Back to The USSR

Or how to survive drunken soldiers with guns

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union on a railway car, Maksym Kozienko

Many moons ago when I was younger and even more foolish, travel took me to many wonderful destinations. Looking back, it’s a wonder I survived. Idealism, perhaps, or plain good fortune.

After traveling by the Trans-Siberian Express in winter from Vladivostok to Moscow, and on to Leningrad, as it was called then, my travel companion and I boarded a train to Warsaw. Tired, unfashionably disheveled and cold, we were accompanied to the railway station by the guide from InTourist — the Soviet tourist agency in a country that didn’t want foreign tourists.

InTourist always directed where travelers were permitted to visit, for how long and where they could stay, and eased their path in general. Arriving by train or plane, the InTourist guide waited for you, even at 1 AM. They had the authority to change your plans with no explanation. In some ways, travel in the USSR was easier and safer than in today’s Russia. And, of course, the KGB officer always followed a short distance behind, wherever you walked.

1939 Intourist Map of The Soviet Union and Europe Showing Principal Transportation Connections.jpg

Having made it through the entire USSR from east to west, we thought this leg of the trip into Poland…