Monday, March 24

I had been standing about two-and-a-half hours, making incremental movements forward toward the Soviet customs agent every fifteen minutes.

Although when I first joined the line I felt nervous, by the time the customs official motioned me to enter the next area I was considerably calmer. The three or four people in front of me went through customs quickly, without any search. The procedure seemed rather simple: the official took the passport, visa, looked at the customs declaration, asked for the cash or gold jewelery for verification, and the person stepped into Moscow.

My turn finally arrived. I put my bags in the platform to the left of the official. He asked me for passport, visa, customs declaration. After glancing at my passport, he withdrew a paper with numbers listed on it, studied it for a few minutes, and told me to put my suitcase on the table-top directly in front of him. I opened it, and he began removing items at a very slow pace, lingering over some of his finds such as the kosher bubble-gum cigarettes, an art book, music tapes, and matzah.

As he discovered the matzah, and soon after, a book on Jewish mysticism, he began muttering, "ah, Jewish, Jewish, Jewish" repeatedly--both to me and to my suitcase. After making a neat stack on the table of the books and tapes, he opened my duffle-bag and repeated the same procedure. The process continued as he attacked my two carry-on pieces. He found a prayer-book in Hebrew, my address book and some letters my mother had written me. The same litany, "Jewish, Jewish, Jewish," began again as he flipped through the prayer-book, and as he opened and skimmed the cards.

When he finished strewing my belongings on the table, he called over two other officials to scrutinize the books, tapes, letters, and magazines in the pile. A few minutes passed. Some words in Russian were exchanged, and my books, tapes, magazines--the whole pile--returned to my bag. I tossed the rest of my belongings randomly into my luggage, zipped them, and dragged them outside to join my friends.

We were a group of six women, and I was the fifth to pass through customs. We all watched, through the glass window, as our friend tossed her clothing, granola bars, and miscellaneous paraphernalia into her huge duffle bag. We were travelling to the Soviet Union to visit refuseniks, peace activists, and the wives of prisoners of conscience. Most of these people are considered less than "ideal" Soviet citizens, and, thus, not proper material for visits by foreigners. Although our intended visits were within legal boudaries, they certainly were not encouraged by Soviet authorities, and could possibly have endangered people whom we saw.

After customs we were transported to Hotel Intourist in the heart of Moscow. After checking in, and eating dinner, we walked to Red Square to telephone refuseniks, and make plans for the following day.

At midnight, the air was biting. Our contacts had been made. After watching the changing of the guard in front of Lenin's tomb, and digesting the impressive splendor of St. Basil's Cathedral we returned in pairs to the hotel.

Tuesday, March 25

During the trip, we always worked in pairs. Melissa Milgram '88 and I visited families together in the first two cities on our itinerary, Moscow and Riga. We did not have any plans that first night to meet refuseniks until 7:30 p.m. and spent the day on a tour of Moscow and at the Pushkin Museum.

Finally, we arrived at the Metro station where we were to meet our contact. We waited for a short man walking with a stick. After a few minutes, a man strolled diagonally across the area outside of the Metro. We approached him and, with only a few words passed, followed his lead and silently reached his apartment.

Like tens of thousands of other refuseniks, the Luries had applied for, and been denied, emigration from the USSR. Their case was unique, though. They had initially been granted exit visas in January 1980, a year after their first application. Three days before their expected departure date, however, Emmanuel Lurie was summoned to OVIR, the Office of Visas and Registration, and informed that his family's exit visas had been cancelled for reasons of "state security." His wife's mother, who had applied with the Luries, was allowed to emigrate, and she now lives alone in Israel.

After warm greetings, embraces, and offers of tea, we sat down to talk with the Luries--Emmanuel, Judith and their two daughters, 10-year-old Bella and 18-year-old Anna. Emmanuel was expelled from his job as an organic chemist and now has a job in the agriculture industry where he said he was very frustrated. Judith, trained as an English teacher, is not employed. The Luries are in a position typical for refuseniks--after applying for visas they frequently are expelled from their jobs or demoted to lower positions in the same occupation. During our trip we met many mathematicians, metereologists, chemical engineers, who now work as boiler-men, photo-developers and bookkeepers. Similarly, school administrators usually expelled students, whose parents applied for emigration, from universities, institutes and high schools.

The Luries were glad to see us and said they hadn't had visitors for about three months. Over dinner, we talked about nuclear arms, Central America, housing in the USSR. Like other refuseniks they were not hopeful about their future. Since 1979, the Soviet Union has clamped down on Jewish emigration. The 1979 emigration high of 51,320 fell to a 1139 low in 1985.