An Misdventure in the Moscow 1980 Olympic Stadium

I have known Andrei Zhelnov since July 4, 1979. I've told the story of our meeting in another post. Before leaving Moscow to ride the Trans-Siberian Express to Beijing, I spent two weeks with him in the Summer of 2013. In the photo, we are standing at a lookout point on the Moscow State University campus. In the background is the main stadium where the ill fated 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics took place. 

Andrei and his water polo team were in Moscow in the Summer of 199 representing Leningrad in the Spartakiad, a nationwide athletic competition of great importance in the former Soviet Union. Right after my group arrived and before I met Andrei, we took an excursion of Moscow which ended up at this very spot on the campus of Moscow State University. Our guide told us all about the stadium in the background, the central stadium for the ill fated 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. All of us had our picture taken posing right at this spot. I remember asking the guide if it was possible to tour the stadium. "Oh, no," she answered, "Even I can't get in that stadium. Only very important people are allowed to tour the stadium." 

A few days later, I would meet Andrei and his teammates. A few days after that, they asked me if I'd like to watch them practice, and they snuck me into the stadium telling me to keep my mouth shut till we got to the pool. There I watched them practice for a while and then started doing laps. Suddenly, they nervously gestured at me to get out of the pool, led me into the locker room, put me in a shower stall, turned on the shower and told me to stay there keeping the water on till they came back. It seemed like a forever passed before the coast was clear and they came to release me from my water torture. Their coach had made an unexpected appearance. In the old Soviet Union, I could have gotten in a lot of trouble, expelled from the country or worse, for being in a place I wasn't supposed to be. They could have gotten into worse trouble for taking me there. It was the first of many adventures Andrei and I would have that summer. I am happy to say that thirty-five years later, we're still having adventures.