Introduction - Why Russia?

St. Sophia Cathedral - Kiev, Ukraine, USSR

Why did I want to visit the Soviet Union? Partly it was the urge to travel, to get away from home, to do something different and see someplace new. But why the Soviet Union? The USSR was about as different a place as you could get at the time for an American high school kid, and not usually at the top of the wish list for foreign travel. I liked that. It was different and it wasn't cool. (You want to visit France? Not me. I want to visit ... )

There was more to it than adolescent contrariness, of course.