30 years ago today: Saying goodbye to Budapest, and an era now long gone.

Previously: The time when the ghost of Yuri Andropov tried to punch me out, up in the Buda Hills.

As I write, it is the year 2017. I'll be 57 years old in August. 30 years ago, when I visited Hungary for the first time, a 57-year-old resident of Budapest looking back on his or her life might have noted these occurrences.

• Europe's version of the Great Depression
• The right-wing Hungarian dictatorship of Admiral Horthy
• Budapest's devastation in fighting near the conclusion of World War II
• Subsequent occupation by the Red Army
• Communism's forcible implementation
• The anti-Soviet Hungarian Uprising of 1956, which was savagely repressed by the USSR

At the point of failed revolution in 1956, our imaginary Budapester would have been all of 26 years old; if not already killed, maimed, purged or repressed, his or her whole adult life remained to be lived -- and by the time I arrived on the scene, much of it had indeed passed.

Hungary had been a relatively stable country for 25 years, and the citizen in question was close to retirement.

And yet, communism was inexorably eroding, and the Hungarians incessantly pushing the boundaries. Just three years later, in 1990, it was a whole new era, and everything had changed. Older people had it tougher when capitalism returned. By 2004, now 74, this retiree lived in a country that belonged to NATO and the European Union.

When I went to places like Hungary in 1987, these are the thoughts that filled my head as I wandered the streets.

At the time, so many Americans would have asked why Hungarians weren't fighting for "freedom." Actually, some were. Others accepted the status quo and went about their tasks. I was no fan of the system, and had little use for the regime. I was there to see how it worked, or didn't, and I tried to bear in mind that it takes all types to make a world.

Hungary was the sort of place I wanted to visit, not because I wanted it to be just like America, but precisely because it wasn't like America.

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I spent far more time in Pest than Buda, and stayed in Óbuda my last six days in town. These areas weren't officially combined into one city until 1873. Pest's ample flat ground meant more space for building and growth than hilly Buda, and by the late 19th-century it had become the unified city's business district and commercial hub.

One of my favorite worker's cafeterias and a well stocked ABC supermarket were situated just down the way from the Dohány utcai Zsinagóga, or the Great Synagogue on Dohány Street, the largest synagogue in Europe and second biggest in the world. I walked past the Moorish-style building often.

The story of the Holocaust in Hungary doesn't make for pleasant reading, and that's why there's always the need for a refresher course.

Right around the corner from the synagogue is a major intersection in Pest. Turning left from Károly körút is Rákóczi út, and a straight shot to the Keleti pályaudvar rail station. That's the station with the big window, way on down the street.

Keleti is where I caught my train to Moscow, after foraging up and down this street for provisions. The church on the corner is the Chapel of St. Roch, originally built as part of a hospital complex.

A right hand turn puts you on Kossuth Lajos utca, leading west to the Danube, and access to Buda via the Erzsébet Bridge. This photo of the 19th-century ambiance was taken close to the bridge. It's called Ferenciek tere and has been extensively revamped in recent years. It's hard to see but the Fountain of the Nereids is in the middle of the photo.

Perhaps two miles northeast of Ferenciek tere (take the subway) is Hősök tere (Heroes' Square), which is adjacent to Budapest's roomy Városliget (City Park). The inept photo doesn't properly highlight the Hősök tere's famous statues of the Seven Chieftains of the Magyars, but it does provide a glimpse of rush hour traffic.

Andrássy út begins at Hősök tere, running straight into the heart of Pest, with the city's first subway line directly underneath the street.

In 1987, I was unable to visit what has become one of Andrássy út's biggest tourist attractions, the House of Terror Museum.

House of Terror is a museum located at Andrássy út 60 in Budapest, Hungary. It contains exhibits related to the fascist and communist regimes in 20th-century Hungary and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building.

I'm left with a few vignettes from my time in Budapest.

One day I happened upon an old-fashioned, coin-operated weighing scale and inserted my nominal forints. The result was 89.8 kilos, or 198 pounds.

30 years ago today, I may have weighed less than 200 pounds, and if so, it would be the most recent verified instance, and perhaps the last. I'm not sure I can lose 50 pounds at this stage.

Another time I was walking down the steps from the Fisherman's Bastion when a bearded man who looked remarkably like Ernest Hemingway stopped me to ask in perfect American if I also hailed from America. This was confusing at first, at least until I realized that he'd been drinking, and simply wanted someone to talk to.

