“Here?” Courtney pointed at the stairs descending into the Moscow subway. We all peered down.

“Does it really matter?” Jeff was impatient. This was the third subway entrance we’d examined, and it was freezing (as Moscow in February at 11pm tends to be). “They just said, ‘you’ll find them in the metro stations’. It’s not like there’s some special one.”

“This is as good as any, then.” Batia started down the stairs, and the rest of us followed.

Once underground, we were surprised at how beautiful the station was, not to mention immaculately clean. I thought about the filthy, graffiti covered subways in New York City with their roving bums and crazy people.

“This place is a freaking palace,” Brett marveled. “I expected a Soviet subway to look more…” he groped for a term, “…Soviet.”

It was 1984, and there were seven of us representing Roslyn High school on this trip to the USSR: Batia Zoheri; Jeff Feldman; Courtney Benning; Brett Levine; Mike Berger; Rand Campbell; and me. All of us were sophomores, except for Courtney who was a junior. Our nighttime foray into the Moscow subway system was for the purpose of seeking out black marketeers to trade with. 

“Where’s Rand?” Jeff asked. He hadn’t joined us on this expedition. Neither had Mike, who’d said he was jet lagged and gone to sleep early.

“He’s back at the hotel with the Garden City kids.” The trip was a collaboration between Roslyn and Garden City High. Over the previous year, Rand had become friendly with several of the Garden City students through varsity wrestling, and once they discovered that there was no drinking age in the USSR — or at least, not one that was enforced — they parked themselves at the hotel bar and pretty much never left.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Even though Courtney was the oldest among us, she was the most nervous.

“That’s a good question.” Batia stopped walking. “What does a Russian black marketeer look like?”

“Like any other black marketeer?” Brett shrugged.

“And what do black marketeers look like, generally?” Batia’s eyes were on me when she asked this.

“How should I know?” I was certain that I had no more experience with black marketeers than anyone else in our group.

“You smuggled a six-pack of beer into my pool party last summer, Kaufman.” (Batia was in the habit of calling people by their last names.) 

Though true, I felt like this hardly made me an expert on the criminal underworld. “So, that means I can spot Russian mafiosos?”

“I just figured you had some familiarity with shady dealings.” She started walking again.

We were so focused on our conversation that we didn’t notice a friendly looking young man who’d sidled up to us. Courtney started when she saw him.

“Looking for trade?” The guy spoke in a smooth, quiet voice, and though his accent was thick, he was easy to understand. 

Despite the fact that this was our sole reason for being in a Moscow metro station in the middle of the night, I found myself flummoxed by the question. Brett and Jeff had suddenly gone mute, and Courtney just blinked at the guy anxiously.

Batia took charge. “Yeah, that’s why we’re here.”

“Ah!” The man’s face broke into a smile and he opened his arms in welcome. “I am Serge. Whatever you need, I trade for it. You want money? Drugs? Girls?”

“Girls? Seriously?” Batia threw him a look.

“No, of course not,” Serge rallied, “elegant young ladies like you and your friend, here.” He gestured at Courtney who blinked even faster. “Furs, maybe?” 

“Furs?” Jeff was perplexed.

“Like this!” Serge pointed at the fur hat on his head. “And this!” He raised his arms and spun around, so that we could admire the long fur coat he was wearing. 

“Money is what we’re interested in.” Batia was too savvy for impulse buys.

“I come to your hotel tomorrow night.” Serge felt around in his pockets and pulled out a slip of paper and a pencil and handed it to her. “You give hotel and room number.”

Batia quickly wrote ‘Cosmos’ (the name of the hotel) and her room number. Returned the pencil and paper and crossed her arms. “Are we done?”

“Yes, thank you.” Serge smiled widely. “I see you tomorrow night. Eight o’clock. And after we trade, we have party, eh? Ciao!” 

He turned and left, and I thought that for a black marketeer he seemed very cosmopolitan.

___

You might be wondering why a bunch of American teenagers were seeking illegal trading opportunities in a Soviet metro station in the middle of the Cold War (and the night). The short answer is: We were told to. For a more substantial answer, we have to go back a few weeks to the planning meeting for the trip.

