Sunday in Russia

A light-hearted romp through Gorbachev's Soviet Union

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Yesterday I was talking with the wonderful Trish Wood on her “On the Fringe” radio show. We discussed the madness of our times and the very real possibility of nuclear war. I’ve written a lot about this recently and have been flooded with memories of visiting the Soviet Union as an 18-year-old young adult.

My sister, Janna in the red shirt and me, in Leningrad, 1974

It was in 1974 that my family entered the USSR through Finland and drove from what was then Leningrad to Moscow, down through Kiev and all the way to Lake Bled, Slovenia, in what was then part of Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Lake Bled, Yugoslavia, I’m in the blue-green bikini.

Talk about surveillance! It was hard enough getting the visas to travel in the Soviet Union, but once we did that, we were given a preapproved route that we had to agree to follow. We had to agree to stay in certain hotels in certain cities and had to book it all ahead of time. We had to calculate how much gas we would use, prebuying gas vouchers as there would be no way to buy gas once we were inside the country. Inside the USSR, we were watched constantly. There was always a stern old lady sitting in a chair at the end of the corridor at our hotels, writing down our every move. My siblings and I, and my two friends Kelly and Melanie who had come to travel with us for the summer, would playfully look for the listening devices on our hotel rooms, but my parents said it wasn’t a joke.

That’s me in the white and my friend Kelly, in our tent cabin.

In what was then Leningrad, we stayed in brightly colored tent cabins at ‘campground Rapino.’ We didn’t have a lot of money, so we stayed in places like this as much as possible. There were even some Russian tourists staying there and we managed to strike up a few conversations, using lots of hand gestures, something that was impossible in the big, impersonal city hotels. Most people looked at us with curiosity but stayed away, fearing they would come under scrutiny for talking to foreigners. A man became a little too friendly at the campground. He started following us around. He asked probing questions. Was he a spy?

We could only go down certain main streets in the cities and had to be careful what we photographed. Once, we made a wrong turn on the lonely road from Moscow to Novgorod. Immediately, a car appeared out of nowhere to redirect us. We went to the Bolshoi Ballet, a performance only for tourists, with few in the audience. It was stunning and I was enthralled. The opulence of the theater was breathtaking. But then, I went to use the restroom and found torn pieces of newspaper instead of toilet paper. This constant contrast between the beauty of the past and the drabness of the present was disconcerting.

For a teenager coming from the “land of the free,” traveling through the USSR was a sobering experience. It left a huge impression that I never forgot. Now, listening to Putin’s speech on Friday, I had chills. Everything that I see happening in the West is reminiscent of what I experienced in the USSR.

Putin talks like our Western leaders used to talk in the past, while Biden talks like the Soviet oppressors did. Yes, the United States had its problems back then—the Vietnam War for one—but at least Americans could protest, we could make fun of our president and we weren’t disappeared into the gulag. Okay, it’s not that drastic yet, but that’s the direction it’s going. We could vote, for goodness' sake. Who thinks we can really do that anymore?

Now, it is the Russian leader Vladimir Putin who was extolling freedom, the importance of a spiritual life, of religion, of family and of traditions.

Now, it is the Western leader, Joe Biden, who lectures us to deny the spirit, family and traditions. Western Leaders demonize Christianity, they tell us to be embarrassed by our heritage. Those who aren’t are ‘white supremacists.’ The United States has always been considered a “Christian nation,” but we are now being told this is shameful. As a Christian, I was raised to believe in freedom of religion for everyone. I was raised to believe in freedom of speech for everyone. I was raised to believe that these were the principles upon which the United States was founded, and I should be proud of that. No longer.

The world has turned upside down. I don’t know if it can ever right itself again.

Because of my travels and my experiences living abroad, I’ve never really thought one side was good and the other side was bad. I’ve seen too much of the good and the bad on both sides. Mostly, I believe that beneath the facades, we are all the same, no matter our nationality, our skin color or our religion. When we meet with others in person and have a chance to talk, argue, laugh and cry together, this truth becomes apparent.

