Things you find Cleaning your Garage

[Flit]

Originally posted by Boroda
I think he meant issuing a passport so the poor girl could leave the country.

 No, She went to Europe instead.
 They just would'nt let her go to Russia.
 I still have a  Springfield '03 with  hand carved dragons on the stock that my Uncle recieved as a gift when he was ( from what I hear) station chief in Taiwan.
 BTW Boroda, if her father is working for and gets paid by the goverment, wherer do you think the money for school came from ?

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Flit
No, She went to Europe instead.
 They just would'nt let her go to Russia.

Can you please give more details?

How could they prevent her from going to USSR? She could get a Soviet visa in any Soviet consulate in Europe.

What you say sounds like a Western idea of how things worked in USSR. Soviet people were restricted travelling abroad, but this restriction were (and still are) connected with classified material access. We still have two passports, one - internal, in Cyrillic, and another - "foreign", in Soviet times it was in Russian and French, now in Russian and English. In Soviet times foreign passports were kept in "visa and permits department", I had to give mine back after I came back in 1989. Getting a new RF foreign passport a year ago I had to wait for a check to approve that I don't posess any "top secret" or "special importance" information. Fortunately I never had anything above "secret" clearance.

Again: my Father was a scientific director of a big military research institute, had top level clearance, but I didn't have any problems leaving USSR. I was sincerely surprised by the fact that US side knew more about me then my own parents Your Uncle definetly earned his money

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Flit
BTW Boroda, if her father is working for and gets paid by the goverment, wherer do you think the money for school came from ?

In USSR we had all education for free, you just had to pass exams and win the competition, State invested millions in every good specialist, so it wasn't a good investment policy to spend money on people who will emigrate and then work for "potential enemy". It's just one of the reasons for "keeping people inside". And for some people it was quite easy to emigrate. In Australia I have met a Ukrainian Jew who spent his vacation (!!!) in Australia in 1976 and then emigrated in 1977. His Father already lived there so he said it was quite easy, no problems. Compare it to horror-stories like that idiotic "Moscow on Hudson" movie.

[john9001]

yes, and the Berlin wall was only for traffic control.

[Phaser11]

Yep,
 I was cleaning out mine and found all these old Visa's.

hehehe:rofl

[Flit]

Originally posted by Boroda
Can you please give more details?

How could they prevent her from going to USSR? She could get a Soviet visa in any Soviet consulate in Europe.

What you say sounds like a Western idea of how things worked in USSR. Soviet people were restricted travelling abroad, but this restriction were (and still are) connected with classified material access. We still have two passports, one - internal, in Cyrillic, and another - "foreign", in Soviet times it was in Russian and French, now in Russian and English. In Soviet times foreign passports were kept in "visa and permits department", I had to give mine back after I came back in 1989. Getting a new RF foreign passport a year ago I had to wait for a check to approve that I don't posess any "top secret" or "special importance" information. Fortunately I never had anything above "secret" clearance.

Again: my Father was a scientific director of a big military research institute, had top level clearance, but I didn't have any problems leaving USSR. I was sincerely surprised by the fact that US side knew more about me then my own parents Your Uncle definetly earned his money

 I wish I could give more details, but I can't, as I just don't know any.
 Even now , at 84 years of age, he still won't talk about what he did except in a very general way.
 I'm not even sure if it was the late 70's or the early 70's, but I can only assume that "they" did not want to take a chance on him being compromised.