Interlude: Death of a Literary Giant Takes Me Back to My Day at a Soviet Leader’s Secluded Retreat

The death of Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is the reason why I have decided today to go way back to my pre-Africa reporting days. I was by virtue of my university studies, not just a journalist, but nominally a Sovietologist, a species now extinct. One of my great experiences was being in the press pool on a visit made by (the first) President Bush to Moscow. We pick up the August 1991 story here… More than half of President Bush's eight hours of summit talks last week with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev took place at Mr. Gorbachev's secluded retreat outside Moscow, a compound about which little is known -- in the west or even among Soviet citizens. I was among the small group of American reporters who accompanied Mr. Bush to the countryside estate, the first US journalists ever allowed on the grounds:

The Kremlin: glittering domed cathedrals, massive ornate towers, and lavish military ceremonies. It not only physically dominates the center of Moscow, it has also been long regarded as the center of political power in the Soviet Union.

But lately another, quieter site has begun to rival it in importance. It is Novo Ogaryevo, Mikhail Gorbachev's retreat just outside the capital. His spokesman, Vitaly Ignatenko, calls it the epicenter of political thought in the Soviet Union today.

The well-guarded estate lies about a half hour's drive northwest of Red Square -- out past the last sprawl of suburban high-rise apartments and construction projects that ring Moscow, out in countryside dotted with tired-looking wooden cottages and fields of sunflowers, sunbathers and cows. No road signs direct visitors to the compound. It sits anonymously off a small, unremarkable road that winds through thick, dark forestland -- known only to those with a need to know.

On the day that President Bush visited Novo Ogaryevo, his motorcade sped through the stone gates that mark the entrance to the retreat. The small group of reporters that always travels with him -- a group that included myself that day -- fully expected our bus to be stopped at the entrance. We were told no news coverage of the private talks would be permitted and warned no journalists had ever been allowed beyond the walls that surround the estate. But to our delight, we were waved onto the grounds -- and even though the President disappeared in one direction and the press group went in another, we were inside -- amid a cool, shady canopy of birch and pine trees.

An aide to Mr. Bush told us the President and his wife, Barbara, were taken to a stately, two-story manor house that is the centerpiece of the retreat. Twin stone lions flank the massive wooden door that is the main entrance to the mustard-colored, stucco building, which the aide said was most notable for its lush, manicured lawn and rich gardens sloping down to a pond and a river. A Soviet employee at the compound said the house was built in 1824. He said that while the ceremonial greeting for the Bush-Gorbachev talks at Novo Ogaryevo took place in the gardens, the actual business meetings were held in one of the other buildings at the compound, a much newer structure added on in 1956.

Reporters were never given a firsthand look at either house, but we could see it was clearly a more formal setting than the rustic Camp David compound in the Maryland mountains outside Washington used by President Bush as a retreat.

No obvious recreational outlets, like swimming pools or tennis courts, were visible from our restricted vantage point. But we were told that when Mr. Gorbachev travels to Novo Ogaryevo, he comes to work, anyway, and not to play.

In fact, we later learned that on the night President Bush arrived in Moscow, Mr. Gorbachev and Russian leader Boris Yeltsin had held seven-and-a-half hours of talks at the retreat that lasted into the early hours of the morning. They were crucial follow-on talks related to the nine-plus-one power-sharing agreement between the Soviet central government and nine of the country's republics. Novo Ogaryevo came into the limelight earlier in the year as the place where the agreement was hammered out in bargaining between Mr. Gorbachev and republic officials.

Mr. Bush and the Soviet leader obviously spent most of their time working as well. While a US official said a boat ride had been possible, it never took place. Instead the two men, joined at times by senior aides, focused on a host of world problems -- and later that day announced their bold plan to co-sponsor a middle east peace conference.

During the nearly five hours of private presidential talks, our press group waited at a two-story building designed like a small hotel. On each floor, going off a central hall, there were several small, two-room suites -- one room with a desk and bookcases, the other with a sofa and chairs and perhaps a television. Each suite had its own bathroom. At the end of each hall there was a large dining room and a small adjacent kitchen. We were offered simple sandwiches, tea and coffee. During our stay, members of the two presidents' traveling entourages like security guards and drivers dropped by for refreshments.

Two highlights stand out from our stay at Novo Ogaryevo. At one point, our press group, listless from sitting about, startled Soviet officials when we suddenly rose en masse from the wooden benches where we had been napping or reading in the sun. There was no cause for alarm, though, and no confrontation. All we did was proceed into the nearby woods to pose for a group photograph. Having been denied access to the presidents, we resorted to taking pictures of ourselves.

The other highlight came after we had been told to return to our vehicles in preparation for the motorcade back into Moscow and the signing ceremony at the Kremlin for the historic strategic arms reduction treaty. As we stood by our press bus, suddenly, to our surprise, who should appear coming down the main road of the compound towards us but Mr. Bush and his wife, seated in the back seat of a huge gleaming, gray convertible "Zil" limousine. The president appeared just as shocked to see us, but in an obvious display of delight, he stood, smiled and waved before the vehicle surged past us and disappeared down the tree-shrouded lane.