Watching the recent commemorations of the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago brought back memories of my own brush with the Cold War. It was just a few short months after the opening that I found myself one of the first Americans to capitalize on “glasnost” and visit the Soviet Union and East Berlin not once, but twice. It was an experience that profoundly changed my life.
Schoolchildren were told that the Russians could attack at any time and we had to be prepared.
Like all kids of the 1950s, I grew up believing that Russia was the “Evil Empire” and wanted to destroy my school, my church and my family. I “duck-and-covered” with my classmates, took tours of Nike missile bases with the Boy Scouts and looked into a future obscured by a looming mushroom cloud.
Imagine my fear as I stepped into Red Square in January of 1990, literally in the “belly of the beast”. I had arrived in Moscow as a delegate to the Second Soviet-American Summit Conference. The basic idea was to bring together 200 Americans and 200 Soviets to try to create joint projects in business, education and the arts. As a fledgling filmmaker, I was also there as chief videographer for K.I.D.S., a children’s organization based in St. Louis.
Nancy Joyce, the organization’s president had arranged for us to interview many of the attendees at the Summit and I later produced a documentary about the whole trip. I was apprehensive about going to Russia, to say the least. Didn’t they hate Americans? Wouldn’t they try to convince me of the superiority of their system? Would I have to defend mine? In reality I found that on almost every subject, the Russians believed the opposite of my expectations.
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held a summit in Moscow in 1988
In the heady days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Premiere Gorbachev was seen as a hero in the West. Americans were overjoyed to have a Soviet leader who no longer wanted to “bury” us. But the man was universally despised by every Russian I met. Instead of trying to persuade me to the Socialist viewpoint, every Russian I spoke with hated their system and thought that the streets of America are paved in gold. I constantly had to caution them that things were not quite as rosy as they pictured in America. In fact, I often had to defend certain aspects of their society as being better, but it was a tough sell.
For instance, in their country there was no debt. Russians were not busily spending money they haven’t even earned yet like Americans. Also no advertising. Probably the biggest visual shock of my visit to Moscow was entering the city from Sheremetyevo Airport. With a population of over 9 million people, Moscow looked like every other major city with plenty of busy streets and large high-rises. But no ads. No neon. No billboards. No flashing lights. No catchy slogans or store names. If a store sold milk the sign facing the street said “Milk”. It made me realize how oblivious we have become to the audio-visual pollution in which we are immersed. It is dramatically obvious when it’s not there.
Ivan the Terrible constructed St. Basil's Cathedral which is located at one end of Red Square. Legend has it that Ivan had the architect blinded so he could never again design such a magnificent structure.
Because so few Russians were able to have their own automobile, Moscow far out-classed America when it came to mass transit. The Russian Metro system is one of the finest in the world and is just part of a vast network of electric busses, trains and trolleys. Every Metro station I was in looked like a museum with chandeliers, mosaics and fine art on the walls. The trains ran virtually every two minutes. There was no litter and no graffiti. The 5 kopeck fare was about a penny.
Of course, there were obvious defects in the Soviet experiment all around, as well. There seemed to be plenty of stores but the selection in most was sparse and I saw many long lines. Except for the brand new McDonalds that had opened the week before our visit, there were virtually no restaurants and, except for the hotels, no bars, either.
I did not fully understand until much later that I was witnessing a disappearing lifestyle. Because it was soon after the opening of the Wall, I was still seeing the Soviet Union as it was before free markets, credit, casinos and advertising were to mold it into just another cog in the global economy.
The Summit Conference turned out to be just the first stage of my adventure. At the invitation of a Russian family we met, we remained in Moscow for several weeks afterwards, working on a number of video projects and making plans for a Spring children’s event in Red Square.
Nancy Joyce had then made arrangements for the next stop on our Cold War tour, East Berlin. She had been in negotiations with the mayors of East and West Berlin and had gotten permission to build a “Children’s Peace Park” in a stretch of the no-man’s-land between the East and the West.
