Once Upon A Time

I was in the Soviet Union in 1990, just before its breakup.  We traveled to Moscow and then-Leningrad, as well as Kiev and Odessa.  It was an interesting time (in retrospect, perhaps in the sense of the Chinese proverb).  New, independent political organizations were springing up everywhere, and I had brought a wide range of cameras -- including my broadcast-quality TV camera and gear -- to catch it all.

In Leningrad, we went to the first meeting of Democratic Russia, a new pro-democracy umbrella group, where we spoke with a largely unknown KGB officer turned pro-democracy advocate, Oleg Kalugin.  In Moscow, we met with the young leader of a group who recommended the public simply form a new government regardless of the old, Communist state.  "Well, what about the current government?" we asked.  "What are you going to do about them?"  He waved the thought away dismissively.  "Ignore them."

In Kiev, with Ukraine still a province under the Moscow government, we found a large protest in the city's central square.

Mostly young people and students had taken to camping out there -- driving, as near as I could tell, tent pegs in through the seems between the huge paving blocks to set up shelter.  Fortunately, the fellow working as our translator was friends with the fellow who was "head of security" at the protest, and the rope barrier that contained the massive campsite was lifted to admit us.

I made a number of pictures there, but these are the prints I found the other day in my box of negatives.  I know there's at least one more: a portrait made of a Gulag survivor, wearing a prison uniform, in front of his tent as he spoke with us. 

Later, we visited the offices of Rukh, an early independent political group.  Access to these groups was quite free -- something one finds in times of great change like this.  In later years, as organizations become more formalized and people rise into more official positions of leadership, both in their parties and government, availability becomes more difficult and rare.

The above is a picture of one of the Rukh activists.  It was a time when non-Communist symbols began to come out from under the shadows.  I saw -- and bought -- pins in Moscow with the old (white, blue and red) Russian flag and the double-headed czarist eagle.  This man's belt buckle, he said, was his grandfather's, issued to him by the old, czarist army.

And this, here for no other reason than I like the picture (it was my Christmas card that year), is a scene from a show performed for the benefit of the group I was with at a kindergarten in Odessa.

Everything was shot, if I recall correctly, on a Canon F1 with Tri-X film, except for the picture of the little girl.  That was done with color negative (probably Kodacolor 400).