It was a day whe
n I had three morning classes in Osaka. In the second or third class, there was a man who told me he worked as a city subway conductor. What’s rather strange about him was the bag he was carrying. It had “CCCP,” and probably the famous hammer and sickle sign, on it. Inevitably, our talks went to his interest in the USSR. He didn’t elaborate but said, “Gorbachev disappeared. It’s not known where he is now.”I would take the Hankyu (阪急) line to go back to Kyoto after work. Sensing something historic was happening, however, I decided to walk a longer distance to Yod
oyabashi (淀屋橋) to take the Keihan (京阪) line because the Keihan superexpress has “TV cars.” I thought every TV station was broadcasting the shocking news of the vanished Soviet President. When I boarded the train, the TV was showing a news program about him, but soon after it left the station, the channel was changed to the high school baseball tournament…Back in Kyoto, I, very excited, walked around the area where appliances stores are concentrated hoping to catch any
snippet of the news. No luck. What was taking place in Moscow became clearer bit by bit in the evening. VP Gennady Yanayev, PM Pavlov, KGB Chairman Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Yazov, Interior Affairs Minister Pugo, Supreme Soviet Chairman Lukyanov… Yeltsin on a tank… The late Yonehara Mari tells us in her book that Yanayev was dead drunk at the press conference. Two days later, Gorbachev came back to Moscow. But his ear was over. Those must have been some of her busiest days.
No comments:
Post a Comment