NOTE #18 THE YEAR OF HOPE

I travel far back into the past once again. Moscow, 1992. The year of hope. At that time, I unexpectedly became a witness to the birth of a new Russia. It was a year marked by euphoria and scepticism. Many Russians were afraid that their regained freedom was just a long-awaited dream from which they would wake up at any moment. There were plenty of reasons for this, because the old regime was tough.

I got to know them all: die-hard communists who tried to convince me that everything used to be much better in the old days. Newly minted democrats who trampled on their own past and yet had no solutions for the many new problems. Those who could no longer find their way in the sterile world of the free market economy were left behind. No one helped them. I saw them standing in the corridors of the Moscow underground, hundreds of elderly people. At least it was warm there. They sold flowers and hand-knitted mittens, and the sight of them moved me to tears.

That year, I was an extremely curious sixteen-year-old observer who absorbed everything and kept a diary. Privatisation took place by giving every citizen a voucher, a security that was eagerly traded. After a few months, inflation had reduced the voucher to a piece of paper decorating the refrigerator. The rouble was no longer rolling. It plummeted into the abyss and people looked for a scapegoat. The communists secretly rejoiced and worked diligently to destabilise the newly born country, which was unable to gain a foothold on the swampy ground of its own past. In the West, Yeltsin was still unconditionally supported, but in Russia he was rapidly losing prestige. I shared a school desk with his granddaughter. She was a small, blonde girl who spoke less and less as the hatred for her grandfather grew.

My host parents belonged to that part of the population that experienced the year of hope with euphoria and quickly adapted to the new, constantly changing economic conditions. Roman, my Jewish host father, actually an aeronautical engineer, made a living selling sports bags he made himself. Later, he imported socks and underwear from Turkey and earned so much money that he was able to travel the world and visit me many times. Roman wanted to see the world. He had been locked up for far too long.

As a radar expert, he soon earned so little that he couldn't even pay his monthly petrol bill. Before taking early retirement at the age of almost forty to devote himself entirely to his new business, he secretly took me to work with him one last time. I was smuggled through a window into the strictly forbidden airport grounds and put into a small military aircraft used to test the radar towers. The pilot flew in circles and simulated steep take-offs and landings. I sat right next to him and stared spellbound at the snow-covered birch forests, which seemed far too close to me. The Russian engineers on board asked me whether the West was now using younger and younger spies. I laughed mischievously and replied in Russian: who knows...

And then there was the anecdote about Gorbachev. For many Russians, he was a traitor. But for me, he remained a person I admired throughout my life and still revere today. Before my departure for Russia, people often jokingly asked me to say hello to Gorbachev. When I laughed and agreed, I had no idea that this wish would come true. I met him by chance in front of the Kremlin wall at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and seized the opportunity of a lifetime to shake his hand and thank him from the bottom of my heart. He was friendly and perhaps wondered what a teenage girl with an Austrian accent was doing alone in Moscow at that time. If I didn't have photos of this encounter, after so many years I would think it was all just a dream.

Just one month later, I stood crying at Moscow airport, saying goodbye to my Russian host family. I also said goodbye to Russia, because I sensed that I would never experience this country again as I had in the ‘Year of Hope’.