Trophywife007

Such interesting stories. I have only small observations from our experience of living in West Berlin from '86 to '88. One thing is that when we drove through the east we tended to drive straight through without stopping; but one time we had someone with us who had her dogs and they needed a potty stop. We always had noticed a lot of Lada cars and that they seemed to regularly need adjustments, judging from all of them pulled over at the freeway exits. So we exited the freeway and naturally a Lada exited and parked a bit behind us. Our friend waited with her dogs and Mr. 007 noticed that antennae were coming out of the other driver's tool kit. The penny dropped.

Gardyloo

You've probably heard it, but a favorite old joke from the USSR (also Poland, Czechoslovakia et al most likely) went like this:

A family saves and saves and finally has enough money set aside to order a car - Trabant, Zhiguli or Polksi Fiat - your choice. They go to the showroom and begin filling out the order.

"Okay," says the dealer. "Your car will be available for you in eighteen months. The 10th of December to be exact."

"What time?" asks the wife.

"Why does that matter?"

"Because we're getting a phone installed that morning."

Seamus

In the mid-1908's I did an oncology lecture tour in the then USSR. Moscow, Kiev, Pyatigorask, Leningrad (now St Petersburg.) In Moscow I delivered the first public lecture on AIDS which was attended by a significant number of local public health folks, all in thw wngs as opposed to in the audience seats. Science at that time was restricted to descriptive epidemiology. The Soviet health authority had recently released their version of the US Surgeon General's report. Pretty much purely plagiarized from the US version, with the exception that the Soviet version advised "avoid homosexuals" as opposed to sexual risk reduction advice. My partner art the time was on one of the early AZT clinical trials, and I will never forget clearing immigration/customs at Shermetyevo. We had distributed his meds amongst some friends in our group, in innocuously labeled vials. I cleared and passed the turnstile. When John reached the guard behind me the guard uttered something in rapid Russian. I attempted to go back to mediate, was met with a rifle in my face and gruff instruction to proceed forward. Turned out the hassle was caused by (I believe) his appearance which could be seen as middle Eastern, not the meds. I will never forget the look of terror in John's eyes. To this day I believe it hastened his demise.

Cowboy1968

That would have been a pleasant surprise.
In the GDR, the waiting time for a new car was some 13-17 years, not months.

PalenQ

Trabants or Trabbies were all that were seen in DDR too. More like a glorified golf cart than car though after wall fell a certain sentiment or nostaligia for it was felt and became a source of pride.

rs899

He didn't but I sort of did. My first real job was buying the stuff that made the nuclear subs go for Rickover. Stuff like steam generators, valve, pumps, reactor vessels.

Just to keep this fascinating thread going (no way to top Gardyloo and Michael), my one very brief encounter was visiting East Berlin for a day in 1977 from West Berlin. The contrast was stark, there was something very different and stifling in the air just a few blocks away from freedom. It was a fascinating day, mostly spent at the Pergamon Museum marveling at the stuff the old Germans had left behind. The few trinkets we bought at Centrum with the money we had to exchange were somewhat unusual here - a cheap fountain pen and a bottle of ink (with a badly made bakelite lid that immediately cracked and ruined the clothes in my backpack). I thought we had pulled off the crime of the century by spiriting out, against their regulations, one leftover ost pfennig as a souvenir. Unfortunately, somehow that was lost in the armrest of the Icelandair flight we took on the way home. Such a pity.

Though I never had a chance to go back to the second world, when it WAS the second world, I did eventually marry a former Soviet (low level CPSU party member, actually) so I hear a lot of stories about the way it was.

5alive

Pal...I suspect your relatives weren't trying very hard to understand. When my two aunts and an uncle went in 1977, the oldest had no problem being understood. The younger sister who was born in the USA struggled a bit to follow the conversation, but did. My dad who was born here took Czech about 10 years ago. The teacher told him he knew some very outdated slang, but she knew what all of the words meant.

My brother and I took my dad in 2015. You really should go back. Overall, it was a good experience.

5alive

Seamus, that was a fascinating story about the conference you presented at.

PalenQ

Well probably as it seemed weird to me or as I suspect the grouchy commie bureacrats just said that - they were not at all welcoming - I was there always with her when they said that. Whatever.

PalenQ

BACK TO TRANSIT CAMPING PRAGUE

Ah those beer lines - folks waiting an hour or two in long lines at camp cafe to get plastic cups of some no-name beer -limit 2 about 12 ounce cups each! Why wait in lines when they could have brought their own in? And in the home of Pilsener andn Budweiser having to settle for such swill (so someone told me about the beer).

