Monday, August 19, 1991 -- Moscow

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I arrived in Moscow from Los Angeles in the middle of June 1991 to spend the summer doing research for my doctoral dissertation. It was my first visit to the Soviet Union in three years after spending a year touring the country as a guide with the U.S. State Department's exhibition "Information USA." I was excited to be back. An American academic told me soon after my arrival that I had come at a good time. Things were quiet, he said, stable, the political situation was under control.

      So it seemed for the first two months of my stay.

      I was having coffee on the morning of the nineteenth in my slummy dormitory on the southern edge of the city when there was a sudden, violent pounding on the door. In burst another student, sputtering that there had been a coup overnight and that Gorbachev had been removed from power. The official pronouncement listed his failing health as the reason for his removal. With that he ran back to his room to listen for more news from the West via his short-wave radio.

      My initial reaction was entirely self-centered. I was scheduled to fly out for home through Helsinki on Friday, and all I could think was this messing up those plans. But as the reality of the situation sank in, my thoughts turned to my Russian friends and what this might mean for them and their future.

      Around 8:30 I went downstairs to the dormitory manager's office by the front door to wait for a call from my girl friend back in California. I noticed the TV was on and around it were gathered the manager and several of the old women who worked in the dormitory. They were all fixated on the TV. A female announcer, placed before a dark background, was reading a statement from the new leaders. The statement informed us that due to reasons of ill health, Gorbachev was no longer in power and that a new government had been formed to help pull the country out of the growing crisis and anarchy. In keeping with past practices, the announcement was followed by a program of classical music, something from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, I thought.

      I looked at the women around the set. One, seated in a saggy old chair, had turned her eyes to the floor and was slowly shaking her head and saying nothing. The first to speak was a large, gray-haired woman. She announced that Gorbachev had gotten what was coming to him. There had been plenty in the stores when he came to power and now the country was in ruins. Under Stalin things had been done right, she said, not like nowadays by all the lesser men who had followed him. Finally, some order would be restored. I couldn't be sure if anyone but I had been listening to her.

      The women slowly pulled themselves up to leave as the phone rang. One of them answered it and when she got no immediate reply (unaware of the noticeable sound lag with an international call) she made to hang up before I grabbed the receiver from her. It was my girl friend asking to speak to me. I told her the news and asked if she had heard anything about it yet. She said no, but turned on the TV to check the news. Nothing but a story on armadillo races, she said. We talked for a bit and I asked her to phone my parents and let them know I was fine. I promised to call back when I could.

      It was going on 9 a.m. when I returned to my room. Most of the students planned on staying in the dorm and following events by radio, but Lisa Kirschenbaum, a student from UC Berkeley, and I decided to head into the city center and see what was going on. Before leaving we saw the student who had first heard the news and he passed on the latest from the Western sources--Gorbachev had been removed from power while on vacation. Although there was no definitive proof, it appeared that the actions had been carried out to prevent the signing of the new Union Treaty set for this week.

     Lisa and I left and caught the bus in front of the dorm that would take us to the Prazhskaya subway stop. As usual, the bus was crowded. I tried to listen in on the conversations around me, but most riders sat or stood in silence. The few who were talking were not discussing the coup. There was nothing to suggest that this was not just another morning like any other that summer.

      From Prazhskaya we rode to the Borovitskaya station near the Lenin Library and the Kremlin. The forty-minute ride did nothing to refute the impression made during the bus ride. It seemed just like a typical Monday morning in Moscow with the same sleepy faces of commuters on their way to work. From Borovitskaya we walked along Manezh Square to Tverskaya Street across from Red Square. Next, we headed up Tverskaya towards Pushkin Square. We stopped at a bakery near the Hotel Intourist and bought some bread and rolls. Here, too, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

      By 10:45 we reached Pushkin Square and continued on to Mayakovsky Square. Nothing seemed different than it had the previous Friday--the buses were running, cars moved along, the sidewalks were filled with pedestrians, kids were buying ice cream from street vendors. It was an odd experience. No one seemed to be reacting to what, at least to us, was frightening news. No one even appeared to be discussing the news. Life simply went on.

      We turned around and headed back toward the Hotel Intourist to try to call home from the hotel's phone booths with direct lines to the West. (We made one stop on the way--the newly opened MacDonald's on Pushkin Square. Neither had been yet, and it didn't seem wise to face a coup on an empty stomach. Again, nothing here appeared out of the ordinary--although the huge lines of recent weeks were gone.)

