Mission: Implausible

There I was, travel-weary and apprehensive, in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, holding a huge nylon duffel bag that was oozing women's underwear. Bras, panties, camisoles, the works. Up ahead was a Sherman tank of a Soviet customs inspector. What would she think of this American man, traveling alone, with suitcases containing women's intimate clothing and six pairs of high-heeled shoes?

I had spent much of the preceding three months trying to conceal my real purpose for this trip--to photograph the women of Russia for Playboy. Now the project seemed on the brink of disaster, betrayed by lingerie.

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I had wanted to produce this feature for two years. Once Mikhail Gorbachev had turned his little crack in the iron curtain into a great open door to the West, I had wanted to march through it and capture, on film, one of Russia's most precious resources: its women.

The first order of business was to decide whether or not anyone should know that our photographer, Alexander Borodulin (Sasha to you and me), was working for Playboy. We settled on a strategy appropriate to U.S.-Soviet relations--just enough deception to cover our tracks.

Assuming that all phone calls into or out of the U.S.S.R. were monitored and the numbers recorded, we never spoke on my office phone. We similarly never referred to the models or the content of the photos. After Sasha did some preliminary test photos, we needed a system for getting the film from Moscow to Chicago. Mail in and out of the U.S.S.R. is regularly opened and censored, so Sasha gave the first film shipment to a rock group on its way from Moscow to New York for an American tour. Tom Clancy would have been proud.

The plotting intensified when it came time for me to make plans to join Sasha for the main shooting sessions. As Playboy's Managing Photo Editor, I had produced many pictorials, a memorable minority of which had been at places where I wasn't welcome. I had supervised shootings in the Ivy League; I produced Women of 7-Eleven. Proud as I was of this list, none of it seemed appropriate training for dealing with the K.G.B.

With Sasha directing the flow of paper through friends in the bureaucracy, the visa application process that normally takes six weeks took six working days. On the seventh, I was en route to Moscow.

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All the skulduggery seemed like a great idea until I set foot in Moscow with the duffel bag hemorrhaging women's underwear. I felt like Indiana Jones on his final crusade, having to pass the three tests of wisdom before reaching the Holy Grail: admission to the Soviet Union.

The first test had been passport inspection, where the Soviet sentry had stared me down as if trying to get me to confess to the Tylenol killings. I have no idea what he was looking for. Unlike customs officers at check points in Canada, for example, this lad had no computer into which to plug my name. He stared. I did my best to stare back. Finally, he stamped my documents. The first test was over.

Next came a sterner challenge, the search for a luggage cart. A nearby porter was renting them for one ruble. I did not have a ruble, and there was no change office in that part of the airport. I offered him a dollar and reached for one of the carts. He recoiled. It's illegal, of course, for a Soviet citizen to accept foreign currency.

I remembered, happily, that I'd been advised by Playboy's Senior Staff Photographer Pompeo Posar to carry a sufficient amount of Russia's universal medium of exchange, Marlboro cigarettes. I gave the porter an unopened pack of Marlboros, which is akin to paying bus fare with Krugerrands. Still, he gave up the cart, so I was on to the last trial: the ordeal of customs check and the telltale lingerie.

She loomed ahead of me, this customs behemoth--imagine Mike Ditka's unmarried aunt. I presented my seven bags. She passed over the lingerie collection with no special heed. No comment, either, on the six pairs of high heels. But before long, she did find trouble: my video and still cameras. Yet all I had to do was give her the serial numbers. Seems she was more worried that I'd make a killing selling them on the black market than that I might, for instance, photograph Soviet women in American panties.

The gantlet passed, I was released into the land of Chekhov, Gorbachev and, it turned out, beautiful women.

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Sasha had made reservations for me at the Rossiya, a quaint 3200-room Moscow hotel with all the architectural grace of a 21-story K mart. Just a hammer toss from Red Square, it made a convenient location for the Russian women to flock to.

Our destination for my first night in Moscow was a disco where they were crowning Mr. Moscow. The Soviets have recently discovered the beauty pageant, and they are seizing all opportunities to hold them. Given this mania for contests, Sasha figured that there might be some attractive women around scoping out the competition for Mr. Moscow.

The disco was in a distant part of the city, in one of the charmless vertical apartment complexes that the government provides for Moscow's 8,000,000 residents. There was no valet parking, no neon sign, no velvet rope and, until we arrived, no cover charge. But the guy at the front door gave us the eye and detected signs of a foreign expense account. He demanded 20 rubles apiece.

When I walked into the night club, I felt as though I'd fallen through a hole in the earth and ended up at the Rathskeller at the University of Wisconsin. These Soviet kids were wearing all variety of jeans, pleated pants, Italian suits, Missoni ties, Harvard, Columbia and N.C.A.A. Final Four sweat shirts and classic footwear from Nike and Reebok.

