Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the eighth and final General Secretary of the Soviet Union, passed away Tuesday at age 91. There are far better tributes to Gorbachev and his impact on the world than I could write.
However, because of his policies of “Perestroika” (reform) and “Glasnost” (openness), I was able to experience the Soviet Union as it was going through its period of transformation after seven decades of totalitarian rule. What I saw cemented my beliefs about capitalism, communism, socialism, and democracy.
Anybody who has been a broadcaster for a long time has heard, “you should write a book.” Gorbachev’s passing causes me to reflect on one of the best stories from the book I’ll write someday.
As the summer of 1987 began, Billy Joel was wrapping up his 11-month 100-date Bridge Tour when he announced he would play concerts in the Soviet Union.
Although Joel wasn’t the first western musician to play behind the Iron Curtain, he would be the first American to perform a fully staged rock concert in the Soviet Union with a full sound, light, and stage show. To produce a grand spectacle with three dates in Moscow and three in Leningrad, Joel was investing $2.5 million of his own money.
An entourage of over 100 people, including his then-wife, Christie Brinkley, their young daughter Alexa, and two-film crews, would travel with Joel and his band. Eventually, that list included me and the afternoon DJ at WYSP-FM/Philadelphia, Ed Sciaky (Shock-EE).
At the time, I was programming WYSP. We were less than one year into “Howard Stern all morning, Classic Rock all day.” We had just hired Sciaky from WIOQ for afternoon drive.
When we hired him, Ed was doing nights at WIOQ. At the time, WIOQ was a soft-eclectic AOR station. It had an incredibly loyal audience that gave it moderately successful ratings.
Ed was known as the DJ who first played Bruce (Springsteen – is there another?), Billy Joel, and others. Both (and again, many others) had at one time or another slept on an infamous sofa that he still owned years later. He had relationships with many big-name rock stars and tons of Classic Rock credibility, which WYSP needed at the time.
When he announced his Russian concerts, Joel said there would be broadcasts back to the U.S. We jumped into action. We started by finding out if there was already a host for whatever radio broadcasts were planned by having Ed call Billy Joel’s management. They hadn’t gotten that far. Ed offered his services, and the ball was rolling
We had a friendly relationship with the syndicator. They knew of Ed’s relationship with Billy, so they had no objections. It was starting to look like going to the U.S.S.R. with Billy Joel might be possible. There were, of course, the small matters of getting the permission of the Soviet government, our government, not to mention the company we were working for (Infinity at the time), as well as the budget to pull it off.
And so, I started making phone calls. It was Ed and me (as his producer and I’ll use the word “negotiator” – what you didn’t think I was going to let somebody else go, did you?) And as silly as it may sound, it really did require somebody with skills to navigate the maze of Soviet rules and situations that followed.
When you were young, did you ever play your mom off your dad to get something you wanted? You know, “mom, dad said it was okay with him if it was okay with you.” Then you reversed the phrase to your dad until eventually somebody actually did say okay.
For weeks that was the game; we played with the two governments and, to a lesser extent, with Joel’s management and the syndicator (because they had given us the okay). We kept telling everyone that everybody else was good, but we were waiting for their permission.
Miraculously it worked.
We received visas to the Soviet Union. We didn’t join the tour in Moscow. I arrived in Leningrad a few days before Ed to coordinate studio time. We were only granted the studio at Gosteleradio for one day – which may have been a blessing. Gosteleradio’s facilities were built before WWII, at least in appearance.
Trying to describe the Soviet Union isn’t easy. The best single word is gray. Everything was gray. The people were enigmatic but gray. The sun shined brightly, but the sky was gray.
From the time we got there, one strange thing after another would happen – little coincidences.
Ed and I received visas issued for the same number of days. Since I arrived a few days earlier, my visa expired first. Once I received the visa, all communication from the Soviet officials ceased. Therefore, I departed for the U.S.S.R. with two return tickets; one for the day the visa expired and the other on the same return flight as Ed. All I could do was visit Intourist in the lobby of the Hotel Leningrad and explain that my visa came back with the wrong date and I needed to stay a few days longer as part of the Billy Joel tour.
Every day I stopped by the Intourist desk. Every day, the nice woman there robotically smiled, nodded her head, and said: “We don’t have any information. Maybe tomorrow. We shall see.”
The shows were on August 2, 3, and 5. I believe my visa required me to leave on August 4. There was still no news that morning. I packed and headed to the front desk to check out. Literally, a minute before I did, the Intourist woman approached me with news of the approval of my visa’s extension. Several situations worked out at the last moment during our trip.
Not everything in the Soviet Union made sense. There were rules, lots of rules. Across from the hotel was a part of the street where people weren’t allowed to walk. There wasn’t anything there except a police officer who waved everybody away. Ed wondered what was so mysterious there. He asked people we met why they weren’t allowed to walk there. Nobody gave him a satisfactory answer. Always anti-authority, Ed was determined to uncover the mystery. He asked people what would happen if he walked over there. The Soviets looked at him like he had three heads. Their response made Ed look at them like they had four heads: “We don’t know. Nobody has ever tried it before. Let us know what happens if you decide to try.”
