July 4, 1993 – So far, so good. I had been in Moscow for nearly two months, and I was still alive and unscarred. In fact, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. And with the occasional unscheduled drop-by visit from Vladimir Bragin of the KGB, I was feeling well protected.

I had received a surprise phone call earlier that week from a friend in Washington, Mary Saba. (You may remember her from the London and Prague episodes.) Her husband, Joe, had just left on a business trip to one of the “Stans” — the five Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union whose names all end in “stan” (Kazakhstan, for example) — and Mary and their teenage son, Colin, were going to join him there. Since they would have to travel through Moscow and had never been there before, she and Colin were planning to stay over for a couple of days, and she was letting me know of their imminent arrival.

I was thrilled to be seeing a good friend from home. When she told me where they were staying — a Soviet-style hotel on the outskirts of the city — I told her they would find that to be both inconvenient and generally miserable, and that I would pick them up and bring them to my apartment, where I had two spare bedrooms. It didn’t take much to convince her.

The Sabas are the kind of people who fit in anywhere. They’re smart, funny, caring, personable, and genuine — that rare breed known as completely lovable, good people. Mary got along beautifully with Olga, Lena and Tamara; and Colin managed to find common ground with Tamara’s two teenaged daughters, even though they didn’t speak each other’s languages. We did the usual sightseeing tour, and then Colin said he had a special request: he wanted to see the Moscow Military Museum. Tamara’s husband was an Army officer, and he gladly offered his services. He arranged for our admittance, and five of us crammed into his little car.

But first came lunch — at McDonald’s, of course. Doesn’t every American travel 5,000 miles to eat at a Mickey D’s? Colin and Mary were just curious to compare it to the ones at home; Tamara and her husband had never eaten there, because it was too expensive for them as a family of four. So off we went, my treat. Cheapest restaurant meal I ever had — and surprisingly good. Far better quality than in the U.S., in fact. All of the meat and vegetables were locally sourced, and the rolls freshly baked. It was worth the wait in line.

At the museum, admission was free — but I found that I had to pay one ruble (about 1/10 of a cent at the time, as I recall) for the privilege of taking pictures with my own camera. These, of course, were the days before cell phones, so my camera was simply that: a camera — and with actual film, as it was also the pre-digital age. (God, I am old, aren’t I?)

As we wandered through the several rooms and I snapped away, I lost track of how many pictures I had taken, and suddenly ran out of film. I only realized it because my camera told me so, when it started beeping . . . and beeping . . . and beeping. At the unfamiliar sound, all of the other visitors in the room froze where they were standing, and two armed guards came rushing in from the next room, hands on their holstered weapons, to find out who had the bomb. When I saw them, I instinctively held the camera up in the air and called out, “Nyet, nyet! Fotoapparat! Fotoapparat!” (I’m sure you’ve figured out that that means “No! No! Camera! Camera!” I have no idea why I said it twice.) That quick action saved me, though, and I was neither shot, tackled, nor arrested; but the guards and I had managed to scare the bejeezus out of each other . . . and quite a few more people besides. Clearly, I still hadn’t mastered the art of quietly blending in. Come to think of it, I never did.

Mary’s trip happened to fall over the 4th of July weekend, when it turned out that there was to be a show given by some Broadway musical performers at the Estrada Theatre in the renowned (or infamous, depending upon the year) House on the Embankment. Just one of the many outsized Stalinist monstrosities still dotting the landscape throughout the city, this one was completed in 1931 specifically to house the government elite of the time, many of whom later became victims of Stalin’s paranoid political purges. (Sorry — I just seem to keep alliterating). Anyway, someone had given Gil Robinson a pair of tickets, but he wasn’t going to be in Moscow that weekend, so he passed the tickets along to me. Leaving Colin in the safe company of Tamara’s family, Mary and I set out for a girls’ night on the town. As we had done in London, we managed to make it a memorable one.

Vitold had offered to drive us to the theatre, and said he would be happy to come back to pick us up as well, but I felt that would be too inconvenient for him. The traffic pattern in front of the building was a total mess, and there was no way of knowing what time the show would end. I knew there was a taxi stand in front of the Kempinski Baltschug Hotel, about a 15-minute walk from the theater, so I told him we would manage to get home on our own. Brave words.