Two things distinguished these young people from their Western cousins, however. One, Bolshoi and Kirov companies notwithstanding, these kids couldn't dance. Two, they couldn't smile, at least not with the confidence of your average American kid. When a Soviet youth breaks into a grin, you are reminded of the dentalwork in an N.H.L. locker room.

While I was roaming the disco in a time-warp fog, Sasha was hard at work locating would-be models. His modus operandi was no different from that used by our staff when it searches for prospective Playmates in Atlanta, Dallas or L.A. You see an attractive young woman, give the high sign to your female assistant and she moves in for a business conversation. We're working on a pictorial, we think you're very attractive, would you like to be a model? As Sasha predicted, the results were good that night. Even though we never saw Mr. Moscow crowned, we found four girls.

The disco closed around one A.M., which was about lunchtime on my jet-lagged internal clock. Ever the considerate host, Sasha suggested an afterhours hangout where we might get a snack. The night spot Sasha had in mind was located on a large boat anchored in the Moscow River. We were halfway down the gangplank when the door to the club opened and out popped two Soviet officers--chests bristling with medals and ribbons--in a T.G.I.F. kind of mood. When they saw that most of the people in my group were Soviets, however, duty called. Apparently, it was officially OK for outsiders to party until dawn in Moscow, but God forbid that a Soviet citizen should expect the same privilege. The officers headed straight for our Soviet chauffeur and started interrogating him: Why was our group out so late? Who were his passengers? Where was he taking us? They asked to see his papers, and naturally, his license had recently expired. When that sin came to light, I wondered if we had eclipsed the boundary of prudent pictorials, and I was going to cash it in right there in Moscow.

Happily, Sasha's assistant Igor smoothed out the entire matter, using language he knew the military would understand: 50 rubles to each officer. From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.

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Sasha selected our glasnost girls in a grand manner. Through an underground network of agents, photographers, models and street operators, he got the word out that he was looking for pretty young women to photograph. With Sasha's network operating at full tilt, they came to the hotel at all hours of the day and night. The models were bright and eager and full of excitement over their big career opportunity. As in most of Europe, posing nude was never an issue. All the women were comfortable with their bodies and had little or no shyness about undressing with people milling about the tight quarters of Sasha's room.

I was amazed at the freedom given us to go about our business. Sasha and I had decided that the natural opening photo for the feature was a group of our women in Red Square. We picked four of the sexiest models, poured them into skintight outfits and paraded the short distance from our hotel to the Kremlin. On our way, however, we picked up an escort; something about the suit he wore and the way he kept his distance--not too close, not too far--convinced us that he was a K.G.B. agent. We huddled and decided to employ the ultimate weapon: my video camera. What K.G.B. agent wants Westerners to see him on video tape? Sure enough, I pointed the camera in his direction and he disappeared, never to be seen again.

Even though we had shaken the agent, we were concerned that he might return with reinforcements. We kept on moving until we had left Red Square and found another angle on a shot with the girls and St. Basil's.

After shooting for a while, we made another assault on Red Square. As this was a Sunday afternoon, the place was teeming with people. We posed our models in front of St. Basil's and began to shoot. Crowds of tourists, soldiers, even Kremlin guards gathered, watched and pointed. But nobody stopped us, asked for a permit or credentials or even questioned us about what we were doing. In the new Russia, these comrades must have thought, anything is possible.

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If you rile the party, you're sent to Siberia; but if you're a good little apparatchik, you end up in the balmy climes of Sochi, a spa town on the Black Sea. After a few days in gloomy Moscow, we rewarded ourselves with a trip south, just as party leaders had done before us.

Unfortunately, there was a catch. In order to get to Sochi, we had to fly Aeroflol, which is Russian for winged hell. You can forget curbside luggage check. In fact, you can forget luggage check altogether--this was strictly do it yourself. After we muscled all of our bags and suitcases up the stairs into the plane, we entered a large cargo hold where everybody placed his belongings. The seats and the appointments were run-down and dirty. No in-flight magazine, air-sickness bag, emergency information, headphones, air jet or reading light. Flight attendants? Halfway through the flight, huge Soviet matrons stomped down the aisles distributing awful fruit punch in paper cups. Throughout the ordeal, my fellow travelers sat in silence; this was the first example of Soviet oppression I saw.

The redeye back to Moscow was even worse. We left at 11 o'clock, which turned out to be the perfect hour to turn the cabin lights up bright and blare canned disco music over the speakers. The lights and music stayed on the entire time. When we touched down--after two A.M.--and the plane rolled to a stop, they finally turned out the lights and we were forced to grope our way from the plane in complete darkness. As soon as I got back to my hotel, I canceled my Aeroflot flight to Frankfurt and rebooked with Pan Am.

