed
3. My Experience

Editors: Steven Siegel and Lucile Mc Mahon
Boston 2004

FOREIGN TREVEL FOR SOVIET CITISENS

1. Meeting between Mother and Doughter

Our family's friend is Celia who arrived in America from Moscow in the Soviet Union in 1991. Celia, now ninety (2003), lives in America, Boston, MA in the same building for the elderly as my family. Her daughter's family lives close to her.

She remembers many painful events from 1975 to 1990. Her daughter, Lena, with her family had immigrated to America in 1975. In 1980 Celia was working in the special construction bureau, in Moscow. She was mechanical engineer. Celia dreamed of visiting Lena, and the grandchildren.

She wanted to receive her U.S. guest entry visa. She could organize her trip to visit America only through USSR's OVIR. That was similar to the State Department of the United States. She had to file a special application at her job. That application would be signed by three levels of supervisors (triangle: leader of division, party and trade organizers) and then by the higher levels at the plant (triangle: director of the plant, etc.). Celia also had an invitation from Lena to visit her. The Secretary of State of the USA approved that.

OVIR refused to give her permission to go on a guest visa. She was permitted to submit a new application only after one-half year. She repeated that procedure each half-year for many years.

Once during the time of the regular congress of the Communist party she sent documents to the congress to permit a visit to the United States as a guest. Her documents were directed also to OVIR, which refused her.

She won a meeting with General from Moscow Central OVIR. (of the KGB, but nobody disclosed that). The General asked her, "Why do you apply many times? What is your obsession to meet with your daughter? Your daughter is a creature". Celia did not remember how she passed out and was moved from the general's cabinet and later was revived. Celia was afraid that she would be taken to a mental institution. At that time many dissidents were sent to a mental institution for their obsessions.

Yes, she had an obsession to meet with her daughter and grandchildren.

I cannot describe all her experiences in that case. (Lena knew about Celia's problems from American friends who visited Moscow).

After some time Celia retired. Her neighbor told her that the tool instrument institute, where she worked, very often displayed advertisements about organizing foreign trips. (The secret plants and institutes never displayed such advertisements).

The chancellor (who is the director) of that institute was the son of Solomentzev (Solomentzev was a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of CPSU (referred to as the Polit Bureau) and was a very important man in the Soviet Union).

Celia entered the tool instrument's institute in the economic division as a hat-check-girl. When you enrolled in simple jobs, the personnel department gave you a simple application to complete, where absent was a question, "Do you have relatives across the border?"* Also with that job you saved your pension and received a monthly income).

*In the Soviet time if you wrote in the application that you had relatives abroad you would have had difficulty enrolling in the job, and you would not have had permission for a foreign trip even if you did not work in a secret job.

Fifty persons worked in that economic division as hat-check-girls, caretakers, plumbers, and electricians. In the Soviet time those were not prestigious jobs and few people wanted to take them, and there were many drunkards, and misfits.

Gradually Celia advanced on the job. The commandant of the building came to trust her with the many of his duties. Celia really occupied an administration position but with that title she couldn't receive her pension. On the record she remained a hat-check-girl. She checked workers to determine if they as caretakers were absent from their jobs. She went to clean the auditorium with a bucket and rag instead of those regular caretakers.

After some time there was an advertisement about a foreign trip to Bulgaria. (It that time we could take trip only to the states of a Socialist camp). Celia began to write an application. She submitted it to the triangle of her own division, then the triangle of a higher level (the chancellor, etc). She had to go herself to submit that application. If somebody from the triangle objected to the application (because of absenteeism, bad work, etc) that leader could stop the trip.

Then the application would be directed to the District Committee CPSU. Celia remembered that it was necessary to send the application to the District Committee. She was late; her application did not reach the chancellor of the institute. She took a rag and went to his cabinet, as caretaker and asked him to sign her application.

The commission of the District Committee studied all applications. In front of the commission Celia was asked about the state of Bulgaria: who was the leader, etc. One member of the commission asked her, "The cost of the trip is expensive, and your income is small, where will you find the money?" She thought to answer; "My relatives gave us a present for my wedding anniversary", but that member still voted against her.

At last she was included in the group of tourists. There was a date for the beginning of the investigation, which was one month before the active departure. (That was in 1983). It was necessary to send Lena in America information about the country, hotel and amount of time for their visit in the foreign country. Since all foreign letters were censored, Celia had to use a special code so the censor would not understand.
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For example, Celia wrote, "My friend is interested in Greek culture and when she has a trip, she would stay at the hotel named 'Amphora'. In a similar way Celia gave information to Lena: their trip would last for 2 weeks and the first week they would be traveling in the country; the second week they would be staying in the hotel 'Amphora' and could swim there.