Berlin was a city of incredible contrasts. Surprisingly the eastern side was nowhere near as dreary as Moscow had been. There was a much more vibrant economy and public events were held in Alexanderplatz, the large ,open public square that had been an important part of the historic city. Crossing from one side to the other, by that time, was fairly routine. You still had to go through a checkpoint, but officials just glanced at your documents and waved you through. As soon as you entered the western zone, though, the changes were dramatic. The main street in the west, Kurfurstendamm, was lined with shops carrying the most expensive products you can imagine. Luxury cars, Rolex watches and designer clothing all were offered to the well-dressed citizens of this cosmopolitan city.
Our first visit to inspect the proposed park site.
After inspecting the proposed park site and meeting with various officials we headed home with plans to return the following May to hold events in both Moscow and Berlin. I took advantage of the period between trips, cramming on my Russian and brushing up on all the German I had learned in high school.
Organizer Nancy Joyce (center) with an assistant and Ulrike Schmidt (assistant to the East Berlin Mayor) stand next to a section of the Berlin Wall.
Moscow was much more beautiful in the spring. The dull, gray pall that had hung over the winter city was gone and wildflowers lined the highway into town. Staying once again with the same Russian family, we spent several weeks working on another documentary and getting ready for the trip’s climax: the first ever Children’s Party in Red Square. This plaza next to the Kremlin is dominated by Lenin’s Tomb in the center, and is flanked by St. Basil’s Cathedral and the cavernous GUM department store.
One of three such concourses in GUM, the massive Russian shopping mall next to Red Square.
I had originally thought that Red Square was like an American public square where celebratory events were commonplace. This is not really the case in Red Square, which is pretty much just used for government events like the annual May Day parade. Through the miracles of Perestroika, Nancy had somehow gotten permission from the Kremlin to hold one of the first public “parties” ever held there.
Here I am (in white with back to camera) filming the hundreds of young people signing petitions for World peace and a better environment at the Children’s Party in Red Square.
On the day of the event, large numbers of young people flocked to the Square. We had musicians, dancers and other entertainers on hand and we asked the children to sign two petitions: one calling on both Soviet and American governments to work towards World peace and a second one calling for a cleaner environment. It was uplifting to see these young people making their first public statement in a nation that had prevented it for so long. The children also greatly enjoyed the hundreds of kazoos we had brought as presents and their amateur music reverberated off of the walls of the Kremlin.
The next day we were on our way to East Berlin, once again. We stayed at the home of Ulrike Schmidt, assistant to mayor of East Berlin. She, like many other East Germans, was already starting to wonder about the unification of the two cities. Her husband was an East German Olympic skating coach who was losing his job because the West already had one. They had recently learned that they would no longer get some of the “perks” of Communism, like free summer camp for their kids and free health care.
Bulldozers slowly destroy the famous “Checkpoint Charlie”
Over on the West side, the thawing of the Cold War was obvious that spring, and large sections of the Wall had already been removed. I videotaped the bulldozing of the infamous “Checkpoint Charlie” featured in many spy movies. We visited the East Side Art Gallery where a large stretch of the Wall had been turned into an outdoor exhibit space for political art.
This tower shadows over the adjoining school playground and the new park.
Our proposed park site was next to an East Berlin grade school that butted right up against the wall. A 40 foot high machine-gun tower overlooks the site. We were there to hold a dedication ceremony where we would plant a number of trees in the flat, featureless stretch of land. These trees would be adopted and cared for by the children from the nearby school.
German schoolchildren produced some terrific artwork calling for a cleaner planet and a more peaceful world.
Teachers at the school had been preparing the students and had already sponsored a “World Peace” poster contest. The artwork was phenomenal and was displayed during our event on the Wall.
Here's a banner I created for the Children’s Peace Park ceremony in East Berlin. A rough translation reads: "We, the children, citizens and the politicians of the world speak out for the trees of our planet, for developing clean energy and sustainable development. We speak for a healthy, peaceful and loving world and for the child that is within us all."
As children arrived that day, the site was cleaned, pathways were laid out, and volunteers planted grass. Trees donated by the city were installed throughout the site. Various speakers thanked the children for taking an active role in making a new future. It was again inspiring to see this new generation who will grow up without all the baggage that our generation carried. For them, the Cold War will have no meaning. They are coming of age at a time when there is an eagerness to connect with others worldwide, when other cultures are respected and valued.
The crumbling of the Berlin Wall marked an end to one period of history and a beginning to another. I’m just glad I got a chance to see it.