We went to a wine cellar and each had a glass of Tokaj. He told me he was part of the Budapest community of expatriate American retirees who'd found it so cheap to live in Communist Hungary that a couple hundred of them were in Budapest alone.

I wonder what became of him (and the others) when the living got more expensive, a few years hence?

I also wonder what happened to the old woman with whom IBUSZ placed me. Her flat was a couple floors up in a 1920s-era building on a sedate, leafy street in Pest. I made it through the first night, then rinsed out a few smaller articles of clothing, placing them on the windowsill to dry.

Rest assured, I was very fastidious when it came to Woolite in the sink. In tight spaces, I'd towel-dry first; there'd be no dripping. Nonetheless, my laundry evidently ran counter to her policy, because she was waiting for me when I returned from a morning walk, literally throwing my belongings at me as I beat a hasty retreat from an eagerness to evade responsibility for her fatal heart attack.

Back at the IBUSZ office, staff already had been alerted. Their eyes were rolling, and the English speaker was apologetic. It wasn't the first time, and something would have to be done about the old woman. In the meantime, would a quiet suburb in Óbuda suffice for new digs?

It would, and while more isolated, the house and neighborhood were excellent, and downtown still accessible by tram and bus.

Obviously, my cranky temporary landlord would have been in her prime during the time of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. If you're interested in learning more about what happened in 1956, the late Tony Judt had much to say, as in this excerpt from his book Postwar.

A few Western observers tried to justify Soviet intervention, or at least explain it, by accepting the official Communist claim that Imre Nagy had led—or been swept up in—a counter-revolution: Sartre characteristically insisted that the Hungarian uprising had been marked by a ‘rightist spirit’. But whatever the motives of the insurgents in Budapest and elsewhere—and these were far more varied than was clear at the time—it was not the Hungarians’ revolt but rather the Soviet repression which made the greater impression on foreign observers. Communism was now forever to be associated with oppression, not revolution. For forty years the Western Left had looked to Russia, forgiving and even admiring Bolshevik violence as the price of revolutionary self-confidence and the march of History. Moscow was the flattering mirror of their political illusions. In November 1956, the mirror shattered.

I also recommend Under the Frog, Tibor Fischer's hilarious, poignant and informative novel, for insight into the post-war period. Fischer was born in London after his Hungarian parents fled their country in 1956.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Under the Frog follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of World War II and the anti-Soviet uprising of 1956. In this spirited indictment of totalitarianism, the two improbable heroes, Pataki and Gyuri, travel the length and breadth of Hungary in an epic quest for food, lodging, and female companionship.

The novel's title is taken from an old Hungarian saying: "The worst possible place to be is under a frog's arse down a coal mine."

Next: Train Whistle Reds, or my journey from Budapest to Moscow by rail in June, 1987.

ON THE AVENUES: Train Whistle Reds, or my journey from Budapest to Moscow by rail in June, 1987.

ON THE AVENUES: Train Whistle Reds, or my journey from Budapest to Moscow by rail in June, 1987.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Today's column is one in a linked series of narratives about my 1987 European summer. Previously, I said goodbye to Budapest, and an era now long gone. Next: In the Soviet Union for a "good morning to Moscow."

As though to refute a litany of preconceived notions, the train arrived on time. It eased into Kievsky Station in Moscow at precisely 11:10 a.m. on June 28, 1987, roughly 36 hours after departing Budapest.

Not all of these many moments were spent in forward motion. The border crossing between Hungary and the USSR, bosom fraternal allies bound by the solemnity of the Warsaw Pact, took three full hours in the dead of night at the edge of nowhere between Zahony and Čop.

Saying goodbye to tourist-friendly Hungary was relatively seamless. By contrast, entering the Soviet Union prompted a bout of nervousness. My ream of papers had every appearance of being in order – passport, visa, tour group documents and a pristine $10 bill to change officially for rubles while aboard the train.

After all, upon arrival in Moscow I’d need enough spare change to buy ice cream, vodka and subway tickets. After that the flourishing black market would satisfy my extended banking needs at a far preferable rate of exchange.

When leaving the USSR, one could convert rubles back into hard currency, though only for the exact amount of legal, sanctioned, rubber-stamped transactions. Laundering black rubles wasn’t possible, but I fully intended to get my ten-spot back before passing into Poland in early July.