Thirty people were in the travel group. At all times a secret agent from the KGB traveled with the group. Many tourists guessed who he was since he had gone many times on the same trip, and there were many other signs.

The Soviet Government exchanged tourist's rubles for Bulgarian lay but they exchanged only a small quantity of rubles. In addition, a tourist could take across the border one bottle of vodka and two small cans of caviar (for barter). Celia took two bottles of vodka and she gave the agent one bottle of vodka before crossing the border. (Later when Celia asked him for the vodka he told her, "I lost it".)

The group of tourists there appointed a captain. There were also political studies, and there were also rules: walk together (no fewer than 2 persons in a group), do not be late for breakfast, dinner, or supper.

Celia tried to establish a good relationship with the agent; she very often asked him, "Where would I go to drink water?" He led her to the buffet. She took water and suggested water for him also. He replied, "I want something stronger" so she ordered him vodka.

During the trip, tourists tried to buy a few things with their small amount of money. After returning back to the Soviet Union some people would sell those things illegally. That partly compensated them for the money spent for the trip. In the Soviet Union there was a shortage, especially of foreign items.

After one week of the trip the group stayed in the hotel 'Amphora' on the shore of the Black Sea. Most tourists were two people in one room of the hotel. But Celia was lucky because she was alone and had a separate room for herself.

On the first day in the morning at 7 o'clock she stayed at the entrance to the hotel. After some time she saw somebody approach the entrance. She recognized her daughter and put the finger to her lips, and motioned, "Follow me". When they went to Celia's room, Celia closed the door, and then they sat on the floor and began to kiss.

Lena was in the 'capitalist' hotel 'Burgos' close to Celia. Lena arrived at her hotel with two of her children; a boy, two, and a girl, seven, Celia's grandchildren. Lena's children continued to sleep alone in the hotel. Lena arranged to meet in a secret place on the beach.

Many catastrophes happened. For example, once a trip was organized to a Gypsy encampment. Celia said that she had diarrhea. She stayed at the hotel but had an agreement to meet Lena in the children's bookshop.

When Celia went to that shop she saw all her group. The trip to the Gypsy encampment had been called off. Her grandchildren cried, "Grandmother" and ran to her. Celia explained, that was her Moscow neighbor. The agent said to Celia, "Introduce me to her". But Lena quickly went away with her children.

Once, Lena invited her to their hotel's restaurant. Celia was surprised, that her two-year-old grandson approached a waiter and spoke to him in English. At the end of the meeting Celia was surprised to see how grandson was able to dress himself his by throwing jacket on the floor, falling on the jacket and quickly standing up while getting dressed.

When Celia met Lena in the bushes near the sea nobody could see them. The granddaughter with the grandson went swimming in the sea.

Another time somebody saw, Celia come out of Lena's 'bourgeois' hotel. Celia must protect herself and she spoke with anger, "They take money for the rest room". That is strange for Soviet people, where toilets were free but very dirty.

At the end of the trip the captain of the group wrote a report about each person in the group. Celia received a good report.

After some time Celia had a second trip to Bulgaria and Lena brought two of her other children Celia's grandchildren to meet her.

That would have been very a funny story if it had not been so sad.

Celia developed many health problems at that time .One problem was that she lost vision in one eye.

Now Celia has a new problem. Her daughter's family emigrated from America to Israel and suggested Celia emigrates with them. She is hesitant. She is ninety. She has many friends here and a comfortable situation. We have to wait for her decision. That will be her own decision; nobody can stop her.

2. Development of a Dictatorship

In the 70s on the short radio, BBC, I heard about the next case: From the city of Vladivostok there departed a big cruise ship that sailed around Indonesia but without any stop in foreign ports. The tourists could buy tickets very easily without numerous documents. Once one person jumped overboard and swam to Indonesia's shore. After that the cruise was discontinued.

3. My Experiens

When I became retired in 1984 I enrolled in a hospital as a Janitor. (I saved my pension income and received additional income for the job.) Once I saw an advertisement at my job about a foreign trip to Bulgaria. I decided to go on that trip. I wrote an application and gave it the Party organizer of the hospital. When I saw him later he did not give me any answer, yes or no. I stopped my attempt to take that trip.