Fodor's Complete Guide to the Soviet Union - 1988-2025
In 1948, English author George Orwell authored his dystopian novel and cautionary tale, “1984.” Thematically, it focuses on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repression of people and behaviors within society. Set in the future thirty-six years hence, it presaged conditions in the Soviet Union, which was then only twenty-two years old. In the Stalinist era, which lasted until 1953, every horror of Orwell’s imagination had come true for the citizens of the Soviet Union (USSR).
The Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War, fell in November 1989. By 1991, the old Soviet Union was in complete collapse. The German Democratic Republic, also known as Eastern Germany, also demised. The Federal Republic of Germany then took full control over both West and East Germany. In Russia, there was an incipient spate democracy. An opening to western ideas, institutions and trade gave great hope to the people of the former Soviet republics. There was a rapid rise in health, wealth, and the general standard of living throughout the former Soviet Union.
On December 31, 1999, following the resignation of President Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin became Acting President. He was first elected President of Russia on March 26, 2000, and then re-elected in 2004, 2012, 2018, and 2024. In 2005, Putin told his nation that the collapse of the Soviet empire “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Secretly and then more openly as time passed, he sought to reconstitute Russia as a world power. His plan was to regain hegemony over all lands that had ever been under Russian control. Under his direction, Russia conducted warfare in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria, to name a few.
In February 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, then and now an internationally recognized region of Ukraine. In March 2014, Russia officially annexed Crimea. Eight years later, on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, proper, with the goal of reintegrating the entire country as part of Russia. By November of 2024, Russia had gained significant territory, but had lost almost 750,000 men, killed, wounded, or captured. Some analysts put the casualty total closer to one million. The Russian economy was in tatters, with the exchange rate between the Russian ruble and the U.S. dollar falling below one hundred to one. In other words, the Russian ruble was worth less than one U.S. cent.
On June 27, 2024, the U.S. State Department, issued a travel advisory, which said, in part, “Do not travel to Russia due to the consequences of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces. U.S. citizens may face harassment or detention by Russian security officials, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, limited flights into and out of Russia, and the possibility of terrorism. The U.S. Embassy has limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia.”
Ironically, well before the 1989 fall of the Soviet Union, travel to many parts of the USSR were open to U.S. and European travelers. Although the Beatles never played in the Soviet Union, Elton John received a visa and became the first “out-and-out rock artist” to play there. Sir Elton’s 1985 album, “Ice on Fire” featured the song, Nikita. In the accompanying video, English athlete, actor, and model Anya Major played the role of a beautiful female Russian soldier.
Wearing white tank-top and red shorts it is Major who hammer-throws the sledgehammer into the screen of Big Brother in Apple's famous 1984 Macintosh commercial. The unidentified “Big Brother” in the Ridley Scott directed commercial was not the Soviet Union. Rather, it was tech entrepreneur Bill Gates. His company, Microsoft, then held the dominant operating system in the emerging personal computer field. Steve Jobs of Apple fame had commissioned the television commercial as a rallying cry against the perceived tyranny of Microsoft. Orwell, himself died in 1950, so no one knows what he might have thought about themes in his seminal book appearing as black comedy in a later television commercial. My guess is that he would have appreciated the irony.
The travel guide known as Fodor’s issued its “Fodor’s Soviet Union 1988” in English, targeted toward Western travelers. Among other sections, it featured “Ukraine and Moldova – Breadbasket of the USSR.” and “The Crimea and the Black Sea – From Odessa to Batumi.” One example of travel opportunities available to Westerners in 1988, included Ukraine’s regional capital of Kherson. In 1988, Fodor’s said, “Kherson is your final stop on the Dnieper River. Founded as a fortress in 1788, it is both a river and a seaport. From here you can visit the new town of Novaya Lakovka and see the Kakhovka Dam and its hydraulic power plant. This is where you leave the Dnieper River, but you can take a 300-seat hydrofoil to Odessa, which is only two hours’ ride.”
In 1991, Ukraine declared independence from the USSR. Although uncontested at that time, in 1996 Ukraine agreed to return its entire nuclear arsenal to Russia, including an estimated 1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and forty-four strategic bombers. In exchange for receiving the third most potent nuclear arsenal in the world, Russia offered debt forgiveness, plus economic and security assurances to Ukraine.
In March 2022, early in the invasion of Ukraine, Kherson fell to Russian forces, without a fight. The fall of Kherson was due to treachery on the part of several local officials. On November 11, 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrested control and liberated the city of Kherson from Russian control.
In the early hours of June 6, 2023, the Kakhovka Dam failed, causing extensive flooding along the lower Dnieper River. At that time, the dam was under the control of the Russian military, which had seized it in the early days of the conflict. Although Russian authorities have denied the accusation, many experts agree that Russian forces blew up a segment of the dam to hinder a planned Ukrainian counter-offensive. What resulted was an environmental and human disaster. Hundreds were killed, along with the flooding of towns and agricultural fields.
Because of its proximity to the active war front, Kherson remains vulnerable to Russian artillery, drone, and missile attacks. For example, on October 1, 2024, Reuters reported that "six people were killed when Russian forces struck the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Another six people were wounded in the artillery strike on a central bus stop, prosecutors said in a statement. Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said the strike also hit a central market while residents were shopping." On December 30, 2024, Russian troops shelled thirty settlements in the Kherson region. One person was killed and four were injured, as reported by Prokudin.
In 1988, westerners could travel to the U.S.S.R without fear of harassment or intimidation, and many did. Although the country was not free by Western standards, it was accessible. After 1989, the country was still not a place of free expression, but western tourism and investment were welcome. Western corporations and banking enterprises flocked to Russia and its former vassal states. With a combined total population of 290 million inhabitants, the importation of Western goods and services set off a period of great economic growth.
In 2014, with the invasion of Crimea, the international political and financial climate soured. Several Russian companies and individuals were sanctioned, but there was no military response from the Western powers. Russian natural gas and oil continued to flow unabated to Western Europe. Until April 2023, contracts between Russian oil companies and their U.S. counterparts allowed Russian oil deliveries to California refineries. U.S. producer Phillips 66 plans to idle its 139-Mb/d Los Angeles Refinery in late 2025. Although unstated in official announcements, loss of crude oil supplies from Russia was a major factor in reduced output and profits at the refinery.
In an unexpected diplomatic turnabout, on July 18, 2019, the Donald J. Trump administration withheld $250 million of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Seven days later, President Trump conducted a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which he asked Zelensky to collaborate with his then lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr. During the call, Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate Ukrainian business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
By December 2019, after a formal House of Representatives inquiry found that he had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump's first of two impeachments took place. He was accused of seeking Russian help in his re-election bid and then obstructing the inquiry itself by telling his administration officials to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony.
The February 2022 the Russian “Special Military Operation” intended to take all of Ukraine under Russian control launched with a thirty mile traffic jam of Russian military equipment. According to reports at the time, the operation was expected to last between three and ten days. Today, as I author this article, we have passed the 1,000th day of an all out and illegal war against the country and people of Ukraine.
I think back now to how naive many Westerners were and continue to be about the threat that Russia represents to world order. In 1988, I could have booked flights, hotels, and an excursion on a 300-hundred seat hydrofoil in Soviet dominated Ukraine. Today, U.S. travel and commerce within Russia or a simple tourist visa to Ukraine are not an option. For as long as the current Czar of Russia rules, he will continue his illegal war in Ukraine. The only person for which the war remains necessary is Mr. Putin, himself.
Slava Ukraini.
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