Category: Travels and Tours

A Celebration of the Triumph of Freedom Over Tyranny

The festive atmosphere as the Wall came down in 1989 (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Thirty-five years ago today, I stood in my apartment in Seattle and watched images like this on my TV with tears in my eyes. I’d been in East Berlin just weeks before and seen new friends there shy away from Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point to the West, while I passed through freely. My tears were tears of joy for them.

My forthcoming novel, The Last Grand Tour (publication date: January 28, 2025), takes place in Germany and nearby countries in the years right after the Wall fell, when there was hope and even belief everywhere that freedom would always eventually triumph over tyranny.

1989 was an extraordinary year, and that day, November 9, when the Wall came down, was the most extraordinary of all.

Scenes from My Time in Cold-War Russia in 1986

Moscow, 1986

In the fall of 1986, my buddy Steve Smith and I spent two weeks in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) and Moscow with a student exchange group. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would eventually dismantle the Soviet Union, had been in power only a year, but the students we met were already testing the possibilities for more freedom.

Because Gorbachev’s reign was so new, conditions throughout the country remained the way they’d been for decades. One of my first realizations upon seeing the relative poverty and the poor conditions in which people lived was that the US government had been overselling the Soviet threat for years. This feeling was enhanced by how generous (though reticent) the people we met were.

That’s me in the blue coat–and is that a KBG agent taking my picture?

Among the things I remember most clearly were the lines everywhere for basic goods, the empty grocery stores, and the restaurant where I tried to order off a menu full of items, only to be told again and again that they didn’t have my choice. Finally, I asked what they did have and the waiter pointed to two or three things.

A line of women hoping to buy…what?

I shot only slides in those days, and I took these iPhone stills with the slides set on top of a light table, so they aren’t as clear as they might be–but you get the picture, so to speak.

A Moscow wedding
Locals heading into a Russian Orthodox church