Meanwhile at the border, there was palpable trepidation. Those Cold War spy tales had left an indelible impression, and not many Americans entered the USSR by rail from Hungary. Furthermore, I didn’t know enough Russian to hold a meaningful conversation with soldiers, whether or not they were carrying guns.

My fears were unfounded during the document check, which went swimmingly. Then a stone-faced Ivan Drago lookalike appeared, wielding grunts and gestures to convey to me that my nifty interior frame backpack should be presented and opened for immediate inspection.

Gazing sternly at my motley collection of belongings, he lifted a t-shirt and found the artfully concealed bottle of marvelous Egri Bikaver wine – and I could have sworn he was suppressing a smile somewhere behind a very stiff upper lip. The border check proceeded quickly and efficiently, and only after it had concluded did one of my two seatmates turn and address me in serviceable English.

There’d have been no compelling reason to make himself look suspicious until the other formalities were concluded.

Perhaps a tad paranoid, though in 1987 it had been only 34 years since Uncle Joe Stalin died, and memories were long.

In 2017, it's been 33 years since Bruce Springsteen released "Born in the U.S.A." -- and memory has ceased to be any factor in our lives.

The primary reason our border stop lasted so long was the need for something called a bogie exchange. It had nothing to do with Casablanca or Lauren Bacall. Simply stated, the standard Soviet rail gauge is wider than the gauge used in both Eastern and Western Europe (with the exception of Spain and Portugal).

Bogie exchange is a system for operating railway wagons on two or more gauges to overcome difference in the track gauge. To perform a bogie exchange, a car is converted from one gauge to another by removing the bogies or trucks (the chassis containing the wheels and axles of the car), and installing a new bogie with differently spaced wheels.

Rather than switch trains, the train switches wheels. In 1987, I must have been asleep and missed it. In 1989, at Brest on the USSR’s border with Poland, I was able to see a bogie exchange up close and personal.

Crews went into the compartments at each end of the railway wagon and detached the outermost passenger seat assembly. Below each of these was a mechanism resembling an oversized cotter pin, which was removed.

The wagon was lifted by the arms of hydraulic jacks and the narrower gauge bogies pushed out, to be replaced by wider ones rolled into position by means of dual tracks. The wagon was lowered, and the cotter pins replaced.

Off we went, back into the USSR.

In practical terms, wider wagons meant just enough extra inches to comfortably stretch my six-foot, four-inch frame to full extension, something rarely enjoyed inside Western European sleeper compartments.

With little else to do, my plan for two evenings on a Soviet train was to sleep as much as possible … and eat, and drink. I’d brought my own victuals from Budapest: a half-kilo of salami, bread, sweets, cherries, apples and wine.

One delightful difference on a Soviet train was overstaffing, with at least two attendants per carriage. At one end of each carriage there was a nook with a built-in samovar, the classic Russian vessel for making tea. Almost any time of day or night, piping hot tea was available for the asking at a ridiculously low price of a few cents American. It came in a real glass, inserted in a podstakannik (подстака́нник), the characteristic metal tea glass holder.

The sunrise on June 27 was unforgettable. We were eastbound in the foothills of the Carpathians, and I shuffled out into the corridor to hug a window and view scenery that reminded me of Wyoming or South Dakota. Soon the heights yielded to the plains and farms of Ukraine, interrupted occasionally by pine woods, and through these landscapes we would continue rolling all the way to Moscow via the historic cities of Lvov and Kiev.

I brought two books, a Russian language instructional text and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. There was plenty of time for reading them. I’d taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet, which came in handy when pronouncing words, though less so when I still didn’t know what the words meant.

---

This train trip was the centerpiece of my eastern strategy in 1987. I’d prepaid a “youth and student” tour of Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Riga and Vilnius (now independent Latvia and Lithuania, respectively) and Warsaw. My old pal Barrie Ottersbach would be joining the tour in Copenhagen, and flying to Moscow with the group.

I’d been on the road for two months, largely incommunicado, and needed to connect to the tour group in Moscow from somewhere in Eastern Europe. I’d learned that booking such an East Bloc connection from the United States was highly problematic, and stupidly expensive whenever possible, but far easier in Western Europe by means of the official government-run travel agencies of the Warsaw Pact countries.

The first month of my trip unfolded in Western Europe, and I diligently procrastinated. Then I was in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and still did nothing. Typically for a last-minute type of guy like me, I waited until all conceivable inexpensive choices narrowed to just one flip of the coin.