It was 7pm and all of us trippers (and our parents) had assembled in the school auditorium to hear a presentation put together by the organizers and the kids who had gone in prior years. Most of it involved mundane stuff: You couldn’t fly from the US to the Soviet Union, so we’d go to Helsinki for two days and then board an Aeroflot plane for the flight to Moscow; the trip would be divided between Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev; Soviet hotels required you to surrender your passport when you checked in; that sort of thing.

The really interesting information came at the end, when the veteran trippers recounted their experiences and offered advice. There were four in all — Danny Rosenberg; Stew Williams; Lana Kramer; and Mimi Malin — and they were joined by Mr. Carter, an English teacher, who had volunteered to chaperone our trip. He sported a Thomas Magnum-style moustache and was young and laid back, so we were pretty psyched when we heard he’d be the one coming along. Supervision by Carter meant no supervision at all.

“The big thing is money,” Stew said, as the others nodded vigorously. “The official exchange rate is BS.”

Mimi took the microphone from him. “The Soviet government artificially sets the exchange rate. The ruble is worthless, so if you convert dollars to rubles at official currency exchanges, you get screwed.”

“What you want to do,” Stew continued, “is bring American dollars in cash — no travelers cheques — as well as certain ‘items’ that you can sell for rubles.”

“Items?” Batia wasn’t following.

“Things that are in high demand: especially, blue jeans —  Levi’s, specifically — and Marlboro cigarettes.”

Lana piped in: “I’d bring at least ten pairs of Levi’s and ten cartons of Marlboros. You’re allowed to check two bags, so you can fill one of them with stuff to trade.”

I raised my hand. “Aren’t we going to look like smugglers with all that stuff in our bags? And won’t they, uh, mind?” A Soviet prison seemed like something to avoid.

“Please…” Mimi waved me off, “…they’re dying for this shit. The Marlboro cartons were what I used to bribe the hall guards in our hotels.”

“Hall guards?!” Courtney was already tense, and the trip was still weeks away.

“There’s a curfew at night for foreigners,” Stew explained. “All the hotels have guards on every floor to enforce it.”

“But they don’t if you bribe them,” Danny continued. “That’s how I got all of those great nighttime shots of Red Square.” The photos he was talking about had been featured in the presentation.

“So, what about cash?” Jeff hadn’t said anything up to that point.

Mimi took back the microphone. “Whatever stuff you don’t use for bribing guards, you can sell. And you can trade American cash for rubles at the ‘unofficial’ exchange rate, which is way better.”

“Trade? With whom?” From her tone, it didn’t seem as if Courtney really wanted to know the answer.

“Black marketeers. They roam around the metro — that’s the subway — stations at night. You can’t miss them.”

“I just want to make sure I’m understanding you.” Jeff spoke slowly and counted on his fingers. “You’re telling us to buy a bunch of cigarettes and blue jeans, smuggle them into the Soviet Union — a totalitarian police state — and then break a nationwide curfew on foreign visitors to engage in illegal trade with random crooks in the subway?”

“Yes!” Mimi’s reply had a triumphant flourish to it.

“Totalitarian police states aren’t what they used to be,” Stew murmured. “The place is a mess.”

“Wait, totalitarian police state?!” It was dawning on Courtney that she hadn’t signed up for a trip to Barbados.

Mimi ignored her. “Don’t use all your cash for trade or rubles, though. You want to keep some for the Beriozka.”

“Beriozka?” I had no idea what this meant.

Lana relieved Mimi of the mic. “Beriozka are special stores where you can only use foreign currency. They’re packed with stuff that is not available to the Soviet public and everything is dirt cheap. It’s how the government hoards foreign money.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Bottles of Stoli for 5 bucks. Caviar for 10. Fur coats and hats. Other Russian delicacies…”

Rand perked up at “Stoli for 5 bucks.” My parents, who until this point had been sitting with a glazed expression, stirred at “caviar for 10.” Dad leaned over and whispered in my ear. 

