As the Chopin Express slowed approaching the Czechoslovakian border the duration between the clicks of the wheels became almost excruciatingly prolonged. It was a black night in November 1977. The passengers in my coach, mostly Hartwick College students were unusually quiet. Light from the train then illuminated a steel cyclone fence about three feet from the windows that reached up perhaps 20 feet. No one was going to jump off this train. Night became day - courtesy of strategically placed flood lights. The train lurched to a stop next to a platform populated with soldiers, weapons and dark dogs on chain leashes. Yes - I was intimidated. Passport Control swept through the coaches checking passports and visas. This was followed by another security search that reexamined documentation and randomly some luggage. A half hour later we were on our way - but things felt different. Behind us fifty kilometers was beautiful, free Vienna - 1900 kilometers in front the locus of the commissars - Moscow.
For twelve hours the train powered across Czechoslovakia, Poland and now approached the border with the Belarus Soviet Socialist Republic. The train crawled out of the night and entered a cavernous structure. Here each coach was to be jacked up and the wheels and axles (i.e. the "bogie") removed and replaced with a bogie of the narrower Russian gauge. As this work occurred Soviet Passport Control causally proceeded through the train examining passports and stamping visas. Next a custom's inspection and passengers were asked to open their luggage for inspection. As luck would have it a few of my students were discovered to be carrying "forbidden literature".
Back on the Hartwick campus I tried to prepare my Soviet program participants for entering the USSR - always keep medications in the container with the prescription information; this is Russia - bring extra socks; do not lose your passport; "and for God's sake always be courteous!" Concerning reading material my advice was "Bring what you want to read." The Soviet laws regarding "forbidden literature" were of course discussed. But my revulsion concerning censorship laws that forbade the works of Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others was always apparent. "What about Playboy?" (Also illegal but enormously popular in the USSR.) My answer was "If you are reading it - bring it - at worst forbidden literature will be confiscated." There were some additional titles that I had assigned to be read as part of the program. I also admit I wanted my students to experience some hard nosed censorship - as a kind of inoculation that would make them defenders of free expression for life.
Soviet inspectors opening Bill and Peter's luggage immediately found copies of Dr. Zhivago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Three soldiers then paraded my two students out of the carriage and onto the station's platform. There they stood under flood lights amid a swirl of police and soldiers. I experienced a rush of anxiety. All the students were now crowded in front of the train's windows. Three female students were sadly waving and whispering "Good bye Bill! Good bye Peter!" I experienced a rush of panic. Peter having been taken off a train in the middle of the night entering the USSR was elated. Hands on his hips he dropped into a squatting position and began to do Russian dance kicks. Immediately he had an audience of smiling or puzzled soldiers. This side of the train window there was laughter and a small cheer. I started breathing again. Peter was asked to stand up and the two of them were led out of sight.
It takes about three hours to change the bogies. After two hours my stress tolerance collapsed. I burst out of the cabin and down the aisle into the next carriage. I saw a conductor walking in my direction.
"Where the hell are they?" The conductor screwed up his face and waved his hands telling me to relax. He told me the students were fine and would be back on the train in a few minutes. He then asked me if I would like to trade some dollars for rubles. I declined. To the immense relief of all our new heroes returned and the train was underway a few minutes later.
So what happened we asked? "They wanted to know why we were carrying forbidden books into the USSR".
So what did you say? "Because our professor made us."
Where were you for two hours? "They took us into the barracks and we watched television."
The train was now rolling along in darkness across the utter flatness of Belarus. Brilliant moonlight reflected off a patchwork landscape of snow and earth stretching out to the edge of the earth. Students were standing shoulder to shoulder in the aisle looking out the windows - Russia! A couple of female voices began softly humming Lara's Theme and others joined in. In the Soviet Union Lara's Theme was illegal - forbidden music.
Gypsy - 7 years old, probably abused - HSSC. Escaped from
foster care July 2013 on Long Boat Key, FL.
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