Either something or someone in Budapest would sell me a train ticket to Moscow, or I’d be spending more money than I could afford on an airplane ticket.

I began with the ticket windows at Keleti Station and was ingloriously repulsed. Next came multiple locations of IBUSZ (EE-boos), the officially sanctioned national tourist office. Traveling in Communist countries meant developing a forager’s aptitude. The trick was to be persistent; just because one worker said it was impossible didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t be helpful.

In fact, one English-speaking IBUSZ clerk flatly informed me that a train ticket to Moscow simply couldn’t be managed so close to the departure date, still three whole weeks away.

Finally it occurred to me to visit the office of the Hungarian youth and student travel agency, which I believe was called Express. On the one hand, I no longer was a student. On the other, I’d registered for a spring semester class at IU Southeast, found a friendly face in the bursar’s office to verify the application, and then dropped the class with a full refund, though not before obtaining an internationally-recognized student ID from the accrediting agency in New York City.

Lo and behold, the helpful clerk at Express fixed me up lickety-split. It was a morale boost, and I felt extremely worldly for once. A 36-hour train ride with two nights in a three-bedded compartment ultimately cost me less than $25, including the salami, wine and multiple servings of tea.

However, the single most daunting task was yet to come.

I’d given Barrie a date and a window for expecting a phone call for reconfirming our arrangements prior to his departure. Had I been ensconced at the Budapest Hilton, making this call probably would have been easy, but I was a budget traveler sleeping in someone’s guestroom in Obuda and making lots of 15-cent tram rides.

It was generally accepted that in 1987, international phone calls were problematic to the point of insanity at a Hungarian streetside pay phone, even from Budapest, and so on the 22nd of June, one of the tourist offices directed me to a large centrally located telecommunications center where Hungarians queued to speak with the outside world.

It was a cavernous hall with a well-worn counter and numerous semi-private phone booths paneled in old school veneer. At the counter, you handed over the number to be dialed and paid for your fixed call duration. You were given a booth number, which would be called over the loudspeaker when the connection had been made.

It all sounds easy, except that the number 18 in Hungarian is spelled tizennyolc, and pronounced --- how, exactly?

I’d paid the lady, and now all I had to do was find my phone booth when prompted. The next twenty minutes were spent with my phrasebook, drilling the syllables TEEZ-en-yolts over and over again.

But when the speaker finally crackled, “achtzehn” came spilling out. Thank heavens for Frau Leach’s college German; it transpired that the Hungarian woman behind the counter was trying to help a foreigner as best she could, making eye contact to ensure I knew her German even if she didn’t know my English.

Barrie answered, and we coordinated plans in the scant minutes before the connection fizzled and crashed. I didn’t demand a refund.

Karma, after all.

There was a worker’s cafeteria not too far away from the telecommunications center, and it was time for a few of those chilly Borsodi drafts at the low daily price of a quarter each.

I'd be missing Hungary, for sure.

---

Recent columns:

June 15: ON THE AVENUES: Hi there, NAHA wastrels. My name is Peter Principle, and these are my friends Deaf and Dugout.

June 8: ON THE AVENUES: Since 2004, "Two way, better way."

June 1: ON THE AVENUES: Take this cult of personality and shove it.

May 25: ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to wherever you are, and come to think of it, Ljubljana will do nicely.

THE BEER BEAT: 30 years ago today, labels from beer hunting in Red Hungary ... and töltött káposzta at Czarnok Vendéglő.

This article is one of a series documenting my 1987 journeys in Europe. 

Previously: Genesis live in Budapest on June 18, 1987.
Next: Thought and reflection in Kerepesi Cemetery, Budapest.

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According to my scant notes, the day after the Genesis concert was devoted to "Genesis recovery, organ recital, good dinner with cabbage dish and a Pilsner Urquell nightcap."

I can recall absolutely none of this except maybe the cabbage. More about this in a moment.

When I rolled back into Budapest on June 15 after a marvelous respite in Kőszeg, the nearest IBUSZ state tourist agency office booked me into a private room in Buda, so now a primer on Budapest's composition.

The Chain Bridge was opened in 1849, with the aim of helping Óbuda, Buda and Pest to merge more quickly. In 1867 Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth ("Sissi") were crowned in Matthias Church. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy of the Danube came into being. In the history of Budapest the year 1872 stands out as a milestone, for it was then that the three separate settlements of Pest, Buda and Óbuda (literally "Old" Buda) were united into one city with a population of more than 150,000. Budapest officially became the capital city of Hungary, and underwent rapid growth in size and eminence.

