Moscow

December 1975

As a college junior in 1975, I traveled alone to the Soviet Union, mostly because the packaged tour was dirt cheap. I should have guessed that the low price was related to season. The December evening I arrived in Moscow, the temperature was 10 degrees. The streets were filled with people bundled in thick coats and fur hats. I checked into a drab, gray Intourist Hotel, and then I went back out into the human stream and did my best to blend in, in my light jacket and stocking hat.