(excerpted from Doug Burton's trip diary)
Tuesday 3/27/79 Riga, Latvia, USSR
This
morning we returned to the Hotel Astoria for breakfast
and had one of the better breakfasts so far. Then we went
on a walking tour of the old city which was founded in
1201. Many of the buildings were old barns built by the
merchants during the 13th and 14th century and the
streets are made of brick. After the tour, rather than
the scheduled visit to the Revolutionary Museum, we went
shopping and I found a good backpack at the sporting
goods store for 3R 60K (about $6.00). After lunch we took
a bus tour of the city and rode out to the Salispils
Concentration Camp in Riga which was built in 1941.
During its existence, the population of Jews in Riga
dropped from 30,000 to 200. The camp was burned to the
ground by the Nazis in 1945 in an attempt to eliminate
evidence and the remaining occupants were all killed. By
then over 100,000 people had lost their lives at the camp.
Each year there is a commemorative ceremony given by
those who lost relatives there.
After dinner we had a party with some more factory workers. This factory is 80 percent female so there were a lot of girls at the party. The band was prepared with a short program including numbers as “Big Rubber Ball,” “Looking out My Back Door,” “Down by the Banks of the Ohio,” and finished up with “In the Old Cotton Fields Back Home.” After a dull slide show there was some dancing and they even had a square dance (sort of) which was originally going to be a Virginia Reel.
Several people, including Dad, stayed back at the hotel because of headaches and nausea. Dad said it might have been from all the sulfur dioxide in the air caused by the coal burning in the city. The fumes are very bad, especially in the old city, and everything is covered with soot. Later in the evening we discovered a very interesting fact about Riga: its garbage trucks run at 3:00 a.m. We were awakened by loud voices and crashing trash cans coming from the garbage dump below our window.
Wednesday 3/28/79 Riga, Latvia, USSR
This morning we had to pack and move our luggage into one of three rooms since we had to be checked out by noon. After breakfast we visited the Aurora Stocking Factory, the only stocking factory in Latvia (we had the party with the workers last night). The average salary of the workers is 185R (rubles) per month, with unskilled workers getting 70R per month and technicians getting as much as 550R per month. After touring the factory we visited a nursery for children whose mothers work at the factory. It is for three to seven-year-olds and is divided into two groups: one for Latvian children and one for Russian children.
From lunch, we went to the Riga State University. There we met with the faculty of Physics and Mathematics, German and Philosophy, and some students in the Foreign Language Department who spoke English. Approximately 10,000 students attend the University. After the speeches, we broke up into small groups to discuss our respective fields of study. I met a young professor in Computer Programming and we discussed the levels of development of hardware in our countries. Later in the afternoon a student -- Lolita -- and I walked some more through Riga. She showed me “Rotsnams,” the old town council hall from around the 15th century. She got special permission for the two of us to go in and see the two famous halls of the building. They were beautiful. We also sat in for a while on a rehearsal session of a Latvian pop group. We had a really good discussion of popular music including Elton John (one of her favorites) and then we went to a cafe for dinner. We had potato salad (with eggs, pork and pickles) and cucumber salad, fried hen, coffee and balsam -- a very strong alcoholic drink made from herbs. Everything was delicious, and for dessert we had thick whipped cream with chocolate shavings. Afterwards we sat around discussing our educational systems, politics, and literature.
I returned to the hotel to prepare for the train trip. The station was just across the street but our guide from Riga made us load our suitcases on the bus and then unload them at the station. After we boarded the train we had a little party in honor of Tanya who was leaving us in Tallin. She gave a small talk (her only serious one, she said) and Dad added to it saying Tanya had earlier said we were one of the best prepared groups she had ever worked with. She gave everyone a kiss last night (even the girls) and I think she and the Sarics and a few others stayed up drinking cognac.
Thursday 3/29/79 Tallinn, Estonia, USSR
We arrived in Tallin at about 8:45 in the morning. The distance from Moscow to Leningrad is longer than from Riga to Tallin, but our train stopped at stations almost every half-hour. We went to a nice restaurant for breakfast and then took a bus tour of the city. We visited Katriorg, Peter’s Palace in Tallin, and walked around the grounds for a while. From there we went to the old city and visited Domsky Cathedral. There is a legend about the cathedral: “A man who wished to repent for his philandering ways with women asked to be buried at the entrance to the cathedral so that everyone would step on him and cleanse his body of its sins. But later, a letter was found with him which stated how happy he would be to be buried there so that he could see the ladies’ pretty legs as they entered the cathedral.” Later in the day we left for the ferry which was to take us to Helsinki.
When we got there,
the money exchange was closed and they would not open it
for us. Dad really got mad because the reason they did
this was to confiscate our rubles at customs without
giving us dollars in return. However, a few of the group
went to the hotel to exchange our money and Dad made it
clear to the authorities that we weren’t leaving
until our money was changed. When we boarded, we
discovered that the ferry was overbooked and we had no
cabins; in fact, they had overbooked by about 100 people
so all the available space was crowded. After we got
underway, we received more good news: the ferry was going
to travel slow because of ice in the channel and we
wouldn’t dock until 8:00 a.m., instead of the
scheduled midnight docking. We spent some time at the bar
making the best of the situation, playing cards, drinking,
and taking shifts guarding our luggage which had to be
piled up on deck, since there was no space for it
elsewhere.
Friday 3/30/79 Helsinki - New York - Home
The ice
is really thick on the sea now and we are making slow
progress. It had been a long trip and most slept near the
luggage. We finally docked and disembarked and the
representative from Finnair who met us welcomed us back
to “orange juice, running water, and toilet paper.”
Everyone applauded. We were taken to the Hotel Olympia
for breakfast and we rented four rooms so we could shower
and change.
We later caught the bus to the airport and from Helsinki we flew to Amsterdam (about a two-hour flight) and we disembarked there for a forty-five minute layover. After departing I rented a headset so I could listen to the movie sound track. The movie was exquisitely bad; a French film starring Catherine Deneuve and Yves Montand -- “Call Him Savage."
Our descent to New York was a little rough but we made it. After customs, we caught the bus to LaGuardia. The flight from New York to Roanoke was uneventful -- at least I don’t remember anything since I slept the whole way.
In conclusion, in spite of troubles with customs, bad weather and food, and boring speeches, the trip was a fantastic experience and we are all greatly indebted to the Sarics for chaperoning and taking such good care of us. Mom did a good job at the money exchange and Dad was great with the authorities. We were fortunate to have someone who gave us a great deal of freedom in our scheduled and unscheduled activities and it made the trip more meaningful for all of us.
