times.
SASHA (VOICE-OVER):
When I left Moscow 17 years
before this moment
I had no inkling or even hope that
I would come back here for a visit.
Back then for the first time in
decades,
a door had been cracked open in
the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain.
Of all the soviet citizens some Jews
were allowed to leave the country
to supposedly to unite with
their families in Israel.
And everybody knew if you were
lucky and could leave,
you'd become "an emigrant" to
those left behind.
Officially this word sounded
like "An enemy of Russia".
You would never be able to see your
birthplace and your friends again.
But recently, under
"Perestroika" (Restructuring)
my friends were permitted again
to consider me their friend.
(PHONE RINGS)
Hello.
It's for you. You've been
traced, already.
SASHA (VOICE-OVER):
The following day consisted of
three dinners and four suppers.
Everybody wanted to see the man
returned from beyond.
From where no one they knew had
ever returned before.
They wanted to see but strangely
enough not to hear.
They were no longer interested
in the outside world.
Too many things were happening
in their own.
They just elected the first
president of Russia Boris Yeltsin
and said good-bye to the father
of "Perestroika"
the president of disintegrated
USSR Mikhail Gorbachev.
Did you vote for Yeltsin?
Yes...
How could you?! Just wait till
you've made him a dictator,
he'll show you.
You have a better alternative?
You fear there may be a civil
war. Well, it's already here.
Gorbachev was the greatest
leader of our time!
Look at what he's done in
Eastern Europe!
Gorbachev is the same as the
rest, only weaker!
He couldn't revive the economy, he
couldn't give freedom to the republics!
Gorbachev is a man of compromise,
a politician without principle.
He cannot be trusted. I don't know
why Americans are so fond of him!
Americans consider compromise a
virtue.
Anyway imagine if Gorbachev went
ahead with his reforms without
compromise, and we'd have chaos.
It seems to me we are on the
verge of a collapse.
Perestroika is dead!
Perestroika has just begun.
Perestroika never had a chance.
No one knows how to work
anymore.
Lazy, spoiled slaves, all of
them!
Master.
All day I waited for your call -
it never came.
Tried calling - No answer.
If the mountain won't come to Mohammed,
Mohammed will come to the mountain.
Give me a hug. Ahh.
What's this?
(PHONE RINGS)
Couldn't we just unplug it?
No, you're not in America.
Telephones do not unplug here.
That would create too much
difficulty for those listening in.
So, disciple?
Do you think you've won our
argument?
Do you think the time has come
for the rats to return from
"unexplored space"?
They certainly think so and they
get so exited.
A human person has broken an
"iron curtain" twice.
Fourth and back! This is an
event.
And, it is morning, and it is
officially your birthday.
Congratulations.
SASHA (VOICE-OVER):
Gross was not your average
Soviet physicist.
He had come from America.
He had participated in the
creation of the nuclear bomb.
America dropped this bomb on the
Japanese.
It was the age of McCarthyism
Gross did not wish to serve the
imperialist war mongers.
In 1948 he escaped to a "free
country" - the Soviet Union.
The "free country" at that time
had twenty million of its
citizens imprisoned in labor camps.
Gross managed to avoid the labor
camp only because the "free country"
desperately needed those who
knew how to build bombs.
Of course, physicists did not
defect from the Soviet Union.
The borders of the "free
country" were well guarded.
After six months in the Soviet
Union, Gross married his housekeeper -
a virtually illiterate country
woman.
His colleagues were shocked by
the marriage.
But Gross lived with her for
many years
and always seemed perfectly
satisfied with the union.
Good coffee demands precise
preparation.
If, for example, you grind it