      On the way to the Intourist around noon we came upon a commotion outside the Moscow City Soviet. There were a few groups of about ten to fifteen people huddled together. As we approached one of them we saw a young man reading aloud from a single sheet of paper. A film crew, possibly from TV, was shooting him. He was reading from a statement issued by Boris Yeltsin denouncing the actions of the State Committee for the State of Emergency as anti-constitutional and illegal and calling the people to resist. This was the first sign we that saw that people were reacting. After he finished, others who had come upon the scene asked him to read it again. First, however, we asked where he had gotten the leaflet, and he pointed to a side-door of the City Soviet.Lisa and I, followed by several others, hurried inside to get a copy of the text. On the way we saw other groups gathered around someone with a leaflet.

      There was an air of commotion inside. People were milling about and running around in different directions. To our left we glimpsed two women seated at desks behind a tall glass partition. They were holding up leaflets and men were straining to reach over the glass and grab the leaflets. As the crowd grew and became more frenzied, one woman simply drew her curtain and pretended the crowd simply wasn't there. Her colleague now had to face the crowd on her own. She abruptly slammed her desk drawer and said that she was all out of leaflets. Refusing to believe her, the men kept demanding more, their hands waving frantically along the top of the partition. One desperate man reached over the glass and ripped down a copy tapped to the inside of the glass. He fled chased by a string of expletives from the besieged woman.

      Lisa and I split up to each look for leaflets elsewhere in the building. My attempts were fruitless, but Lisa managed to collect two copies. The woman behind the glass had finally given in to the crowd, opened up her desk, and handed over a large batch of leaflets before taking refuge behind the curtain with her colleague. We left the City Soviet and continued on toward the Intourist. At the bottom of Tverskaya Street we saw crowds forming along Prospect Marx and so went on past the hotel without bothering to phone home. The street alongside the Hotel Moscow was blocked by hundreds of people, a few military vehicles, a large truck with a crane and bucket attached in the back, and numerous cars with their drivers who had had the misfortune of getting caught in the mob and now couldn't go forward or backward. People looked out of nearby buildings and had come out onto their balconies to watch the confused scene.

The truck's crane moved, hoisting two men with a Russian tricolor flag high into the air. Behind them a middle-aged man with wispy hair shouted at the crowd through a bullhorn. He said he was a People's Deputy and that we were not to believe the official news. He said there had been a coup and we all needed to resist the new authorities. People were yelling in the crowd, denouncing Gennady Yanaev and the other plotters. I saw foreign and Russian journalists scramble on top of the military vehicles and even onto each other's shoulders to get shots of the crowd.

By now it was around 12:45 p.m. The crowd began to thin and the drivers started up their cars and made their way out. We walked around to the front of the Hotel Moscow in the direction of Red Square. Traffic along the east side of the hotel had been stopped by a human chain--just one person deep--of roughly twenty people that stretched across the broad reach of pavement toward the State Historical Museum. The scene looked dangerous. Drivers had stopped and were honking their horns; some were getting out of their cars and yelling at them to get out of the way. Before the chain gave way, others had commandeered trolley buses and began lining them up across the road behind them, effectively blocking the road leading from Manezh Square to Revolution Square directly in front of the Lenin Museum.

We walked across the blocked street and approached the rise onto Red Square. At the same time, the military began positioning buses full of soldiers in between the Lenin and State Historical Museums and erecting long metal crowd restraints alongside them, thus sealing off Red Square. Surprised tourists were being led off the square and squeezed through the gaps between the buses back towards Manezh. Most of the soldiers stayed on the buses, staring out at us with blank expressions, except for some two dozen in gray uniforms who climbed out, strapped on bullet-proof vests, and took up positions along the barricades. One them with a megaphone informed us that due to the "extraordinary situation" (chrezvychainoe polozhenie) they would not permit any meetings or demonstrations and we were to all disperse immediately.

The crowd, perhaps a couple hundred by now, responded by pushing up even closer to the barricades. Lisa and I were in the front row, face to face with a few of the soldiers with rifles just on the other side of the restraints. People began talking to the soldiers, pleading and yelling. One elderly man told the soldiers they were on the wrong side, that they should remember Romania and what had happed to Ceausescu. A visibly angry young man pushed his way through to the front, pulled back one of the restraints, and stormed straight at the soldiers in a confrontational manner. They promptly grabbed him and pushed him back onto the other side.

