High Life / A WEEKLY FORUN FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Midnight for Moscow : 20 County Exchange Students Visit Just Before Soviet Metamorphosis

By JEDIDIAH YUEH

Oct. 17, 1991 12 AM PT

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Standing before the towering dark-red walls of the Kremlin, the group of county teen-agers felt intimidated by Moscow’s ancient fortress.

Once through the gates, however, they saw the ominous atmosphere melt away before brightly colored onion-domed churches and the crisp greenery of a park.

The 20 teen-agers, all from county high schools, spent 23 days in the Soviet Union this summer through the People to People International youth exchange program. They visited the cities of Moscow, Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Sochi, Rostov-on-Don and Leningrad.

As they left the Kremlin, they paused before the grave of the unknown soldier and paid a silent homage to the dead and to the shattered stereotypes they had previously harbored.

Within a month of their visit, Communist control of the Soviet Union would stumble and fall apart. The visiting teen-agers had seen the threads unraveling.

“It wasn’t what we expected it to be,” said Sandy Hentges, a senior at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton. “It wasn’t like the KGB was watching you every step of the way.”

They didn’t find bread lines snaking from the food stores or looks of distrust--only a penetrating curiosity from the natives.

“Wherever we went, people were staring at us,” said Teri Huggins, a senior at Sunny Hills. “We had to get used to the attention. Of course, we were also more noticeable because we wore matching red shirts. . . .

“The entire city of Moscow seemed to brood. I think everyone was just tired of communism.”

In Moscow’s Red Square on a Sunday afternoon, the Americans stood in line outside the tomb of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, founder of Bolshevism. After a 45-minute wait, they walked into the red marble mausoleum and saw the wax-like body of the man who founded the U.S.S.R.

Little did the visitors suspect they may be among the last to see the body because there is talk of now burying his remains along with his ideology.

From Moscow, the group flew to Kazan, where the students had their first face-to-face experience with the Soviet people. Families volunteered to take groups of two or three students to their homes and provide them entertainment for the day.

“Outside, the apartment that the family lived in looked like an old, run-down concrete eyesore,” said Hilary Ahern, a senior at Sunny Hills. “But the inside was nicely furnished with large fabric sofas and dark, shaggy rugs.

“And the family was incredibly friendly. They didn’t really seem pro-America, but they were definitely tired of their government.”

The family took Ahern to their dacha, a Russian country house, where they served her Russian tea and chocolates.

“The conversation always centered on what things were like in the United States,” Ahern said. “They wanted Western products and luxuries.”

Throughout the tour the heat menaced the group, with temperatures in the 80s and 90s and high humidity.

“It was the worst in Kazan,” Ahern said. “Our tour bus had no air conditioning, and we paid for it in sweat.”

Halfway through their trip, the group took a sightseeing bus tour through the Georgian mountains.

“It was a relief from the concrete slabs and drooping buildings,” Ahern said. “We passed by a large river that frothed and foamed. It was almost physically rejuvenating.”

In Ulyanovsk, the group spent much of its time visiting the birthplace of Lenin, his boyhood house and the two museums and many statues in his honor. But besides the tributes to Lenin, Ulyanovsk also had many friendly people.

One afternoon, a local children’s dance company honored the Americans with a performance of native folk dances in authentic costumes.

After the dance concert, American and Soviet youths met at an underground disco, where communication proved frustrating and fruitless.

“I excused myself and asked two of my friends to give the disc jockey some of our musical tapes so we could show the Russians some American club-style dancing,” said Layne Mosler, a senior at Troy High in Fullerton.

The Soviet youngsters formed a circle around the dancing Americans and eagerly copied their movements.

“When Paula Abdul’s ‘Rush, Rush’ slowed things down, I joined hands with the Russian children standing next to me,” Mosler said. “But one little boy refused my hand and shook his head. Instead, he put his arm around me. All of us dropped each other’s hands, put our arms around one another and swayed back and forth until the song ended.”

Mosler said when she and the tour group later left the disco, the Russians followed her and stuffed trinkets into her hands, hugged her and gave her kisses.

“Whenever someone asks me what I remember the most from my visit to the Soviet Union this past summer, I don’t think of the Kremlin or even Lenin’s tomb.” Mosler said.

“What I remember is that unforgettable afternoon at the disco in Ulyanovsk, where the Russians and the Americans understood one another without understanding a single spoken word.”