It isn't very difficult anymore to get a visa for travel in the Soviet Union. Ten years ago, no one went behind the Iron Curtain. And still last year the U.S. government was stamping all passports, "Not valid for travel to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics..."

But all that has changed. Various kinds of tourist bureaus are now offering package tours to Europe which include, quite likely, a week or two in Moscow and Leningrad. Such a policy change is an encouraging development in the Cold War. With enough money, it has become possible to travel to almost any country in the world.

Money, however, is not everything. Nor is a group trip, which is devoted to "seeing the sights," a very satisfactory way to see, or even "to do," a country. With Intourist--the official, and only, Russian tourist agency--controling certain hotels in key cities and arranging all the details of a Russian excursion, an individual would find it all too easy to return from his flying tour behind the Iron Curtain with nothing more than a few snapshots ("Can you imagine, they actually let me take them!"), a few recollections (the Moscow subway, TV antennas, and slums), and a few "incidents." But ask him about the Russian people. He would probably know nothing.

Intourist Controls Travel

Some people are concerned about this situation. At present the Dartmouth and Sarah Lawrence newspapers are trying to arrange a summer tour with the specific purpose of meeting Russian university students. If the tour materializes, however, it will still be as a group tour which has had all details made for it by Intourist.

One of the few people who have avoided these restrictive influences and has actually completed a trip to Russia is Martin E. Malia, assistant professor of History. Under the auspices of the Ford Foundation and a group of University libraries, including Widener, he spent five months in Russia to arrange for book exchanges between the United States and the USSR. He had success in his mission. And, more important, he had the chance to talk with Russian students and teachers in their own language over an extended period of time without the "cooperation" of Intourist. His findings are significant largely because they illustrate that the intelligent Russian student is not a robot who accepts the party line on every subject.

Just Like a Student

Malia's most valuable student contacts came in Moscow, where he spent almost three months. Normally it is very difficult to get into the university there, which has an enrollment of about 8,000 students, most of whom live in university dormitories. One needs a written pass to attend lectures or to visit the dormitories, although at the other universities Malia found he could wander around by looking as if he belonged there.

Because he was from a university himself, Malia managed to make many acquaintances at the University. He found that every one was eager to talk, even when they found out he was a foreigner--and an American, at that. They were all curious, anxious to hear about the United States. They even put a premium value on American cigarettes.

The longer Malia stayed in Russia, the more people he met who criticized openly many individual aspects of the Soviet system. They would think and say things, both in public and private, which they knew quite well they were not supposed to do, although in the final analysis, according to Malia, almost all of these people are basically loyal, convinced of the correctness of the system.

But they were curious, especially concerning the standard of living in the West. Such questions as these were frequently asked Malia: "What is it like to live there?"; "Are your automobiles better than ours?"; "What does an average worker earn?"; "What can you buy with what the average worker gets?" Even taxi drivers were curious. Many asked about the traffic in the United States, and whether there was more of it than in Russia. Most of them, Malia says, knew there was more in America.

Coupled with this curiosity was dissatisfaction with being cut off from the West. Many of the students even used the Russian equivalent of "Iron Curtain" to express this. They wanted to have access to objective information about the West; they wanted to read Western books, to see Western movies, and to be able to travel freely.

This discontent with the Iron Curtain is shown by the considerable circulation in Russia of books, phonograph records, and other items supposedly forbidden. The black market thrives on such goods. Every Sunday morning on the Kuznetsky Most Street in Moscow, for instance, there is a black market in books. There it is easy to pick up copies of books in short supply, especially western ones in Russian translations, such as the works of Dickens. Other goods, like cloth and clothing, cars, and theater tickets can also be purchased through the black mahket with enough money.

Robert Taylor and Gina

Malia recalls one rather touching scene of the black market in operation on a lower level. In Leningrad he noticed a little crowd around a man selling pictures. They were not the type of pictures which one can buy so easily from such little men in Paris; they were old photographs of Robert Taylor and Jeanette MacDonald, and never ones of Girard Philippe and Gina Lollobrigida.