For once, Vitold managed to get us to our destination without being stopped by the police for speeding, running a red light, or nearly knocking down any pedestrians. We actually arrived a little early, and since it was a lovely, mild evening, we stood outside the theatre for a while, watching the arrivals and chatting with a couple of acquaintances I had seen in the crowd. The U.S. Ambassador, Thomas Pickering, had already arrived for the occasion. As a motorcade of three or four expensive foreign cars flying Russian flags pulled up, I knew that a Russian VIP had to be in one of them. President Yeltsin was out of the country that week, so I was curious to see who might be taking his place that night. As a man emerged from the car and started up the steps toward us, flanked by three improbably large bodyguards, he passed within a few yards of us and I recognized him immediately. I drew a sharp breath and grabbed Mary’s arm, exclaiming, “Oh my God! It’s Yevgeny Primakov!” Mary wasn’t familiar with the name, and when I told her he was the head of the KGB, she was startled, but also delighted to have a story to bring home to Colin. The crowd then began to move inside, and we headed to our seats.

The show was outstanding. The performers were members of the supporting casts of several hit Broadway shows, and had the audience in the palms of their hands from the get-go, singing and dancing to Broadway tunes and a few patriotic songs to honor the holiday. First, however, the orchestra had played the national anthems of both countries, for which everyone stood in unison, but with the Russian and American halves of the audience singing their respective anthems in turn. I am proud to report that our half was louder and much more enthusiastic. Living in Moscow — fascinating though it was — made you all the more proud and happy to be an American.

The performance ended much too soon, as all good things seem to do, and we filed out into the dark Moscow night around 11:00 p.m. The crowd was huge, and some of the people were walking, as we were, in the direction of the Baltschug, so we didn’t feel at all uncomfortable. And as we approached the hotel, we could clearly see the line of waiting taxis. They were facing away from us, and we had to pass the entire row of about a half dozen cars in order to get to the first taxi in line. No problem.

Mary walked around to the left rear door, behind the driver, and I opened the right rear door. When we were both seated and had closed our doors, the driver turned to his right, looked over his shoulder at me, and said, “Rublevskoye Shosse shestnadtsat?” — my exact address. Rublevskoye Shosse 16. And my heart leapt up into my throat. What the hell . . . ???

My first impulse was: RUN! But that was obviously not an option. And I had Mary to think of. Since she didn’t know a word of Russian, she assumed the driver had asked where we were going. So I gulped my heart back down into place, smiled weakly at the driver, and said — in Russian — “That’s right. You have a very good memory.” Mary thought I was giving him our address.

Good memory, my ass! I hardly ever took taxis in Moscow — I had two drivers and an excellent Metro system at my disposal, so who needed taxis? Then who the hell was this guy? He simply nodded, smiled back, and began moving the taxi slowly forward. Once again, I mentally foresaw my imminent death. But as I watched to see the direction he would take, he drove straight along the quickest route, sticking to the main roads, and right up to my building and around to the entrance in the rear. He knew exactly where he was going, and never said another word throughout the 30-minute ride — quite possibly the longest half hour of my life. I thanked him, added a generous tip to the fare, and he waited until we were safely inside before driving off.

So, once again, who was he? How did he happen to be at exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment? If I had ridden with him once before and just didn’t remember, what were the odds of my getting the same taxi twice? Or of his recognizing me, in the dark, in a city of nine million people, and remembering my address? And not saying a word about the coincidence? Was this just another manifestation of Moscow paranoia, or was something spooky actually going on? Could Officer Bragin somehow be keeping tabs on me? But how would it even be possible to arrange such a thing? Again, too many questions without answers.

I still don’t know the truth, and never will; but I can still feel the fear in the pit of my stomach when I think back on that night. I never did tell Mary.

And while I give you a while to mull that over, I will be — in writing, at least — hopping another train to Kyiv, but this time with two American companions, and complications on the Ukrainian side.

TTFN,
Brendochka
4/13/23 (re-posted 8/30/24)