Buda is the hilly right bank of the Danube, with castle, cathedral and citadel. Óbuda lies a bit to the north on flatter ground; it's the site of the original Roman settlement. Pest is across the Danube on a riverside plain ideal for 19th-century housing and industry.

During the course of my stay in the city, I resided in each of these areas, and found reason to be fascinated by each, for varying reasons.

I fell into the habit of taking ridiculously long walks during the course of typical tourist activities, all the while snooping into shops and stores, looking for bottled beers and picnic edibles. I'd try to eat at a workers' cafeteria for a big, inexpensive midday meal of soup, main course and dessert, then sample the forager's bounty in the evening.

At this juncture, it's worth remembering that in spite of "Goulash Communism," which described the relatively mild reforms enabling a degree of private enterprise, Hungary was a firmly collectivist nation in 1987. Boundaries were being pushed, but there were limits. Larger enterprises remained nationalized; smaller retail and service businesses might be privately owned, or not.

Hungary was a member of COMECON, the Communist trading bloc, and so goods from other member nations could be found, from Chinese canned vegetables to Cuban orange juice. Owing to the comparative economic differences between East and West, there were very few items from West Germany, France or the United Kingdom. These were diverted to hard currency stores; if your cousin abroad sent you dollars, they could be used to buy these scarce "luxury" articles.

Somehow I'd decided that my goal for the trip was to drink a different brand of beer for every day spent traveling. It quickly became evident that inventory controls and supply chains simply didn't exist in the same sense as home. A truck pulled up to a supermarket and unloaded, and the staff sold whatever came off it.

As a visiting beer drinker, this was both frustrating and exciting. Never knowing what was available was an adventure for anyone who didn't have to live there year-round or couldn't afford to buy Carlsberg at the hard currency store, and so my daily beer hunting became an obsession.

Sturdy half-liter returnable bottles were the norm. There were a handful of breweries in Hungary, including the once-dominant Dreher plant in the Kobanya district. The beers they brewed were lagers in the broad German and Austrian tradition, with an occasional dark or bock included in the range. "Imported" beer meant brands from Czechoslovakia, East German and Poland.

Here's a brief vocabulary.

világos = pale
barna = brown or dark
bak = goat (bock)
különlegesség = speciality
sörgyárak/sörgyár = brewery
gyartjak = manufactured
palackozzák es forgalmazzák = bottled and distributed by

Finally, this: It had become apparent to me that paper labels on bottles meant ultimately for reuse often came loose in a humid breeze. I became a label collector, and here are some of them, hand-soaked in basins throughout Hungary.

We begin with the home country.

Following are some labels from Czechoslovakia, as marked for sale in Hungary. The first two merit analysis; they're identified as imports from Moravia (Czech lands) and Slovakia, but the labels indicate they were bottled and distributed by Hungarian breweries.

Tanker transport?

Next, imports from Hungary's fraternal socialist allies in the German Democratic Republic, including a pleasingly archaic Köstritzer Schwarzbier.

One day I strolled into the big market hall in Buda and saw a stack of Okocim crates from Poland. I bought a few bottles, and returned next day -- foolishly, as all were gone. I never saw a Polish beer again while in Budapest.

Now, about the cabbage.

My artist friend Mike from St. Louis was good company for a few days. He introduced me to an establishment located behind the American Embassy in downtown Pest, called Czarnok Vendéglő (inn), enticing me by saying it served draft German beer.

My head filled with thoughts of Beck's or Paulaner, I met him at the inn and found the beer in question to be from Karl Marx Stadt, formerly (and now again) Chemnitz -- in East Germany, of course.

But the golden lager beer was good, and the töltött káposzta (cabbage roll) was even better. Here's the Czarnok Vendéglő in 1987 ...

... and still going strong today (2014, courtesy of Google's street view).

Hungarian banks, comedians and food.

Conceding a persistent Eurocentrism, I find this utterly fascinating, but first, on another Magyar note, do you know the origin of the comedian Louis C.K.'s stage name?

C.K.'s stage name is an approximate English pronunciation of his Hungarian surname, Székely (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈseːkej]).