“We’ll get you the cigarettes and jeans. Just make sure to bring home some Beluga.”

“Right on,” I whispered back.

___

The morning after our metro expedition, I got up early to meet Batia at the Beriozka. Jeff (my roommate on the trip) was still sleeping, as we’d gotten in pretty late and everyone was jet-lagged. Since Serge had mentioned a post-trading celebration, it seemed wise to stock up on party supplies.

Even though there was a Beriozka in our hotel, getting there wasn’t so easy, because the hallways and elevators were littered with the bodies of passed-out Finns, thousands of whom would flood into Moscow on the weekends for an inexpensive bender. We’d been warned about this when checking in Friday evening, and as I stepped over one unconscious Finn after another that Sunday morning, I marveled at the quantities of booze they must have consumed to be so inebriated as to collapse before reaching their rooms. One elevator was out of order because a sleeping Finn’s head was preventing the doors from closing, and here and there a barely roused reveler slowly shuffled by or moaned from where he was lying on the floor, making me feel like I was in some Russo-Finnish version of Dawn of the Dead.

Once I arrived, I found that Batia was already there and had loaded a shopping cart with bottles of Stolichnaya. I counted ten. She was in the process of adding several six-packs of beer. 

“I see your feelings about drinking have changed.” I hadn’t forgotten her quip in the metro about sneaking beer into her pool party.

“When in Russia, do as the Russians do,” Batia replied coolly, plopping another six pack into the cart. “Get started on the food.”

I snagged another shopping cart and headed down an aisle that seemed exclusively devoted to caviar. Beluga, Sevruga, Osetra…all outrageously cheap. I held up what could only be described as a vat of Sevruga that was $20 and brandished it at Batia. “This is freaking insane.”

“Get several.” She’d moved on to an aisle filled with cheeses and dried sausages, which she began shoveling indiscriminately into the cart. “And don’t forget the … what are they called? The little pancakes?”

“Blini.” I grabbed several packages as well as some tubs of creme fraiche that were in a refrigerator stuffed with other perishable goods. 

After rounding off our purchases with sauerkraut, tinned fish, crackers, several jars of pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, a sizable loaf of Ukrainian bread, mustard, and disposable cups, plateware and utensils, we checked out. All of it together barely broke $125. 

“Don’t you find it a bit odd?” We were heading back to our rooms, when a thought struck me. 

“What?”

“We’re in a Cold War with these guys with thousands of ICBMs pointed at each other, but we’re also in their capital city and can buy the most expensive caviar in the world for a few dollars, while their own citizens are lining up around the block to fight over a moldy pork shoulder and three cans of peas in some wretched, empty store.”

We’d reached the room Batia was sharing with Courtney. She unlocked the door, after which she turned to look at me.

“Don’t you remember what Stew said at the orientation meeting? Totalitarian police states aren’t what they used to be.”

___ 

That night, we all gathered in Batia’s and Courtney’s room. Well, almost all of us. Rand had yet to leave the Cosmos bar or his Garden City buds, and Mike and several of the other Garden City kids had gone with their chaperone and Mr. Carter to see a traditional Russian dance performance at the Bolshoi. So, it was just Jeff, Brett, Batia, Courtney, and me.

We’d already started on the Stoli and caviar and things were getting festive. Courtney’s mood in particular had improved, and I found myself sitting on the little couch in the room with her pressed up against me, one leg splayed across my lap, as she fiddled with the collar of my shirt. Anytime I said anything that might be construed as even remotely funny or witty, she would toss her hair back and give a tinkly laugh, squeeze my arm intimately, and then settle into a vaguely hungry look. I prayed Serge would come soon.

“Kaufmannnn!” Batia towered over us with a bottle of Stoli in one hand and a cracker piled with caviar in the other. Given her tendency to be judicial and bossy, I was glad to see that she was getting into the spirit of things and raised my glass in acknowledgment.

She roared my name again and plopped down on the couch, so I was now squeezed between her and Courtney. Then, she swallowed the cracker and caviar in one mouthful, threw her arm around my shoulder (knocking Courtney’s head off of it), and raised the bottle aloft.

