Memories of Alnwick
John G. Fruth ’94 ’96 ’06, St. Cloud,
Alnwick 1991
My Alnwick story involves what happened after the program
completion in the summer and late fall of 1991. My time
at the Percy Castle in Northumberland was brilliant and
left me with loads of stories that I do tell from time to
time. I thought about this for a bit and decided that from
my experiences of hitchhiking in Denmark that resulted in
two weeks of co-driving a lorry from Norway and Sweden to
Switzerland and back, or a hitchhiking adventure in Germany
resulting in a Luftwaffe-piloted glider ride, my Malaysian
jungle trek, or my Australian walkabout, I would describe
my adventures in Russia. All of these very memorable experiences
are a direct result of my participatin in the spring and
summer 1991 Alnwick program.
I was hoping to visit parts of the Soviet Union but there
was a turbulent social uprising happening in 1991. My initial
schedule would have taken me into the USSR from Amsterdam,
but days before my departure a coup attempt on the communist
government of Mikhail Gorbachov restricted travel into Russia.
Finland was suggested and in Helsinki I located FinSov tours
and they were more than happy to arrange train travel and
hotel accommodations. According to them I could depart at
any time. I decided to tour Norway, Sweden and Finland beforehand,
and let the situation in the USSR cool out a bit. My travel
agent at FinSov tours was well aware of the goings on in
Russia at the time and added five extra days to my visa.
She knew I would need them. I was in Russia between the
first and second coup attempts of 1991.
Traveling into Russia from Finland actually made the most
sense as the train gauge was the same and there wa no need
to transfer trains at the border. At the time St. Petersburg
was very repressed, dirty from coal soot, and yet very beautiful.
I strongly recommend it. Moscow was a similar experience
although on a much larger scale. Hiking the city at midday
or midnight was exciting and I always felt completely safe.
I learned about the Twins winning the 1991 World Series
from a Muscovite. Many black market salespeople would approach
me trying to sell everything from nesting dolls to military
uniforms.
Kiev, Ukraine was equally transfixing and start at the
same time as well as beautifully ornate. While in Kiev I
stayed at the International Hotel and was put on the eighth
floor. Some time around three in the morning I heard Russian
voices in my still darkened room. In a half sleep I responded
with a common American term that surprised what I thought
were intruders. The two gentlemen in my room were securing
every room on the floor because Secretary of Defense Richard
Cheney was arriving the next day. One gentleman began talking
into his sleeve as the other just looked at me in total
amazement. I quickly learned the the floor had been reserved
for our now vice president and no one was to be in any of
the rooms. Possibly the front desk assumed that I, disheveled
long-hair with a backpack, was with the Americans.
At first the two insisted that I be put on a different
floor, but I convinced them to let me sleep a couple more
hours and that I would vacate the room by six that morning
and leave my backpack at the front desk before exploring
the city for another day. When I returned later that day
the courtyard was full of green military trucks. I just
happened to run across the sleeve-talking gentleman from
the night before in the lobby, again conversing with his
sleeve, and I approached him for a chat. I learned he was
from Iowa and that was one of the reasons he let me stay
in the room the night before. I guess he trusted people
from Minnesota.
I told him that no one back home would believe that I was
rousted from my room at three in the morning by a KGB and
a Secret Service agent and was there something he could
do about that, short of shooting me. He arranged for the
Consulate General of the United States of America in Kiev
to forward a letter of appreciation for my cooperation during
Mr. Cheney’s visit to Kiev, the consul general hoped
my visit to the Ukraine was as fruitful as Mr. Cheney’s.
The letter arrived back home long before I did and this
caused considerable worry for my Mom. I was not certain
that any acknowledgement was forthcoming and I neglected
to mention my Secret Service encounter to my family. I still
have that letter today.
Leaving Kiev for Poland had its own challenges. Because
of a mass exodus from the Middle East there were no train
seats available, and one could not cross the Belarus Poland
border without a seat confirmation. The train trip from
Kiev to Brest, Belarus, was spent negotiating a seat, drinking
vodka, and eating many of the meat products with others
on the train. As a deal was made another would be broken
and arriving in Brest without a seat put me in the same
lot with thousands of others already waiting at the station.
Two guys, one of Polish and one of East German descent,
hooked up with me hoping to move through the crowd quicker
with an American. Fortunately they both spoke fluent Russian
and through continual negotiations were able to convince
the guards that my visa was running out and I had to get
across. In the end, the border guards laughed and directed
us through before the last train left the station. There
were no seats or corridors, or bathrooms for that matter,
available and the conductor said if we wanted to go we had
to stand on the coupler between the cars, outside between
the rail cars. This was very exciting. After a couple of
stops we were allowed in the train and eventually found
a compartment to fall asleep in. Good times.
My time at the Alnwick Castle was precious, and the additional
12 months I spent circumnavigating the world left me with
a lifetime of memories. I traveled in 46 countries on five
continents and have been back to Europe and Asia several
times since. The Alnwick program was an outstanding introduction
to the rest of the world. I will always cherish the people,
cultures and adventures.
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