The man's actions split the crowd. Some applauded him and seemed to want us to all follow his lead; others, a middle-aged man in particularly, urged us to resist provoking them. The crowd couldn't make up its mind what to do. The man, now supported loudly by others, calmed those wanting to challenge the soldiers, maintaining that this was precisely what the authorities wanted--some sort of provocation so they could resort to force.

As the tension eased and the crowd calmed down, we made our way back across Manezh Square towards Tverskaya. We were passed by a young man with a raised fist exhorting all to defend Yeltsin and the democratic forces of Russia. A tiny old woman walking in the opposite direction replied that it was "yids" like Yeltsin and Gorbachev that had brought this mess on themselves and the rest of Russia and they would now be certain to get what they deserved. (I lost my cool and called her an idiot. I don't know whether she heard me.)

We were now in front of the Hotel Moscow when we heard what sounded like tanks coming from the south end of Manezh Square. Peoples' initial reaction was to run from the sound, but just as quickly it changed and everyone began moving across the square towards the Manezh exhibition hall. Traffic on the square had stopped and what appeared to be several hundred people streamed in the direction of the gathering noise. Some were pushing trolley buses toward the hall to cut off the southern entrance to the square alongside the Alexander Garden. I got caught up in the excitement and helped push one of the buses.

About the time we reached the south end of the Manezh alongside the Alexander Garden, the armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles had shut off their loud engines which elicited a cheer from the crowd. The troops had been denied access to the square by the trolley buses blocking the way; young men were waving their arms and celebrating on top of the buses.

Two groups formed on the military transports. One appeared to be led by the same balding People's Deputy with a bullhorn we had seen earlier on Prospect Marx. The other group occupied a vehicle in front of it that looked by its position as if it had stopped the progress of the one surrounded by the first group of demonstrators.

After a great deal of shouting back and forth between the groups, and with the people on the ground, the man with the bullhorn managed to raise his voice above all the others. Having gotten our attention, he handed the bullhorn to one of the commanding officers. The officer stated his name, rank, and the name of his unit and then informed us that his troops had been sent in simply to keep the peace and that they did not have any live ammunition with them. At this point, many in the crowd began shouting back at him and he was unable to continue. This prompted those on the vehicle to shout back at the people on the ground, making for more chaos.

The deputy took the bullhorn back and instructed everyone to head for the White House to defend Yeltsin. This unleashed a tug-of-war for control of the crowd--the other group now tried to convince us to stay and the deputy's group for us to make for the White House. There was general confusion about what to do. Some tried to persuade the crowd that the deputy was really a provocateur for the putschists and his call to leave for the White House was a ploy.

The sense of directionless was broken when a commotion arose on the opposite side of the Manezh hall away from the garden. The large truck and crane we had seen earlier was lunging across the sidewalk on the west side of the hall. It came to a jerking halt that was followed by a large cry. From where we stood it was impossible to see exactly what was going on. With many others we ran over to see.

It appeared that some of the troops had tried to make their way around a gap in the buses and gain access to the square but had been stopped by the crane. Now there were no more gaps and the square was completely sealed off from the south.

The tension of the crowd that had been so noticeable minutes before vanished. People began milling about the square, unsure what to do next, and relieved at their small victory. Some listened to portable radios; some were talking in groups; some walked back towards the Hotel Moscow. Lisa and I sat down on railing in front of the hall, now showing an exhibition on the Afghan war.

It was hard to gauge the size of the crowd. I guess it was at least a few hundred, maybe more; perhaps a thousand. Many were old men and women, or at least middle-aged, though the majority were young folk. They stood out in part because they were on top of the buses, the military vehicles, and the crane. Many of them were stylishly dressed; at least one had a Mohawk. We noticed that a stream of people was leaving the square in the direction of the Lenin Library. The crane, now loaded with people, more, it seemed, than the old rig could handle, fired up and moved off in the same direction. We followed, noticing that the number of people grew as we marched along.

Along the way down Prospect Marx there appeared a black chauffeured Volga that was trying to move throw the throng in the direction of the square. The car was surrounded; several people stood directly in front and tried to stop the car from going forward. Others jeered and taunted the man in the back seat. Eventually, the forward momentum of the crowd pushed everyone aside and the Volga broke free towards Manezh Square.