Most other campers were young East-Bloc folk who being restricted from traveling elsewhere had to stick to the East Bloc. What surprised me was that the mainly young 20s or so crowd nearly had very long hair (males) - seemed to be totalitarian regimes could give some individual freedom by letting this happen.

Transit Camping will forever remain in my mind for its incredible bureaucratic snafus with registering and even getting a beer in the home of some iconic beers (which were mainly I understand were sold for export and hard currency and not wasted on local rabble!

Michael

And in the home of Pilsener andn Budweiser having to settle for such swill (so someone told me about the beer).


Not in my experience, where we had 9% beer right out of the cask in the provinces. Beer was the one thing readily available, along with very greasy pork and bread dumplings. Fresh fruit and vegetables were sadly lacking, and once we left Prague and saw a roadside stand selling fresh cherries we purchased a pound and that was our lunch.

billbarr

It was a comedy although at the time it wasn’t. Very many years ago we flew on a Aeroflot turbo-prop which I figure could seat around 40 or so folks. It was a short flight possibly just over an hour. The plane was full and as it got to the end of the runway ready for take-off two guys, who were arguing, refused to sit in their seats. It took-off with them still standing in the aisle. Across from me a couple each had a chicken, not in a cage, but wrapped in what looked like a small blanket wrap. OK, possibly those things happened on ‘local’ flights in those days.

I have never been on such a cold aircraft. I’d a window seat right next to the emergency exit and shivered all through the journey. I pulled my warm coat tightly around me and it wasn’t until I was ready to stand to leave the aircraft found that the lower part of it was stuck by ice to the aircraft wall, against the left hand seal of the door frame. The return journey was by train.

PalenQ

That summer time in Prague there were watermelons being sold from trucks all over the center-that's all about for street food then. Coffee in so-called cafes were mud with a hint of coffee taste. Don't remember seeing any kolaches!

Gardyloo

No shortage of melons in Samarkand either.

Seamus

billbar, your post reminds me of domestic flights on the old Aeroflop. The international flight from Dublin to Moscow was fairly standard for the time, but internal aircraft were different. We also had fellow passengers with swaddled fowl. I remember looking at the ceiling of the cabin which was made of the sort of micro-perforated material that used to line car interior headers. I wondered how the emergency oxygen would be deployed of needed. Turns out the emergency oxygen was a single E cylinder on the floor behind a row of seats (and not even secured - just lying there on the floor!). As the senior person in the group I felt compelled to maintain a calm demeanor, but I assure you those briefs were never again wearable.

billbarr

Seamus, thanks for the BIG smile here. What was it about the swaddled chickens? Fully understand about the briefs too. Those flights began to really get to me and eventually I did try and take trips by train instead, but only if it was possible. Do you remember the dourness and hostility of the officials of all kinds (and there were many) when you landed in Moscow? Scary people. Eventually my employer moved my responsibilities to Greece and that was the beginning of a much, much better adventure.

Bill

PalenQ

It was weird in USSR in 1975 when I spent a month there (my least favorite East Bloc country by far) I had to be escorted by Intourist women - always women -onto and off of trains - to and from Intourist hotels. Never had that before and was a total bummer.

Other than that I saw no overt signs of me being ever followed, etc even when I would go on several-mile jogs into areas of cities way off normal tourists' tracks.

There was a large mirror over bed in my Moscow Intourist hotel however and I always wondered if it also was monitoring me somehow or were cameras hidden, etc. But I cared not as I had nothing to hide. No Natashas befriended, etc.

Trophywife007

But they and the Ladas passed all the Mercedes and BMWs when transiting from Berlin to West Germany. The speed limit was 100kph (about 60mph) and the police were only interested in ticketing the westerners. They frequently set up speed traps and hid their vehicles in the bushes. Occasionally, oncoming traffic would try to warn you by flashing their lights.

5alive

Again, amazing stories. Maybe you guys could answer whether either of these occurrences were "normal." They both seemed so odd to me.

Your mention of the Intourist women reminded me of a family story. My cousins went to Prague and had reserved a room in the main hotel open to Westerners. When they arrived, this woman, who was like their handler, informed them that they could not have the room for the middle days of their stay. They would have to move to a smaller hotel and then move back. My cousin said no explanation given why.

On a separate trip, my aunts came by train into Czechoslovakia--I think from Austria. There were soldiers with machine guns pointing at the train as it pulled up to the first station.

PalenQ

My parents were totally shocked also entering Czechoslovakia from Austria - the hoisted our car up and looked at every little area underneath and of course all over interior. They had never seen something like that before.