As usual, I'm now craving goulash -- not the beef and paprika soup, which is fine, but Székely Goulash.

Kraut and pork and paprika.

Yummers.

Goulash in the melting pot, at American Dirt.

On the corner of an otherwise nondescript strip mall just outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey, I encountered this storefront:

Nothing particularly special about it in the grand scheme of things—nothing that jumps out, just from viewing the exterior.

But the name is distinctive. Magyar. For those not in the know, Magyarország is the word for Hungary…in Hungarian. The word we know to describe this formerly large territory comes from the Roman Catholic Latin word used in the Middle Ages, Hungaria, which is no doubt easier for most Anglophones to say. But “Magyar” is the Hungarian word for the Hungarian language, as well as the demonym Hungarians would use: from their linguistically isolated position in Central Europe (neither Germanic nor Slavic), they refer to themselves as Magyars.

For the same reason that I still receive inquiries about my brewing company from ethnic Albanians ...

The name is a tacit shibboleth. Since most Americans who aren’t auditioning for Jeopardy are unlikely to recognize the word “Magyar”, this bank clearly intends to attract those who are in the know—who can make the connection that Magyar is about Hungarians.

There's more. Go read it.

The last Hungarian puszta farmers.

Photo credit: The Guardian

I'm a perennial sucker for the elegiac.

The photos were taken around the same time that I visited Hungary in the late 1980s, during a time that proved to be the dying days of Hungarian communism. The brothers' lives out on the Puszta appear to have been completely removed from the geopolitical realm. Did greasy functionaries ever visit, or were they completely off the grid?

As for the Puszta itself, Hungary's "great plain" is explained here: Hortobágy National Park - the Puszta.

It's a twin thing: the identical brother farmers from Hungary – in pictures (The Guardian)

Miles from the nearest road on the great plains of Hungary, the Papp Lukács brothers lived off the vegetables they grew and the animals they reared. Their way of life was hardly touched by modernity – though they did own a radio, and rode mopeds to market. Over several seasons in the 1980s, photographer János Stekovics made a fascinating record of their rural lives, which is now a book

The curious conversion of the late Gyula Horn.

It's worth following the link to see the photo of the late Gyula Horn with wirecutters. It reminds me of a quote by Bruce Catton:

“In the 1860s the leaders of the cotton belt made one of the most prodigious miscalculations in recorded history. On the eve of the era of applied technologies, in which more and more work is done with fewer people and less effort, they made war to preserve the day of chattel slavery - the era of gang labor, with its reliance on the same use of human muscles that built the pyramids. The lost cause was lost before it started to fight. Inability to see what is going on in the world can be costly.”

By the summer of 1989, Horn had seen what was going on in the world ... and he (and Hungary) became nimble.

Gyula Horn, Who Helped Part Iron Curtain, Dies at 80, by Douglas Martin (NYT)

Gyula Horn, a former leader of Hungary who in 1989 literally ripped a hole in the Iron Curtain, helping to set off months of tumultuous change in which Communist governments in Eastern Europe fell one after the other, died Wednesday in Budapest. He was 80.

From Yuri Andropov, with love.

When Yuri Andropov replaced the enfeebled Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet kingpin in 1982, there was no way of knowing that the ex-KGB operative's stint at the top would last only 15 months. Andropov's severe health problems were never made public, but he was dying almost from the moment of accession. When yet another wheezing and debilitated party boss (Konstantin Chernenko) assumed the leadership position in 1984, anything remotely resembling the forthcoming roller coaster ride of the Gorbachev era was regarded as a pipe dream and dismissed out of hand.

A quarter century later, we can see that while Andropov was no cuddly liberal, his many years in the KGB and frequent travels through the Soviet Bloc provided him with a realistic – in context – perspective of affairs. Andropov's methods of "reform" within the USSR surely would have been brutally repressive; after all, he was Moscow's man on the scene during the Hungarian revolt of 1956, and yet he grasped the fundamental need to reform, something that eluded the ossified Brezhnev gerontocracy.

This isn't to imply that cosmetic reform had any real chance of success, such was the gap between the USSR's preferred method of operation and a rapidly changing world that was outpacing it in every way. It remains that if not in terms of flair and style, Andropov certainly was Gorbachev's crucial patron, without whom Gorbymania would have been stillborn.