Sochi itself was a different story; our hotel resembled a resort more likely to be in Acapulco. It had a recreational complex with tennis, basketball and volleyball facilities, indoor and outdoor pools, bowling lanes and--I wasn't ready for this--18 holes of miniature golf.

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With all the high rollers and the foreigners in Sochi, there were also plenty of prostitutes. It is not uncommon for an attractive Soviet woman who is tired of the drunken harassment by the men in her life to begin selling her charms to the wealthy and generally more genteel Westerner or high-ranking party member. She can expect gifts, jewelry, perfumes and furs, not to mention visits to restaurants and hotels limited to those carrying hard currency. Most important, she will have the opportunity to enter into relationships with educated men, which could lead into an entirely new world of opportunities.

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In search of colorful backgrounds for our pictorials, we headed for the lush gardens in the middle of Sochi. We found the wonderful Pushkin fountain that had ornamental swans squirting water from their beaks and created a terrific watery environment for our model.

Dressed in a sheer skirt and a gauzy blouse, she stepped into the fountain, quickly got soaked and her charms were exposed for all to see. Mind you, we were in a well-trafficked area of Sochi's main park. Lovers strolled hand in hand, nannies with small children passed by and elderly couples sat on the benches and watched Sasha's circus. A park guide paraded a group of tourists past the fountain and explained something of historical significance. Amazingly, no one asked the obvious question: What the hell are you doing with a naked woman in the fountain?

We pulled a similar stunt at the hotel. For more than two hours, we photographed three seminude models in and out of the swimming pool, sliding down a water slide and lounging by the water. Bathers stared and some even pointed, but no pool guard or manager intervened, so we went ahead and took pictures. Try that at The Beverly Hills Hotel.

There can be only one explanation for this behavior. Soviet people must assume that if you're photographing models in Red Square or in a Sochi fountain, you have permission to do so or you're such a big deal that you have immunity from any local authority. Look straight ahead, go about your business, act cool and anything is possible. We did, and it was.

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In the short span of ten days in the Soviet Union, I ran up against puzzling extremes. Nowhere have I found so many people so insistent on heavy tipping before they would budge an inch, nor have I ever encountered so many kind and generous people. Two stories illustrate.

Early in my stay, I found myself sitting in a restaurant waiting for Sasha and the rest of the entourage. I asked the waiter for a glass of water, and that's just what he brought--lukewarm water. "Any ice?" I inquired in my guidebook Russian. He told me that the ice machine was broken. Soon Sasha showed up and he, too, expressed a desire for some ice water. The waiter shrugged again and headed back toward the kitchen. Sasha, hand on his wallet, was up like a shot and followed him out of the room. Moments later, both returned. "The ice machine," announced the waiter with a smile, "is fixed!"

Also during our Moscow stay, I was approached by one of the members of our group who had a favor to ask. It seemed he had a friend who had been studying English for ten years. Would it be possible, he wondered, for her to come by sometime, so that she could practice speaking the language? I agreed, and the next night, a very sweet Soviet woman presented herself, apologizing profusely for her terrible English, which was about ten times better than a Chicago schoolteacher's. We had a pleasant hour of conversation, she thanked me profusely and left.

Later on in our stay, I was told that the woman needed to see me again to properly thank me. I insisted that no special thanks were necessary, that the talk had been enjoyable for me, too. But, no, she must come to see me one more time. I agreed. She arrived carrying a small parcel in her hand. She asked me to unwrap it, and inside I found a beautiful hand-painted box that she insisted I take home to my wife. I was astonished, and deeply touched, at the value this woman had placed on her time with me.

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With the photo shoots successfully concluded, I began packing for the trip home. I was leaving behind most of the clothing and sundries I'd taken over, so I was looking forward to a light load on the return journey. But with Sasha doing things in his usual big way, out came bags and boxes of souvenirs, and in no time, my luggage was crammed with hand-painted dolls, Soviet propaganda posters, scarves, fur hats, Lenin medals and banners, T-shirts, old lithographs and vodka.

The most problematic item I had to carry home, however, was an envelope containing ten rolls of processed film with images of nude Soviet women. Talk about sensitive souvenirs. Even as we speak, the K.G.B. is probably chilling an ice block in Siberia for the next Westerner who tries to pull off this kind of photo assignment.

Where to stash the film? After much thought, I settled on the April 10, 1989, issue of Time magazine--a special edition on the new U.S.S.R. It seemed very suitable: the nude U.S.S.R. safely sandwiched by the new U.S.S.R. Call it a blow for improved Soviet--American understanding. Glasnost forever!

"We posed our models in front of St. Basil's and began to shoot. Nobody stopped us In the new Russia, they must have thought, anything is possible."