Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9409280028
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Jahn had just become the first American ever to visit the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk-35. The city houses a nuclear facility and is generally closed to foreigners.
His Russian sponsors had slipped Jahn past the sentry, with a ski cap pulled down low on his head. The Radford University education professor then spent the day at a school there, talking to eager faculty and answering questions.
He even made plans to come back the next day.
Suddenly, Jahn's Russian hostess appeared and told him he had to leave town - quickly. The Russians drove him out of the city through back roads.
They were just beginning to breathe easy, Jahn said, when a car sped up behind. Then it pulled alongside. A white billy club was thrust out the window - the KGB signal to pull over.
``I refer to it as a reality check,'' says Jahn now of the encounter with Russia's infamous secret police - symbol to many of a repressive Soviet past. ``When you're a Russophile, you sometimes come to like the people so well that you can forget the hazards of the system.''
In this case, the damage was mostly to his nerves.
Jahn's hostess, Galina, was detained for an hour in the two agents' car, forced to make a written deposition - and then released.
They went on their way. Still, it was a signal to Jahn that in Russia, ``the more things change, the more they stay the same.''
Jahn, 58, recently visited Moscow, Siberia and Ukraine. The purpose of his three month sabbatical from teaching was to assess the ex-Soviet Union's progress toward democracy - and the impact of recent changes on education.
Along the way he found evidence that for some in the former Soviet Union, the bloom on democracy has faded.
``The pendulum has swung noticeably to the right,'' since the euphoria of a few years ago, Jahn said. He said some people disgruntled about scarce commodities and social disorder are beginning to look with nostalgia on the old Soviet regime.
Jahn had last visited Russia as part of a group of New River Valley teachers and their families, who spent 10 days in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky in 1992.
That visit, which was covered in the Roanoke Times & World-News, now appears as a high point to Jahn - a time when American visitors were treated like royalty, and the Russians' own newfound freedoms seemed secure.
Secure they may be. But on the other hand, ``A lot of water has passed over the bridge since then,'' Jahn noted.
Jahn, who arrived again in Moscow last December, on the eve of the elections that propelled ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky to fame, found in the ex-Soviet Union several reasons for cheer.
He said Russia is changing to a market-based economy at a rapid rate - with 80 to 90 percent of Russia's formerly state-owned businesses and industries now in private hands.
``No country has become privatized as quickly as the former Soviet Union,'' said Jahn.
State subsidies, which for decades helped keep inefficient Soviet industries afloat (and paychecks regular) are relied upon less now, Jahn said.
On the other hand is rising crime, lack of investment capital and widespread environmental problems, Jahn said.
Scientific research, meanwhile - a source of private status and state pride in the old Soviet Union - has been relegated to the back burner as the new Russia struggles to feed itself while learning the ways of the marketplace.
Problems are much worse in the independent state of Ukraine, Jahn said.
Ukraine, formerly part of the Soviet Union, is the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. Trees around the capital city of Kiev often have large unsightly growths attached to them, which locals say is a result of nuclear fallout, Jahn said.
There are other problems. ``Technology is obsolete'' in Ukraine, Jahn said. ``Nothing new replaces the old.'' A train he took to Kiev was built in 1933, and had no functioning toilets.
Civil war is a strong possibility in Ukraine, Jahn believes. ``People have had it.''
On the other hand, Jahn found students and teachers at the schools he visited in Ukraine bright and full of questions - and the residents more than friendly.
And it was in the person of a police chief and member of the local Polar Bear club that Jahn found proof the Ukrainians still have plenty of spirit.
As Jahn and others looked on, the man strutted into a half-frozen lake in his bathing trunks, pushed aside a huge chunk of ice - and went for a swim.
by CNB