“To my classmates, with whom I have embarked on this perilous journey into a strange and hostile land!”

“Hear hear!” Jeff and Brett were two-fisting caviar crackers and between the five of us, we’d made a serious dent in the vat of Sevruga I’d opened. It was a good thing I’d gotten two.

“Splice the mainbrace!” Batia slipped effortlessly into pirate lingo. (We’d been reading Treasure Island in Carter’s class before the trip.) She took a long swig from the bottle, bellowed “Fire in the hole!” and then struggled back up to her feet and weaved over to the table where we’d laid out the food. Courtney promptly re-attached herself to me and started nuzzling my ear. 

There was a knock at the door, so I untangled myself and crossed the room to answer it. It was Serge, carrying a large suitcase and accompanied by four girls. He was beaming.

“My friends!” With his arms stretched wide and wearing the same mink coat and hat we’d seen him in the other day, he looked like a benevolent Cossack bearing gifts. A drunken cheer went up from our group.

The girls Serge had brought with him seemed pretty young, and once they’d shed their long winter coats, I saw that they were wearing what can only be described as “punk” clothes: Jeans; Doc Martens; Union-Jack, Sex Pistols, Damned, and Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirts. One of them even sported a pink mohawk. If they were hookers, they were the least Soviet-looking ones I could have imagined.

Through a combination of boozy gestures and sounds, we encouraged our guests to help themselves to food and drinks, which they did with great enthusiasm. Then, the trading began, and even though we’d originally said we were only interested in cash, by the time we were done not only did we have hundreds and hundreds of rubles but two complete Russian military uniforms, four vintage Soviet propaganda posters, two mink hats, coats, and stoles, and several sets of commemorative, silver coins with Lenin’s face embossed on them.

“What’s with the girls, man?” After trading, Serge and I had convened in the corner of the room and were surveying the scene.

“Ah!” Serge’s eyes widened, as if he had discovered a new species. “Delightful, yes? Teenagers like you!”

“You brought teen prostitutes?!” Even in the somewhat plastered state I was in, this seemed a cause for alarm.

“Prostitutes?” Serge looked puzzled. “They are on trip from England with school. I meet them in metro three nights ago.” 

One of the girls had sandwiched herself between Brett and Jeff and was eating caviar with a plastic soup spoon. Another was carrying on with Batia, who had donned one of the military uniforms and was giving off “Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS” vibes. I wondered how many times this scene had been replayed over the years, with a rotating cast of international high school students.

“Linda…I think she likes you.” Serge raised his eyebrows and cocked his head towards the mohawk chick, who had been giving me the eye over her shoulder. On seeing his gesture, she came over and began chatting animatedly in a cockney accent that made it impossible to understand a word she said. Courtney glowered at us from the couch, where she had been sitting alone and sulking ever since Serge and his entourage had arrived.

Linda and I got along famously, having discovered a mutual love for The Stranglers, and in between vodka shots, we belted out a medley of the band’s songs (out of tune), culminating with a rousing chorus of “walking on the beaches, looking at the peaches.” Jeff, Brett, Batia and the other three English girls were playing “quarters” with some of the Lenin coins we’d bought, occasionally braying loudly as someone landed a particularly good one. Courtney, meanwhile, had put on a mink coat and hat and was being consoled by Serge, who’d joined her on the couch and was patting her shoulder and making sympathetic noises as she tearfully protested everything.

At some point, Linda dragged me out, and we stumbled back to my room where we took no time in getting frisky. She’d just climbed on top of me, wearing nothing but a bra and underwear, when the door suddenly opened. As it was pitch dark in the room, she was just a silhouette against the hall light, and at the tip of her mohawk I could see Jeff’s illuminated face peering in quizzically.

“Uh, Jeff, this really isn’t a good time.” I hated to throw him out, but priorities are priorities. After we’d returned home, I asked him where he’d spent the night, but he said he couldn’t remember. All I know is that for the rest of the trip, Courtney seemed unusually positive and upbeat.