The crowd turned right at Kalinin Prospect in front of the Lenin Library and took over the street as it made its way. A few dozen people stood outside the library and watched as we passed. Next to me was a man writing on a small notepad as we walked. I turned to him and he told me he was a journalist for the Russian Newspaper (Rossiiskaia gazeta). I asked him what he could tell me about the events, but he said he too knew very little. He had heard a rumor that Gorbachev had suffered a heart attack, although he didn't know whether this was true and if so, when it happened--before or after his arrest. There were reports of resistance to the coup throughout the country, but the situation was still very "unclear" (smutno), he said. He was taking notes from the streets for his report, although he didn't know whether he'd even be able to publish anything. He hadn't been in contact with the paper's editors since morning and since there were only a few major newspaper presses in Moscow it would be easy to shut them all down. He said he had no way of knowing whether the paper would even come out anymore. As we passed the intersection with Granovsky Street we could see the military had closed off access. This, the journalist pointed out, was not surprising since Granovsky was where the highest Soviet elite had lived for decades.

We walked along and could see a large procession before us stretching down Kalinin Prospect. Ahead the crane lumbered on; many Russian flags could been seen above the marchers' heads. What was most striking, however, was if one looked to either side of the street, one saw that life was going on as always. The sidewalks were busy with Muscovites going about their daily business. Some stopped briefly to watch the marchers, but most paid little attention.

Upon reaching the Moscow River Lisa and I left the journalist. A large crowd was forming at the beginning of the Kalinin Bridge before it crossed the river. Trolley buses were being pushed into place to stop traffic from approaching the White House. A long line of military vehicles had been stationed along the Smolensk Embankment to the south of the White House. Joined by a fellow student from the States, we followed the crowds towards the front steps of the White House. A red Volvo station wagon with diplomatic license plates was parked in front of the building. Two men in Western clothing leaned against the car and watched the scene.

We climbed the steps halfway to a broad landing. Before us stood two men with stern faces holding up a large Russian flag. The stairs were swarming with people. Some with cameras clambered about for the best angles; some tried to inch their way up closer to the building to hear someone speaking from an upstairs' window; most stood silently with their backs to the building, looking across the river in the direction of the Hotel Ukraine. Dark clouds had been filling the sky, and it soon began to rain. It pored down and out came umbrellas and plastic bags. The wind blew and people fought to control their umbrellas. The rain didn't last long, but everyone was well soaked. The sand on the landing had turned to thick paste and splattered all over everyone's legs.

The crowd began to break up after the downpour. Lisa, our fellow student, and I wondered whether the sudden storm would send everyone home to dry off. As we climbed the final steps we saw dozens of people roaming before the front of the building. There were as yet no barricades around the White House, and we were able to walk to the backside of it without anyone trying to stop us. Several guards were posted at the side entrances, although we could see no sentries at the front door. A small cluster of men stood under the black flag of the anarchists along the building's south side.

A few hundred wet souls were milling about behind the White House. We were now hungry and pulled out the bread we had bought earlier and sat down to eat on a ledge alongside the building next to quite some others. We could see into the building through the vertical blinds. Inside a few men--some in civilian, some in uniform--stood around. They noticed us looking at them, and then walked over to close the blinds.

Three unmarked panel trucks with small covered windows stood behind the back of the building. Occasionally the curtains would go back and a young soldier looked out at the crowd. Presently, the trucks started up and steered their way towards one of the building's vehicle entrances. The crowd came to life and tried to get in front of the trucks to stop them. One man climbed up on the hood and shook his fist at the driver. From where we stood, it looked as though one of the trucks had made it into the courtyard. Those blocking the other two wanted to determine whose side the soldiers were on before getting out of their way. Following a standoff of some twenty minutes, the word came out that they were "ours" (nashi) and were to be permitted into the courtyard. A great cheer arose and the soldiers waved back at us through the windows.

Our colleague left to work in the archive and we agreed to meet that evening at 8 p.m. in the bar of the Hotel Intourist. By now, the excitement caused by the trucks had faded and those people remaining, no more than a few hundred, stood around in small groups. Every so often a batch of leaflets would appear--seemingly out of thin air--and there would be a rush to get hold of one, there never being enough to go around. Each contained the same news released that morning in the leaflet we got at the City Soviet, although unlike that copy, hurriedly pecked out on a typewriter with mistakes and then copied on cheap brownish paper, these were done on a computer and printed on better paper. We managed to get a leaflet every time, and then gave them away after reading them.