Meeting together is the last thing the BTR (Biden Totalitarian Regime) wants us to do. We have been taught that isolation is good for our health and safety. We have been taught to distrust our neighbors, even our own family members. We have been assured that the BTR is to be trusted more than our own common good sense, more than our parents, more than our pastors. We should not listen to the racist insurrectionists who go against the government sanctioned propaganda. In fact, we should report them to the authorities.

And so, today, I want to share a little book I wrote all the way back in 1991. Today, on this beautiful Sunday, in California where Governor Newsom just signed a bill making it unlawful for doctors to contradict the State narrative and if they do, they could face prison. I want to share this little book that was written in a time when the Russians were supposed to be the bad guys and we were supposed to be the good guys. Now, I am no longer sure.

It’s from a book series I wrote, and also illustrated, for Harvest House Publishers called Katie’s World. There are 6 books in the series—Katie’s Swiss Adventure; Katie Sails the Nile; Katie—Lost on the South Seas; Katie and the Amazon Mystery; Katie Goes to New York; and…

Katie’s Russian Holiday.

I was around the same age as Katie when I first visited the Soviet Union.

I'm the younger of the two girls.

Katie’s dad is a foreign correspondent, and, in each book, Katie visits a different country where some disaster is happening, and she has a marvelous adventure with her family. In the books, kids learn a little bit about each country and there’s always some sort of moral along the way. Katie has a diary and in it she records her thoughts. The books are out of print now but at the time, I received countless letters from kids all over the world, wanting to be pen pals with Katie. They were sure she was a real person.

In this story, a man named Mr. Gregovich comes to Katie’s school to be a teacher on a special exchange program. Ms. Weston, a teacher from Katie’s school has gone to teach in the USSR. Mr. Gregovich is kidnapped after he gives a school talk but before he is taken away, he manages to pass off a message to Katie, telling her to give it to her dad.

And so, begins an adventure where Katie and her family, along with her best friend Beth, travel to Moscow to save President Gorbachev from being assassinated at an upcoming celebration for his birthday. Yes, I know, I do have quite the imagination!

An old fighter pilot named Ace flies them to Moscow in his plane.

They meet up with Ms. Weston who turns out to be an American spy who has been working with the Kremlin because they know an assassination attempt is to be made on the president, but they don’t know when. Katie, of course, has the clue.

Yes, the two sides are working together in my book—the Americans and the Soviets. I told you I had a good imagination!

Along the way, Katie, Beth and Ms. Weston are mistaken for bad guys and are imprisoned in the Kremlin.

Thank goodness, they are let out just in time in save Gorbachev from the evil assassin Igor…

…and attend the president’s birthday bash as heroes, wearing traditional Russian dresses.

The book ends with Katie writing in her diary, as all the books do. In this one, she shares these thoughts:

I talked to my mom about how scared and alone I felt, being a prisoner inside the Kremlin. She reminded me of what it must have been like for the apostle Paul, chained inside a dungeon and beaten for preaching the gospel. I hadn’t even thought of that! Now I can understand what it’s like to be punished for something I haven’t done. And I can tell you, it’s not very pleasant.

I never thought when I wrote those words so many years ago that I would be writing Break Free with Karen Hunt in the year 2022 and warning people to be prepared for possible imprisonment in the dark days ahead if they dare to stand up for freedom.

Yes, it’s sad because saying freedom, many people have it so twisted now that they think it means shaming one group of people for their religious faith and color of their skin, forcing drugs onto people who don’t want to take them and mutilating children to further a transhumanism agenda. With my imagination, I could have written a great science fiction story about that, in fact, lots of people have and I did too, which perhaps I will talk about another time. All those nightmares that belonged in stories are coming true in the real world.

It sure would be great if we had more books for kids like Katie’s World. I’m not trying to toot my own horn—well, maybe a little—but I think a few of you might agree with me.

Thank you for reading. Have a beautiful Sunday with family and friends!