Moscow Olympics

during the summer of 1980 my mother unexpectedly gave me a ticket to the Olympic qualifying rounds for swimming. Nobody in our family was particularly interested in swimming, and I had no idea who the current champion was or what styles the competitors I would be watching would swim. When I asked why I had to go to the Olympic pool, my mother replied with astonishment, “You have to experience the atmosphere of the Olympic games.”

The atmosphere did not prove very captivating, at least for me. True, a week or two earlier, along with my mother, my 80-year-old grandmother, and a friend of my mother’s who had come specially for the occasion, I had stood at the window of our eighth-floor apartment on Kutuzovsky Prospect and watched with a certain curiosity as some guy in what looked like underwear (he was probably a famous athlete wearing the uniform of his sport, but from my vantage point he just looked like a guy in underwear) passed the Olympic torch to another fellow who must also have been a famous athlete. We were so intent on our watching and were waving our arms with such enthusiasm as we cried “Look at that!” that we accidentally broke a pane of glass. The shards rained down on the street below. My grandmother started wringing her hands and saying, “Now, they’ll come, now they’ll come…” Nobody came, and certainly not for lack of personnel. The street was cordoned off by a horde of police and some people in blue shirts rumored to be KGB cadets.

For me, that broken windowpane became a symbol of the Moscow Olympics. We were excitedly watching a senseless action performed in front of our building while at the same time this act, the passing of the torch, was being watched by hundreds of secret police agents assigned to protect Moscow. But from whom? From everyone, of course – from American spies, who would certainly be planning some despicable act. Since President Carter had announced a boycott of the Moscow Olympics (and been joined by a multitude of countries upset by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), it was only to be expected that he would also send spies or terrorists to disrupt the games.

Overall, the fact that a huge number of foreigners was descending on Moscow was unpleasant for the Soviet authorities. Memories of Moscow’s 1957 World Festival of Youth and Students were still fresh, and the crop of children born nine months later with every conceivable skin tone had been ample evidence of the moral frailty of Soviet womanhood. Now Moscow would again be inundated with foreigners, a lot fewer than had initially been expected, but still many thousands. Somehow, Russians would have to interact with them.

All of my college classmates and I, along with most of the humanities students at Moscow University, were sent to attend courses to be interpreters at the Olympics. When I did not see my name on the list of those chosen, I rejoiced and set off on vacation. But then it struck me – a student with a Jewish last name was not considered suitable to interact with foreign tourists. Nevertheless, thanks to the KGB I spent three wonderful weeks at the beach.

Right before the games were to begin I arrived back in Moscow, traveling home in a completely empty train, something simply unheard of for July, when it was usually impossible to get tickets. Now they were only being sold to those fortunate enough to have a Moscow residency permit (прописка). The city had been closed and all the dissidents had been sent out of town. Fortunately, coming to terms with the criminal world was an easier matter.

Today Federal Security Service old-timers get misty-eyed reminiscing about how effectively Soviet security agencies maintained order. As Oleg Khlobustov, a journalist with ties to the security services, tells it, “The day before the Olympics opened, the Ministry of Internal Affairs also took extraordinary measures. One July morning, agents of Moscow’s Criminal Investigation Department rounded up all 20 criminal kingpins, loaded them onto busses, and delivered them to 6 Ogaryova Street, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. Here, Minister N.A. Shchelokov and First Deputy Minister Yu.B. Churbanov met with them and demanded that the capital be ‘free of undesirable excesses during the Olympics.’ Such desires were met by those present with complete understanding of the nature of the matter.”

Shchelokov lived another four years. After Brezhnev’s death in 1982 there was an investigation into Shchelokov’s activities and cases of police bribery and corruption came to light. The former minister was stripped of the rank of general and shot. His former first deputy, Churbanov, who was also Brezhnev’s son-in-law, wound up behind bars. But back then they explained the law to thieves and how important it was for our country that there be no trouble during the Olympics. Otherwise, God forbid, some famous athlete might be mugged in the Olympic village and then regret that he did not join in the boycott.

The streets of Moscow became oddly empty and store shelves were suddenly filled with strange items such as Pepsi-Cola, which they started to produce at a factory in Novorossiysk in honor of the Olympics. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. Evidently this really was the drink of freedom, consumed only in democratic countries. Until perestroika we never saw it.

At long last the games began. Mishka, the smiling little bear who was the symbol of the Moscow Olympics, welcomed visitors to the games, and, in the Metro, stations were suddenly being announced in English, while the police and blue-shirts continued to patrol the streets.

Then, in the middle of the games, there was suddenly some dreadful news: the great singer, songwriter, poet, and actor Vladimir Vysotsky had died. I suddenly lost all interest in the Olympic comedy.

Back then nobody realized just how popular he was. For me and my university friends he was simply a marvelous actor and member of the semi-forbidden Taganka theater. His songs were secondary. Only later did it gradually become clear to us how much his songs meant to people who had no idea what a marvelous Hamlet this gravel-voiced singer made, this man with whom every second drunk claimed to have served prison time (despite the fact that Vysotsky had never been in prison).

I was waiting to use a pay phone, the only one in our dacha colony, in order to share the sad news with a girlfriend who was as ardent a Taganka fan as I.  In response to a young man who attempted to chat me up while we were standing together in line, I angrily snapped, “Don’t you realize that Vysotsky died today?” Up to that point he had been very playful and persistent, but upon hearing this sad news he immediately left me alone. After all, it was no time to be picking up girls.

Later, my friends and I stood in a long line to get into the Taganka theater. It moved very slowly and in utter silence. Order was maintained by those same policemen and mysterious blue-shirted guards. The windows of all the surrounding buildings were opened, and in these windows and the buildings’ entrances people were standing and watching the slowly moving line. From time to time someone tried to jump ahead – there were rumors circulating that we would not all be let in to pay our last respects. The police caught the line-breakers and made them return to their places. It was dark in the theater and there were a lot of famous people there, but I had no desire to look at them. A great epoch was receding into the past, a huge stratum of culture was being buried, and somewhere nearby competitions were continuing that seemed utterly meaningless.

Preparations for the games’ closing ceremonies were underway, in which the huge Mishka was to fly up out of the stadium. The youngest participant in the Olympics, a 13-year-old swimmer from Angola named Jorge Lima, had already taken last place. In the words of Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, “The most important thing is not to win but to take part!” The oldest participant, a 70-year-old yachtsman from Bulgaria named Krasimir Krastev, had probably heard of Vysotsky. Bulgaria was not called the “sixteenth Soviet republic” for nothing. There too his songs were adored.

In the Olympic village, athletes partied, while in Afghanistan the war that had caused the boycott raged. Vysotsky wrote many ironic songs about athletes, but that was long before his death. He didn’t have a chance to write anything about the 1980 Olympics.

Due to the international boycott of the Olympic Games in 1980, the Soviet Union grabbed nearly one-third of all medals in the competition (195 out of 631 possible), and 80 of the 204 gold medals. East Germany and Bulgaria were second and third in the medals count.