It was now late afternoon, and with little apparently happening at the White House we decided to head back to Manezh Square.

We walked up the small hill in front of the new U.S. embassy to the Garden Ring road. This major thoroughfare was packed with cars and the traffic was barely moving. We made our way back to Kalinin Prospect and headed towards the Kremlin. The scene belied the events of the past several hours. Here traffic had returned to normal, women led their children along the broad sidewalks, shoppers hurried in and out of stores, pedestrians stopped to examine the booksellers' tables. There were almost no marchers or signs of protest to be seen.

Upon reaching the Lenin Library we realized that Manezh Square had been taken over by the troops loyal to the State Committee for the State of Emergency. A long row of APC's blocked any access to the Kremlin on the south end of Manezh hall and to the square on the north end. We doubled back to the library and rode the subway one stop to Prospect Marx. From there we were able to walk back to the Hotel Intourist.

Tired and hungry (again), we had been out now for about seven hours. Lisa went to fetch us something to drink, and I took a place in the queue for the international telephones. The lines were much longer than at any time in the summer. After about twenty minutes it was my turn. I tried calling twice to the States, but both times couldn't get through. After something to drink and eat and a short rest, we set out for the White House. It was now close to 5 p.m.

We walked up Tverskaya Street and passed the City Soviet where a large crane was placing concrete slabs (no more than 15" high each) in front of the building. Several large trucks loaded with more slabs were parked out front waiting to be unloaded. Perhaps two dozen people were standing around outside.

We caught the subway at the Pushkin station and rode one stop to Barricade station. The irony of the name wasn't lost on us. We skirted the northwest side of the new U.S. embassy and approached the White House from the rear. People were moving about the sidewalks in all directions. Small barricades were being erected around the approaches to the building--piles of wire, stone, concrete blocks, construction materials, and all manner of metal objects had been tossed into jumbled piles. They were still quite small and probably could not have stopped much more than a car. We were able to walk around them and get close to the building.

The numbers seemed to have shrunk from earlier in the afternoon and didn't look to be more than a few hundred. The fact that I kept recognizing faces suggested to me the same people who had come earlier were still here and not many new people had arrived in the meantime.

An informational meeting was underway on the courtyard in front of the White House. Armed with a failing bullhorn (apparently something wrong with the batteries which made it quite difficult to hear), several speakers passed on news from other cities and regions across the country. Although there were scattered reports of resistance to the coup, the only thing that was certain was how little reliable information was available. A plastic bag was passed around for donations to pay for food and supplies for the defenders of the White House. The bag was stuffed with money when it reached me. I put in what I had and saw some give as much as twenty-five rubles.

From time to time faces peered out from the windows over our heads. A few times a window would open and an arm would appear dropping leaflets on the crowd below. Everyone scrabble to catch them as they drifted down; quite a few got stuck on the way in the building's architecture.

Around 6:30 p.m., Father Gleb Yakunin, a former dissident priest and now People's Deputy, came out onto a small balcony. The crowd cheered, and everyone hurried towards him. He didn't have anything to amplify his voice and there were calls to get the bullhorn to him. This commotion only made it even harder to hear him. Eventually, someone inside the building passed him a megaphone.

Yakunin began by addressing what he saw as the spiritual and religious aspects of what was transpiring in Russia, which did not go over well. Some looked bored with what he had to say, others were visibly displeased. Yakunin did then turn to the day's events, apparently to everyone's relief. He informed us that Yeltsin and members of the Russian parliament were in the building and were seeking a solution to the crisis. He said that tomorrow morning parliamentary representatives would be going out to factories and other places of work to convince the workers to go out on strike. The city had also been divided into sectors to which the representatives would go to win over the people to the strike and to Yeltsin and his government.

Finally, he urged everyone to go out and spread the word by calling everyone we knew in and outside of Moscow about the strike and about Yeltsin and his government's resistance to the putsch. He recommended taking to the subway and going from car to car to plead with the passengers to either come to the White House or at least take part in the general strike. All was not lost, he said. He told us that the workers at the famous ZIL factory had sided with the strike, which was met by a roar of cheers. Before going back inside, Yakunin promised that they would try to keep us informed with hourly announcements and that although Yeltsin was extremely busy, he planned to make an appearance at 8 p.m.

