Speaking to a group of undergraduate leaders last week, Nikolai Voschchinin, a member of the visiting Soviet Union delegation, said jokingly, "the diplomatic corps in your country has been increased by 12 while we're visiting you, because each of us is a 'diplomat'--a 'diplomat' to increase understanding between our two nations."
While perhaps Voschinin was deliberately exaggerating his group's duties, anyone who spent much time with the delegation during its 6 1/2 day stay in Cambridge would have to agree that the visitors went out of their way to emulate the trip of Premier Khrushchev in September when peace, friendship, and coexistence were the dominant themes.
From their first evening when Lev Vlasenko, the group's talented pianist, charmed a small Adams House audience with an informal concert, to their last night when the Americans and Russians threw reciprocal parties for each other, the visiting Russians as a whole tried their best to push politics into the background, to avoid any conflicts.
In a friendly farewell toast to his group's Cambridge hosts on Tuesday night, Vadim Loginov, the quick-witted leader of the delegation, said, among other things, that while the Soviets were in town they "started no arguments."
There actually were only a few incidents when a Russian started an argument with an American. Most conflicts were started by Americans.
An example was last Sunday night at the meeting in Comstock Hall with undergraduate leaders. In a short question-and-answer period, the Russians' only questions concerned the functioning of the Student Council, while the Americans seemed more interested in questioning the delegation about the effectiveness of last summer's Vienna Youth Festival.
An American, basing his question on a New York Times article which said Communist officials were not satisfied with the festival, asked the group if this was true, and he received sharp, if not sarcastic answers ridiculing both the question and the New York Times.
By and large, the Russians received a warm welcome in Cambridge, their first real stop in their month-long tour of the Northeastern United States (they landed in New York the day before they arrived in Cambridge), a much warmer welcome than many people thought this generally aloof community would give.
The delegation--eight men and four women--stayed in groups of two at the Business School, Divinity School, Adams House, Kirkland House, Bertram Hall, and Comstock Hall during their stay, and after the first night two or more of them would be taken out to dinner or invited to a home by a different person each night.
Thus it was possible for a Russian to meet several students or local residents just from living nearby or eating with them. As the Experiment in International Living, the sponsoring organization, hoped the Russians expressed satisfaction with this arrangement at the end of the stay.
During the day, efforts were made to show the Russians as much of Cambridge and Boston as possible, and this included the obligatory visits to the John Hancock Building, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Commons, Widener Library and the Yard, etc. In addition, smaller groups paid visits to hospitals, a reform school, Newton High School, and a Polaroid-Land factory.
At Harvard most of the group attended at least one class, and all of them visited and talked with student groups in their areas of interest. Of course, the "cultural representatives" of the delegation, namely pianist Vlasenko and movie and stage actress Zinaida Kirienko had the most invitations to visit groups in action.
Alexander (Sasha) Krivopalov, a reporter for Komsomolskaya Pravda, the official newspaper for the Young Communist League (daily circulation over 3 million), was also a favorite among students and spent an afternoon at the CRIMSON, sitting through an editorial meeting and discussing the paper's operations with the President, Alan H. Grossman.
Of the group, only four spoke English well, Vlasenko, Krivopalov, Voschinin, and philogy student Elvira Astafyeva, and as might be expected they often were the most popular with students. A special word must be said for Vlasenko who perhaps won the hearts of a score of Radcliffe girls with his charm.
He had been to many parts of the world before coming here, and could speak just as well in English or French as Russian on a variety of subjects, and could always be counted on to play something on the piano.
In addition to Radcliffe girls, Vlasenko, with Miss Kirienko, and engineer Igor Makarov won the friendship of the off-Broadway cast of "An Enemy of the People" which closed its Boston run last Sunday. The cast invited the three Russians and this writer to a party on Saturday night, and from midnight to 3 a.m., the whole party was "Russian" in tone, with Miss Kirienko singing several ballads, and Vlasenko charming the gathering with stories of the Soviet Union, and in interpreting questions to Miss Kirienko.
Of course the word "student" used to describe the group is a misnomer since only seven of the 12 are in fact students, but many Americans who visited the U.S.S.R. on "student" delegations this summer were also out of school.
The group has been very well chosen, representing several sectors of Soviet life, weighted perhaps toward the intelligentsia at the expense of the worker or agricultural areas. Perhaps for this reason several members of their delegation looked with apprehension at their next stop at Penn Yan, N.Y., a small farming community near Ithaca, although Voschinin, often the group's spokesman, said with a smile before leaving Cambridge, "I'm sure it will be interesting."
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