The recent death of Cuban leader, Fidel Castro has brought to mind an odd encounter I had with Castro at the age of 15 while I was traveling in the Soviet Union with my parents.
It was the Fourth of July, 1972. My parents and I were 10 months into a year-long camping trip through Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. My father was on sabbatical from his job as an art history professor at a college in central California.
The early ’70s was a rare moment in Soviet history when westerners were allowed to drive and camp in the Soviet Union, provided we agreed to stay on proscribed itineraries. We had bought a Volkswagen camper in London the previous September. The current leg of our trip involved driving from Vienna to Moscow, and from Moscow to Helsinki via Leningrad.
We had arrived the night before in Minsk, roughly halfway between Warsaw and Moscow. At dusk, we checked into the well-outfitted campground that was indicated on our itinerary. It was full of Soviet families on holiday — some in tents, others in tiny travel trailers dragged behind brightly painted Soviet cars. We seemed to be the only foreigners in the campground so we were a bit of an oddity.
The next morning, we were met at the campground by a sturdy young woman named Svetlana, our city guide provided as part of the itinerary. She wedged herself into the front passenger seat of our little camper and began giving my father strict driving instructions, all without the aid of a single article.
We passed a factory that had produced so many tractors that Svetlana stumbled over the way to pronounce the number in English. The factory was named for Lenin. Later, we passed another factory that produced washing machines, something Svetlana assured us were commonplace in the Soviet Union as opposed to the United States. It was also named for Lenin. Later, we stopped and visited a gigantic granite representation of the factories’ namesake.
At the end of our tour, Svetlana instructed my father to stop in the center of Minsk. We left our camper and took a brief walking tour of the old city, which consisted mostly of references to buildings that were no longer there because they, along with 97 percent of the city, had been destroyed during the Nazi’s unsuccessful push toward Moscow. An event still quite fresh in the minds of anyone over the age of 30.
When we got back to our car, there were a dozen or so men, women, and children peering through the windows. In the early ’70s, there weren’t many cars on the road in the Soviet Union and a car from the West was a novelty. Ours, one with a little sink and stove inside, caused a minor sensation wherever it went. My mother was well-equipped for such occasions because she had brought along hundreds of tiny paper U.S. flags attached to little sticks. She handed these out to the curious onlookers.
Just as we were saying goodbye to Svetlana, I noticed a crowd gathering about a block away. I asked her what was going on and she said it was some kind of parade in honor of the head of state of some other socialist country. The name of which she could not remember. She encouraged us to watch the parade before continuing our journey towards Moscow.
We said goodbye and moved along the narrow street toward a big boulevard where the parade was just getting under way. First came children in white shirts and red kerchiefs, then came several groups of folk dancers clad in traditional costumes and accompanied by rustic instruments. Then came an enormous marching band, then soldiers with little guns, soldiers with bigger guns, a cannon, and finally tanks.
At the end of the row of tanks came what seemed to be the main attraction — a tank decked out in garlands of brightly colored flowers. Sitting atop its gun turret was Fidel Castro, smiling warmly and dressed in his signature green fatigues.
In 1972, Fidel Castro was one of the most recognized world leaders and one whom I certainly never expected to see in person. So when Mr. Castro hopped down from his tank and began shaking hands with enthusiastic parade watchers, I broke away from my parents to make sure to get a chance to shake his hand, if for no other reason than to say I had done it.
I was successful, but just as the famous dictator passed me, his radiant smile disappeared for the briefest of moments. I looked to my right to see what caused this momentary lapse in his cheerful demeanor. Standing just a few feet away along the parade route was a little boy, of about three or four, enthusiastically waving a tiny paper American flag.
After all it was the Fourth of July.
Philip Bragdon lives in Shelburne Falls.