A press bus took media to and from the hotel and the Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex. Ed and I missed the bus one night going to the show. We were starting to figure out where we would go to hail a taxi (which weren’t always easy to find) when a local who spoke English well appeared and realized we were in distress. We explain the situation. He told us there was no problem because a bus was coming. A minute later, a bus with an English “out of service” sign stops in front of us. Ed and I look at each other for a minute. The entire ride there, we ask each other if this is a kidnapping or not. It’s not, but we never saw the guy again to say thank you.
The underground economy was prevalent at the time. The Soviet version of work was different than in the U.S. People didn’t work eight-hour shifts, go home, and then do it over again. The Soviets worked for a day or two straight, then off for a day or two. Some jobs seemed made up to me. I guess it’s how they achieved full employment. For example, you didn’t keep your hotel key. Each floor had a key-lady that kept your key when you left your room. They certainly didn’t need to take our key to enter while we were gone.
The key ladies often fell asleep, so it wasn’t too difficult to leave with the key, although we usually left it on their desks. We saw other people asleep at their desks during their official jobs. I recall an engineer at Gosteleradio snoring loudly. I always wonder if this is how Chernobyl happened.
But don’t let that give you the wrong impression of the Soviet people. They may have slept on the clock, but on their time, they were the most industrious people I’ve ever seen.
Nearly every person we met had a side hustle. Soviet collective farms weren’t doing well, but it was amazing what they could grow on the small plots of land that were set aside for personal use. Some set up little gift shops in their flats and sold tchotchkes such as Matryoshka dolls (wooden nesting dolls) or lacquer boxes. Those who drove a car drove as a private taxis. Others exchanged money. All of the trading for American goods, especially cigarettes, blue jeans, and dollars, were huge. A pack of Marlboro reds was the surest way to flag down a private taxi in Leningrad.
We flagged down one private taxi when Ed and I wanted to visit the synagogue. We tried communicating with the driver, who explained that it would be closed for repairs. We understood what he meant when he told us it had been closed for many years.
Through a combination of a few words in English, Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, we were able to communicate with our driver. He had been a doctor, persecuted because he was Jewish, and reduced to menial work. He had one son who had been able to escape to Israel, where the driver believed he was a doctor. We promised to try to find his son and contact him to let him know his father was alive if we could. We found his son in Israel when we returned. We were able to call him. We called the driver back in the Soviet Union one time. We were able to say, “We spoke to your son; he loves you,” before the line went dead. We were never able to get through again.
While I still have extensive notes with contact info for every person we spoke with, I cannot find the names of the driver or his son. Nonetheless, it was one of the best results of our trip to the Soviet Union.
When we could not get a studio at Gosteleradio after the first two days, Ed and I had to resort to guerilla tactics so that he could broadcast back to Philadelphia. It was 1987 before there was email, let alone the internet. We came prepared with alligator clips. We took apart the phone and attached the microphone – primitive but effective!
From the hotel room, we fed breaks down the line. Ed and I discussed the television show that Billy Joel had been a guest on. We reviewed the concerts. We talked about the way the people reacted. During the first Leningrad show, the audience got so amped that they reduced several hundred wooden folding chairs in front of the stage to toothpick-size scraps.
We also talked about the official and unofficial jobs. I remember calling it the ultimate tribute to capitalism. That’s when the line went dead. An hour later, the operator told us there were problems with the overseas connections, “maybe due to weather.” It would be more than eight hours before we would get a call through to the United States. We took the hint and avoided such conversations for the rest of our stay.
These are just a smattering of the experiences that Ed and I had in Soviet Leningrad. After we returned home, I spoke with comedian Yakov Smirnoff after one of his shows.
Just over a year earlier, WYSP participated in a charity to raise money to fight hunger, Hands Across America. It was a 15-minute event to form a human chain stretching across the country. WYSP brought in Yakov Smirnoff for our Hands Across America event, so we had spoken before.
After the show, I went backstage to talk to Yakov. I was excited to tell him these and other stories from our adventures. He said, “I know, I know. You had a fun time. What a country,” turning his trademark phrase around on his homeland. He proceeded to finish my stories, adding “KGB.”
At first, I thought he was being funny. “Yakov, what would the KGB want with us? We are completely harmless and don’t know any secrets,” I asked. Yakov filled in the gaps explaining that they weren’t there to spy on us or get information from us. They were there to ensure we had a wonderful time, and that’s what we would tell everybody back home.” It’s still the best explanation for the “coincidences.”
“Perestroika” (reform) and “Glasnost” (openness)? Da!
I wonder if others traveling to the Soviet Union during this era had similar experiences.
Mr. Gorbachev, thank you for the hospitality. R.I.P. If only Vladimir Putin were so accommodating.
Footnote: Ed Sciaky passed away from complications related to diabetes in 2004 at the age of 55. We called each other “comrade” and loved sharing these stories.