I'm reading a political biography of Yuri Andropov, written in 1983 by a husband and wife team of exiled Soviet journalists, and purporting to help Westerners understand the milieu of Ronald Reagan's then adversary in the Kremlin. It is a fascinating account of the deadly, Byzantine maneuverings behind the scenes in a time and place that seems even more dated than it actually was … and is.

In 1982, I received my degree from Indiana University Southeast and stepped out into a world that in geopolitical terms was absolutely defined by these matters. In resolving to travel in Europe, I, too, was defined by the Cold War whether I knew it or not.

In 1985, Chernenko's final resting place in the Kremlin Wall was barely cold, and Gorbachev had been in charge for only six months, when I entered the USSR for the first time, crossing the border from Finland aboard a bus bound for Leningrad. The route took us through the Finno-Russian area known as Karelia, which I later learned was Andropov's first power base in the Soviet hierarchy.

The bus was mostly filled with young Americans like myself, but I made friends with an Aussie named Mark, who helped me celebrate by 25th birthday by bribing our way into a restaurant and negotiating an all-we-could-drink meal (with a few little bits of inedible food included) for the price of $10 cash each. That's dollars, not rubles.

Mark, who perhaps was a year younger than me, became extravagantly drunk, and while comically hung over the next day managed to trade three pairs of nylons for an evening of sex with a 40-something woman he met at an ice cream stand on Nevsky Prospekt. His original plan was for me to keep her friend similarly occupied, but I possessed neither the necessary hosiery nor any other commodity for creative bartering. Besides, she was somewhat larger than me, and looked a bit too much like Andropov for my tastes. I opted "in" for the remainder of Mark's vodka, and counted myself fortunate for opting "out" of my end of the tryst.

Two years later, I suddenly thought of the late and unlamented Andropov again, this time while visiting Budapest.

During the month of June, 1987, I aimlessly roamed through Western Hungary, staying in towns like Koszeg and Sopron, and ending with just shy of two weeks in the shabby but endearing capital city on the muddy "blue" Danube, scene of Andropov's defining ambassadorial triumph thirty years before. Those were inexpensive and exhilarating times. Including a ticket to watch the rock group Genesis at the soccer stadium and a one way train ducat for the three-day, 36-hour trip from Budapest to Moscow, expenses came out to $17 a day for the month in Hungary. Subway tickets were a dime apiece, imported bottles of Czech lager came in at four for a dollar, and meals would be had for two bucks at one of the "people's" cafeterias scattered throughout the city.

The meals were acceptable for the dirt cheap price, if fairly predictable, and while they hinted at the glories of savory, lard-laden Hungarian cuisine, the commissary fare fell a bit short of world class. As my departure day drew near, I decided to splurge at a much praised restaurant in the Buda Hills, the sort of place that ordinary Hungarians could ill afford on their paltry salaries, but I could easily manage every now and then.

On a quiet and sunny Sunday, I boarded the tram and rode almost to the end of the line, got off, and easily found the recommended eatery. As customary, the full menu was posted by the front gate, and I was studying the possibilities when there was a commotion at the entrance, which was hidden in tall shrubbery thirty feet away.

An older man dressed in regulation rumpled Communist party gray suit came staggering out. I could smell the alcohol on his breath all the way from the street. The man was mumbling in Hungarian, that most incomprehensible of languages transported by the migration of Asiatic peoples to the area a thousand years ago, but what struck me as he approached was that he looked more like the deceased Andropov than the Soviet leader did while alive, and when he finally got to me, nearly stumbling on a cobblestone in the process, he slurred something angrily in Magyar-speak and very slowly launched an attempted haymaker in my general direction.

The punch didn't come anywhere close to landing, and the force of his fist's impact with the stale evening air caused him to completely lose balance and fall to his knees, where he was briskly intercepted by the group of comrades who had come running behind him. Two of them packed the old man off into an adjacent Lada, and two others began apologizing profusely to me in attempted German. I responded in Hoosier-laced American, which caused them even more consternation ("but we like your mister Reagan," one whispered).

Their communication skills were inadequate to convey why the Andropov lookalike wanted to slug me. I reckoned that he plain didn't like Germans.

As it turned out, the first beer inside was on them, and the Chicken Paprika and sour cherry soup that followed on my forints was damned good, too. In the end, it gave me a good story to tell two years later, in August of 1989, when I sat drinking beer with Vladimir Putin (another of Andropov's KGB men) at the Radeberger beer cellar in Dresden, German Democratic Republic.

But that's a tale for another day.