В заключение разрешите выразить надежду, что, отвечая требованиям современности, Россия в ее усилиях продолжить реформы добьется в обозримом будущем осуществления мечты своего народа о лучшей жизни, как и помыслов в других странах о мире во всем мире. При всех трудностях, теперь по сравнению с догорбачевской и даже горбачевской эрой существуют великие возможности. Пожалуй, никогда в своей истории Россия не пользовалась такой свободой.

После долгой темной ночи расправ и жестокого диктаторского режима мы пользуемся теперь свободой печати и слова. Всего несколько лет тому назад никто и представить себе не мог, что будут изданы романы писателей из черного списка и что их будут читать без опасения судебного преследования и тюремного заключения. Нет больше цензуры в литературе, театре, во всех видах искусства. Средства массовой информации дают публике сведения, прежде совершенно недоступные. Все это создало в России совершенно новую атмосферу, которая, как мне представляется, делает невозможным перевод часов назад и возвращение к прежнему деспотическому правлению. Россия может и впредь испытывать экономические трудности и политическую нестабильность, но ее народ никогда не вернется к прежнему тоталитарному режиму. С этим покончено».

On a dark Moscow evening in 1987 with distinctively orange Soviet streetlights transforming a light swirling snow into an unnatural color, I sat in my room at the Academicheskaia Hotel trying to figure out what I would eat, the phone rang. An acquaintance on the other end of the line informed me that just hours before Alexander Fursenko had been elected a Corresponding Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He probably still would be in Moscow and, if so, would be at the second building of the hotel across the way. After checking with the front desk, I was connected to Alexander’s room. He was, needless to say, surprised to receive warm congratulations from me so quickly after his election. We would joke about the call for years ahead.

I first met Alexander while I was working as a young researcher at the Kennan Institute in the late 1970s. He had been one of the first Soviet scholars to be in residence at the Institute just months before I had begun working there after having completed my doctoral degree a few weeks before. Alexander remained a strong supporter of the Institute throughout his life, and visited from time to time whenever he would be in the US. We had met during one of those visits and had remained in touch. We shared a natural bond as I had conducted my dissertation research in Leningrad a few years before.

The 1980s were a difficult period to sustain professional contacts across the Cold War divide, and I can’t say that Alexander and I were more than aware of one another. He enthusiastically lent support whenever he could to my effort to write a history of postwar Leningrad (which eventually appeared in 1990 under the title Leningrad. Shaping a Soviet City). We exchanged greetings – such as my 1987 congratulatory call – and we read one another’s publications. Once perestroika blossomed, we began to correspond more regularly. When, in May 1989, I was appointed as Director of the Kennan Institute, Alexander became one of the first colleagues to congratulate me.

Beginning in September 1991, I became involved in a number of initiatives to try to integrate now-St. Petersburg academic life into the international social science community. I found myself meeting with Alexander on almost every trip to his city. These conversations helped me to appreciate how much both Russian and American social science and humanities research could be enriched by expanded contact with one another. Alexander had similar goals and we cooperated in these ventures.