There was little if any Western pop music to be heard publicly in Leningrad in 1985. But this song was overheard playing on the single-channel radio set in my room.
Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 14: Meet the Finns — and hop a bus to Leningrad.
At last: Leningrad. It was the first of August, more than a month past the peak nocturnal glow of northern lights, but with ample illumination to occupy roughly 70 hours on the ground in one of the USSR’s ranking “hero” cities.
A scant four months prior to the Travela tour group’s arrival in Leningrad, something of epochal significance occurred. I don’t recall it being mentioned. On March 11, 1985 following the death of the doddering Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party.
Obviously it was too early for anyone to make much of Gorbachev’s ascension to power, or for the USSR’s new leader to accomplish anything beyond working to consolidate his position amid the country’s bureaucratic mafia system. And yet, a tremendous upheaval soon would commence.
All I’ll say is that any American who still believes Ronnie Ray-Gun singlehandedly defeated the Evil Empire a la “High Noon” is mistaken. He gave the edifice a...
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