“But wait, it gets better! So, I ask the guards where I could find a telephone. Remember that we couldn’t take our walkie-talkie radios into the Kremlin? We had to leave them on the coach so there was no way I could call our coach driver to meet us at the gates or something, and I needed to call an ambulance. So, one of the guards pointed out that the security office was just around a corner and there I could speak to the chief of Kremlin security. Instead of asking one of the soldiers to do it, I take off like lightning. The office was behind these tall wooden doors and I pull it open and find a startled guard sitting behind a metal detector, ‘I need your chair, it’s an emergency!’ I commanded and walked right through the metal detector, grabbed his metal folding chair and ran out the door and the metal detector, of course, is going off, alarm bells ringing because of the metal chair and all. Poor guy didn’t even know what hit him,” I was on a roll.
“This can’t be real, in the Kremlin? And nobody is trying to stop you?” Yulia had her hand to her forehead, “Why do they even have guards there?”
“I know what you mean. When I look back on this I just think, I hope that their nuclear codes aren’t stored in that place. It’s so easy to manipulate the guards. I can’t imagine they get many urgencies like this one. Everybody must be so well behaved that they don’t expect this type of thing. So, Rocky is now sitting on a flimsy metal chair, but he is so big that he has to straddle the chair, you know, like on a horse and he has his walking stick on one side to lean on while his injured leg has to be held straight. It looked so uncomfortable! So, I still needed to call an ambulance and so I run back to the security office. The guard this time was on the telephone in his office. I walked straight through the metal detector again, alarms go off again, and tell this fellow directly that I need to use the telephone to call an ambulance. He puts the handset down and steps back. I’m rolling up my left sleeve to read all the emergency numbers I wrote there that morning. I must have looked like some junkie rolling up his sleeve to find a vein.” I was flicking my lower arm to accentuate the drugs allusion. Olga was laughing quite heavily at this.
“So, I called the American and the British medical clinics but because it was Sunday only the Brits would accept the patient, but he had to pay two hundred dollars cash on arrival. If we could be there before four o’clock they would treat him. Great! So, I run out the door again back to Rocky and tell him the details. So, what do you think happened? He got angry! He starts yelling about being blackmailed and exploited and completely refused to cooperate. He said even if he had the cash, which he didn’t because it was all in travelers’ checks, he wouldn’t pay such scandalous ransoms!” I was hollering to imitate Rocky’s anger.
Yulia gasped and asked, “Where were the palace guards at this point?”
“They were standing there with Rocky smoking, just like on the boat, and he was just chatting the boys up. One of them, I guess, could speak a few words of English and Rocky was smoking with them telling them stories!” I couldn’t help but get animated for the dramatic effect.
“No way! This is getting absurd” Yulia was beyond laughter and was waiting to hear how this ended.
“So, I said to Rocky, ‘Rocky, you will not like the alternative. Soviet hospitals are where people go to die, not get better!’”
Both Olga and Nikolai started clapping their hands in amusement and Olga inquired, “And where did a young American boy learn that idiom about Soviet hospitals? It’s so true!”.
“I’ve been around the Soyuz,” so as to say, I had traveled the Soviet Union, was my reply to Olga, and I continued with the story. “Rocky’s reply was ‘Damn the consequences, take me to a hospital of the people!’ Somehow, he thought he had become one of the proletariat after eight days on the Volga. He must have drunk the river water. So off I go again to the security office. As I pulled open the big wooden doors I see a different fellow standing there this time in a full dress uniform, shiny boots, hat, ribbons. Must have been a war hero,” I speculated.
“Peter, no! Don’t tell me you did the same thing to this officer!” Yulia was truly scared for me now, a full year later.
“I simply said there was an emergency and I needed to use the telephone again. I was very polite, but he said very firmly to me, ’Nyet! That phone is for Kremlin security matters only!’ Did I tell you all that it was a red telephone? Does that make you all just a bit more uneasy?” I asked poking the bear.
Nikolai was shaking his head in disbelief at my brazen reveling in what could have been a very unfortunate situation for an American in the Kremlin.
I continued. “So, I get up in this guy’s face and say, ‘I understand that this the office of the Chief of Kremlin security. I demand to speak to him, RIGHT NOW!’ and he replied just as heated back to me ‘I AM the chief of Kremlin security, and I said NO!’ At that point, I did realize that maybe I had gone a bit too far and I got this horrible feeling in my chest and belly and my legs went a bit numb, and thought for a second that I might wet my pants if he made a move toward me. He looked very angry.”
“So how did you get Rocky off of Cathedral Square?” Yulia thought the story was over.
“Oh, the ambulance came right into the Kremlin!” Olga confirmed again.
“But how?” Yulia pleaded.
“Well, I guess I don’t really know why I did it but I didn’t back down. I just started yelling at him louder and louder about how heavy and big Rocky was and that moving him without an ambulance would be dangerous for his leg. The Chief of Security just told me I was out of luck and that no ambulance would be allowed into the Kremlin compound for security reasons. It was not permitted. No way! So, now I’m really worked up and I tell the Chief to follow me outside by using my finger, like this.” And I motioned with my index finger to show the group how condescending such a movement could look to an authority figure.
“Horrible!” huffed Yulia. “In Russia that is almost a vulgar gesture!”
“I know, I know! I’ve learned since not to use it. I guess I hadn’t been around too much, eh, Olga? I still have some things to learn,” I confessed.
“Didn’t he arrest you?” Yulia was hoping I had been thoroughly punished for insubordination.
“I can imagine he wanted to, but he followed me outside and was yelling something at me but I think the adrenaline in my blood was too much to understand him at this point. So, we rounded the corner that opened up onto Cathedral Square and I just stopped and pointed to Rocky so the Chief could take in the size of the man. Even from that distance, it was clear to see how large this man was. Now, by this time, you all—” and I motioned around the table again to my colleagues, “—had come out of the cathedrals and had gathered around Rocky on this little chair and there was a lot of flurry. The guards were still mixed with the group taking pictures at attention with their rifles and just having a grand old time with the tourists. Remember that these guards had bayonets and everything on their rifles and one of the soldiers was pointing his rifle right at somebody’s camera for a great souvenir photo, I just hope the guns weren’t loaded!” I said feigning caution.
“Crazy, crazy, crazy! Was everybody out of their minds?” Yulia was speechless.
“So, I was standing with the Chief of Kremlin security just taking in the three-ring circus happening in the middle of Cathedral Square. I just kept pointing with an outstretched arm while I looked at him. His eyes were getting larger and larger and his face redder and redder, he was gritting his teeth and seething with anger! Then I said to him, right or not I said it. ‘You see how large he is? He is a Russian bear! You can move him yourself, but I am going to go call an ambulance!’ and I started back toward the security office and the telephone. And what happened? He turned on his shiny boots and caught up to me and says ‘…and I will authorize it.’ So, he called for the ambulance in the end and we shook hands and I returned to the group on the Square to wait for a city ambulance.”