After he went inside attempts were made to organize the crowd. Rumors began to circulate that an attack by government forces was possible and we were told to link arms and form a human chain around the building. At this point, Lisa and I began to wonder whether it was wise to stay; we decided rather quickly to stay and see what happened. We attached ourselves to a line forming along the side of the building. There were some forty or so of us. No more joined on, and our portion of the chain broke up and the people evaporated into the crowd. Closer to the front we could see a larger chain forming.

We walked to the expanse at the bottom of the front steps near the river embankment. Looking back at the building, we could see the steps were now buried in a dense, spiky tangle of wood and metal of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Young men moved up and down the edge of the stairs with what looked to be Molotov cocktails. Someone with a bullhorn worked his way through the crowd calling for doctors, nurses, or anyone with some medical training to help staff a medical post should fighting break out.

After hearing this, Lisa and I thought more seriously about whether or not to stay. But the atmosphere didn't seem threatening. Several men had shown up in colorful old uniforms, Tsarist perhaps, and were attracting curious onlookers. Some were walking about in nice business suits not terribly fitting for the barricades. Flasks and bottles and cigarettes were being passed around. In the end, we decided to wait for Yeltsin.

As we stood looking out over the river watching the sunset, we fell into conversation with a short, soft-spoken man. He couldn't place us by our accents and was surprised when we told him we were Americans. He said he couldn't understand why we were there, telling us that we could be killed, that this wasn't our fight, and that it would be wise for us to leave. He described in a kind, quiet voice how his teenage son had wanted to come with him, but he had forbidden it. The man felt that his son, like us, had his whole life ahead of him and that it would be foolish to risk coming to the White House. Having lived his life, he felt justified in coming to the defense of Yeltsin. Although he wasn't sure what help he would be in the event of an attack, he held up a broken brick and joked mildly that at least he'd be able to heave this at them.

We pulled out a loaf of bread and offered it to him. He took some, thanked us, and then passed the rest to someone else with the words, "Have some bread from America!" An unmarked bottle suddenly came our way from the direction of the bread. Lisa politely declined, but I took a drink.

Around 7 p.m. the door to the balcony over the front door opened. Out stepped a short old woman dressed the typical lose-fitting frock worn by most charwomen in Russia who began wiping off the balcony with a wet rag. Next, a microphone on a tall stand was brought out and put into position. We grew expectant awaiting Yeltsin. To our surprise, at 7:20, forty minutes before we had been told he would speak, Yeltsin climbed onto the balcony.

The crowd hurried toward the building and assembled beneath him. Everyone began crowding in to get as close as possible. Pumping his fist in the air, Yeltsin was joined by about ten other men, among them the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Two men unfolded a brown series of panels and placed them before Yeltsin around his body. Although we weren't sure, it appeared to be protection from snipers.

Just as before, there were technical difficulties with the sound system. Yeltsin's microphone cut in and out making it difficult to hear what he was saying. After a few minutes, someone came out with a new microphone for him.

Yeltsin spoke for about ten minutes. At several points he was drowned out by chants of "Put them on trial!" (Pod sud!) and "Fascism will not succeed!" (Fashizm ne proidet!). Each time Yeltsin stopped and shook his fist in tempo with the chants. He repeated a few times that the removal of Gorbachev from power had been an illegal and anti-constitutional act. Key urban parts of the country, he said, had either come out in open opposition to "Yanaev and his gang" or were refusing to side with the conspirators and some military units, including parts of the Baltic fleet and the Leningrad military district, had resisted the new regime's authority. Each example of resistance was met with cheers and applause. Yeltsin finished his speech by characterizing the putsch as a "black reaction" (chernaya reaktsiia) and the final gasp of those intent on preserving the old order that was doomed to fail.

Everyone was buoyed by Yeltsin's words, but most wanted to hear more. They yelled out for concrete instructions on what to do. One woman kept screaming at him: "What should be done? What are we to do?" A chorus of questions went up, but the only advice Yeltsin gave before going inside was to guard the White House and its occupants.

We had to hurry if we were going to meet our friend at the hotel by 8 p.m. The sky was now beautiful, glowing red and pink, as we retraced our steps back behind the embassy to the Barricade subway station. Many now appeared to be streaming away from the White House to the subway. Lisa and I talked about how many would stay to defend Yeltsin and whether they really had a hope of repulsing a serious attack. Given what we had seen it didn't seem likely. The few barricades that had been erected seemed too small to stop an assault. Nor did we see a lot of military guarding the building either. I began to wonder how much of what Yeltsin had said was true and how much was made up in an effort to buoy our hopes. From what we'd seen on the streets that day, most Muscovites had ignored the coup and gone on with their daily affairs. I began to wonder whether resistance to the coup would be pointless and ineffective.

