Richard Turen
Moscow. May of 1971.
As you may recall from my April 14 column, a student in my travel care had been kidnapped from a hotel in central Moscow. What to do? No one was helping me find him, although the hotel volunteered a "driver" -- no doubt to monitor my movements.
The trip I was escorting had been planned in conjunction with Intourist, the "official" Russian travel agency in charge of foreign arrivals that was said to have worked with the KGB.
I quickly decided that I had to get to their headquarters, a menacing structure at 5th Donskoy Proezd.
I somehow talked my way inside, desperate to find someone who spoke English. But I first wasted an hour dealing with intermediaries who seemed to lack any sympathy for my plight and that of my 17-year-old student.
Finally, I was brought to a proper supervisor. He listened carefully to my story, which I ended with "this has to end now. I need my student returned, and you need to help me."
He smiled at my impudence in the face of a purported KGB subsidiary. We stared at one another for what seemed like minutes when he finally responded slowly: "I cannot help you, but I know someone who perhaps can."
I was ushered into a smaller office where I met a tough-as-nails woman named Anna. She spoke English. She knew about Bruce.
"He is in hospital," she informed me. "In solitary confinement."
They were having an outbreak of cholera in Moscow, and no one was being told about it. No American suspected of having the disease would be released to go home. I could not accept this, and, forgetting where I was, I started shouting.
Anna grabbed my arm across her desk and said, "I am the only person you can trust to help you. Don't ever raise your voice again."
An hour later the two of us were boarding a train for a small village an hour east of Moscow. We got off at a small station and walked several blocks to a series of old two-story buildings.
As we passed one structure, Bruce started knocking on a window. He seemed to be locked in a small room.
This was a "hospital" where suspected cases of cholera were kept. But Bruce was more likely sick because he was on a heavy travel schedule across several time zones.
Anna told me to wait outside while she went to see the "hospital director."
The doctor in charge was not there, Anna said. The only way to get Bruce released was if she diverted staff while I walked around to the side door, broke the small lock off and got him out myself.
I balked. She opened her coat and produced a collection of IDs and government papers.
"I am authorizing you to get him out," she said. "I have the authority."
I looked at Anna, who was nodding. I walked to the side door. I broke the lock, grabbed Bruce, who quickly gathered some things, and the two of us ran in the direction of the train station with Anna following.
Bruce rejoined our tour the next day with stories to tell. I never called his parents. His father worked for a branch of the U.S. government specializing in intelligence gathering. I wonder to this day if the Russians knew that.
Our tour continued on to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) without incident.
I went on to enjoy every day of my eventual career in travel.
But I never forgot this worst travel day of my life. I was 27 years old. I am older now.