ChasM
Moskva, 1985: the final stop on our Russian Tour. During our four days there, we stayed at two different hotels – first at the Hotel Kosmos, across the street from the Russian Space Museum, then down the street from Red Square in what may or may not now be the Ritz-Carlton. Unfortunately, my friends and I did not get a chance to visit the museum, and really only had one full day of touring because we spent our days running around the city trying to procure our way out.
Our specialist travel agency, the one that had booked our Russian itinerary, had failed to include in the package visas for travel through Poland by train to Berlin, you see, and without said visas we would be stuck in the USSR. On the 4th July, no less. The story of our encounter with Soviet bureaucracy follows, along with pictures of some other stuff.
A Volga model taxi on the streets of Moscow. Volga’s were the ‘nicer’ of the two main Russian automobiles, the other being the infamous Lada.
I think this picture was taken on the day we landed in Moscow, during our first look around. I don’t remember if it was on this evening or the next that our Moscow minder told us that there was a problem in that our visas in Russia expired on the 4th but we didn’t seem to have travel visa for our trip by train through Poland, which would be required in order to, you know, leave. This seemed ridiculous to us because a) Poland was still somewhat of a puppet of the USSR at the time b) this whole thing was supposed to be a professional operation and c) we’re AMERICANS from America! Don’t you know who we are!!?? We want to talk to the manager!.
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