The Barricade station was overflowing. Only two doors (out of six) leading into the station were unlocked (standard Soviet practice) and a vibrating throng of people tried to squeeze its way inside. Disgorged from the doors, we were moved by the motion of the crowd to the escalators. This was the biggest crowd I'd seen in the subway all summer. People called for order, to slow down and stop pushing. No one listened. Only one of the down escalators was working; an old man was walking up the out-of-service one, and Lisa and I squeezed passed him and descended to the platform.

Leaflets had been glued to the walls and people gathered around them, stretching their necks to read the small text. Most called the new government illegal and appealed to citizens to rally to Yeltsin's side. Copies of the official appeal to Russians issued that morning by Yeltsin that we had gotten at the Moscow City Soviet were also posted. A young woman was going from leaflet to leaflet writing that the radio station Moscow Echo had managed to stay on the air and jotting down the times and frequencies to find it.

Night had fallen by the time we exited the Revolution Square subway stop. It was dark and the air had cooled. We headed in the direction of Manezh Square, entering between the Lenin Museum and the Hotel Moscow. The trolley buses no longer blocked the northern end of the square and the square was open. It was quiet. Groups of people wandered about the expansive square and no traffic could be seen. It was a surprise to see that the buses that had been hurriedly positioned by the State Historical Museum to block access to Red Square were still there and were still filled with soldiers, eight hours after we had first seen them. We were later told that these were indeed the same soldiers and that they had spent the entire day in the buses.

We got to the Hotel Intourist at 8:30. Our friend wasn't there and the bar on the ground floor had run out of beer, so we went to the small pub in the basement. We each got a beer and sat down to watch "Vremya", the nightly news, which aired at 9 p.m. The pub was full, though not crowded, with foreigners and Russians. Across from us a middle-aged Russian man was doing sketches of the patrons with a ballpoint pen to make some money. Few seemed interested in buying them.

When the familiar theme music of "Vremya" came on, the bartender turned up the volume. Some of the kitchen staff came out to watch, and two policemen came in and pulled up chairs in front of the TV. The broadcast presented a strange picture of the day's events, not at all what I had expected, considering that the media were, as far as I knew, now controlled by the conspirators.

The broadcast emphasized the legality of the change in government, and each act of the conspirators was depicted as being in accordance with the Soviet constitution (the specific statutes were cited) and other legal codes. Yet, seeming to undermine this message, the broadcast showed scenes from the White House and other parts of Moscow with crowds demonstrating and denouncing the coup as an illegal, anti-constitutional act. Moreover, the reporters' comments left me with the impression that they actually endorsed the words of the demonstrators.

And there were other mixed signals. The first reason given by the anchor for the change in government was Gorbachev's supposed poor health, making him unable to continue his duties. This was followed by comments on the mounting "chaos and anarchy" spreading throughout the country. Part of the cause was given as unbridled "egoism." As one such example "Vremya" showed a short segment on a cooperative venture that behind the façade of honest business was actually smuggling icons and other national treasures to the West for hard currency. This was followed by a list of names of numerous public figures who had been arrested for a variety of economic crimes. This left it unclear why the conspirators had taken power--because of Gorbachev's illness, which we didn't believe, or the social disorder?

The message we were left with was that all would be better with the GKChP (the Russian acronym for the State Emergency Committee) at the helm. Most Soviet citizens, the anchor stated, greeted the news of the change of government "with a sigh of relief." This line elicited a cynical chuckle from the two policemen. The anchor concluded by saying that matters were now "under control," that it was now time for everyone to get back to work, and that all of our energy and attention should be directed toward doing our jobs.

We left the bar and walked up Tverskaya Street toward the Moscow City Soviet. It was now approximately 10 p.m. The street was closed to traffic. Work on the barricade in front of the City Soviet had stopped. The line of low concrete blocks along the curb looked absurd. About twenty people were reading leaflets posted on the building's façade.

Lisa and I caught the subway at the Chekhov station for the long ride to our dormitory. In the subway there was nothing to suggest the enormity of the day's events and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. There were no leaflets, no extra police or troops, no excited conversations. Everyone sat in tired silence just like every night. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. This strange normalcy accompanied us the entire way back.

~ Douglas Smith, 25 August 1991