Word: kalinin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Members of the dictator's entourage were always at risk. On Stalin's orders, the wife of Mikhail Kalinin was arrested and tortured while her husband continued to serve as the country's titular President. The wives of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and of Stalin's personal secretary Alexander Poskrebyshev were also imprisoned. Meanwhile, the secretary endured other kinds of hell. "One New Year's Eve," Medvedev recounts, "Stalin rolled pieces of paper into little tubes and put them on Poskrebyshev's fingers. Then he lit them in place of New Year's candles. Poskrebyshev writhed in pain...
...happened in Washington last week is that the perceptions changed measurably -- and for the better -- on both sides. This was true for the delighted Washington bystanders who had their hands pumped by Gorbachev; it was true for the fur-hatted Muscovites who huddled under a giant TV screen on Kalinin Prospect to watch their leader's pomp-filled arrival ceremony at the White House; and it was true, above all, for the two men who faced each other across the negotiating table...
...momentous goings-on inside the Moscow hall, reaction among ordinary Soviets to the congress, which will end this week, was subdued. A giant television screen on Moscow's Kalinin Prospect carried Gorbachev's speech live, but most pedestrians passed it by without a glance. Said a 49- year-old schoolteacher: "I've seen a lot of congresses. One more won't turn the world upside down." That cynicism, though, seems to be as outdated in Moscow as vodka-swigging parties. Said one elderly Muscovite: "It's good to have a nice young man like Gorbachev in charge." Indeed, the Soviet...
While the latest twists and turns in Soviet missile bargaining strategy were being pondered, some Muscovites were more interested in a drama that was being played out along Kalinin Prospect, the broad boulevard that leads to the Kremlin. There, Western diplomats last week were atwitter over the reappearance of a morning-and-evening official convoy that has not been seen for nearly four months: two black ZIL limousines, the sort reserved for the Soviet elite, protected front and rear by Volga security sedans. Atop one of the ZILs were red and blue lights, apparently an indication that Andropov was inside...
Diplomats who have been watching the convoy believe that Andropov now spends mornings at his Kremlin desk, then relaxes for part of each afternoon. At about 5:30 p.m., the motorcade dashes back down Kalinin Prospect, possibly taking Andropov to his dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. Zamyatin sought to reinforce such speculation when he mentioned, during the Moscow press conference, that Andropov "concerns himself in full with party and state affairs...