Wednesday May 6 - Return to Moscow

Wednesday, May 6. We return to Moscow by air. Both Dr. Levner and I are satisfied with the results of our travel in the FSU. Levner confides that he himself would never travel to so many former republics one after another, but that despite his misgivings we have done well.

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Afterwards I was too busy writing up the results of the trip and with other work, having been gone for a month, to investigate some of the questions I should have had about this trip, but apparently I mostly just didn't give them much thought. We submitted a "country clearance" request for travel to these countries to the Department of State - did they really consult with the relevant embassies to inform them we were coming? I am a little doubtful. I remember contacting the US embassy in Minsk (or at least trying to) and finding it not particularly useful, so after that I didn't bother to try to check in with the local embassy upon arrival in each country. (This was all before one carried around a mobile phone, so checking in by phone was a little more tedious than it might seem. I had all the embassy phone numbers with me just in case.)