To Tony’s Hosts, Nothing Lost in the Translation

The letter arrived at The Times’ Orange County Edition in a carefully wrapped package that had been mailed three weeks earlier from the Soviet Union.

The writer was Boris Isaev, a journalist from the tiny Soviet fishing village of Okhotsk, where 11-year-old Tony Aliengena of San Juan Capistrano and his party of nine Americans made a brief visit in July while on an around-the-world friendship flight.

Isaev explained that he wanted to share with an American audience the impressions he and his countrymen had of the extraordinary visit. His handwritten letter opened with an apology.

“I am very sorry indeed: there is no English-language newspaper in our region,” Isaev wrote. “Sorry for my handwriting, for my brutal, savage, clumsy English. I hope that you will be able to understand the main idea of these texts.”

The texts Isaev was referring to were translated copies of five articles on Tony’s visit to Okhotsk on July 10 and 11 that both he and fellow journalist Victor Belousov wrote for the Ohotsko-Evenskaya Pravda newspaper.

The articles praised the Americans and reflected the fascination that drew hundreds of Soviet citizens to meet them throughout the Soviet Union. Many residents of Okhotsk, a village of 10,000 people that is normally closed to foreigners, had never seen an American before.

In an article titled “The Land of Okhotsk Meets the Guests,” the journalists recounted the excitement of the day when the Americans arrived at the village’s primitive airstrip.

“The moment two ‘dragonflies’ (Tony’s plane and a chase plane) touched the land and drove to the building of an airport, a torrent of people, flowers, presents, smiles and open hearts came through the open gates,” Isaev and Belousov wrote in the first of the articles. “Suddenly, in silence, the Americans began to speak . . . in Russian!” (They said “hello” and “thank you” in Russian.)

“Who knows how many years or maybe centuries the land of Okhotsk has not heard these words of our mother tongue spoken with evident American pronunciation?”

The journalists marveled at the tenacity of the Americans, who were already into week six of their seven-week journey.

“‘Was it hard? You wouldn’t say so looking at Tony and (his 10-year-old sister) Alaina,” the journalists wrote. “They cannot stay still for a moment. They move, jump and enjoy. Looks . . . as if it is not a hard job for them. It’s more a fairy-tale adventure, a real game, a space trip.”

As the American and Soviet children happily intermingled at the airfield, Isaev and Belousov took note of the fatigue on the faces of some of the adults.

“The American (adults) keep smiling . . . though the smile on Susan (Tony’s mother) betrays her weariness. Forty-five days in the air. It is fantastically interesting and difficult, says she,” the journalists wrote.

The article praised Tony’s mother for her fortitude and Tony’s father, Gary, for his bravery, addressing them in the newspaper as though they were reading it.

“Susan, really it’s you on whose fragile shoulders of a mother fell a heavy weight of this trip: To pack and unpack the baggage, to feed, to wash and dress your naughty, little imps, to foster them, to cheer them up, to lend them wings,” the journalists wrote. “Look at your husband, Gary, who is like a child; joyful, excited with the wild beauty of the North, ready to start fishing in the nearest river. It’s not an easy job to keep him back.

“And you, Gary! How could you take the risk of letting your son fly round the world in this tiny Cessna 210? Sitting side by side with your son, you may not touch the control column even in hard times. Gary, you are the bravest father on this planet!”

Gary Aliengena’s enthusiasm for fishing prompted Isaev to devote an entire article to a fishing outing on the Ohota River. Isaev began the article with a passage from a 60-year-old Ernest Hemingway short story about fishing, and compared the author’s love for fishing to that of Aliengena and his family.

“It appears that during all these years, the nature of an American hasn’t changed,” Isaev wrote. “Their attitude is even more selfless, enthusiastic and . . . serious. Gary brought up his children to love fishing. When our American guests were told about the planned fishing, they revived. How bright were Tony’s shining eyes!”

After the fishing expedition succeeded in hauling in two large salmon, which were promptly immersed in boiling water for some uha, or fish soup, the Americans joined their Soviet hosts in hearty toasts, Isaev wrote.

“At first, there will be timid refusals (by the Americans) to hold up tankards with fiery Russian vodka. Later, the constraint will fade away and the adults, having left the children by the fire, will sit together and shake the taiga with thunder-laughter of Herculean force, with toasts and songs the taiga had never heard since the creation of the world.”

Isaev was especially moved by a heart-to-heart discussion he had that same night with Susan Eisner, a Los Angeles woman who was part of a four-member film crew producing a documentary on Tony’s flight. The two, standing beside a campfire, talked into the night about the problems of the world.

“The fact that we are standing side by side, looking each other in the face, is well-nigh fantastic,” Isaev wrote. “It’s like a meeting of two living beings from different planets.”

On the subject of nuclear war, Isaev said that he tried to assure Eisner that the Soviet people only want peace.

“Do we want to have a war with you (Americans)? Of course not. I have two children and they are to live, not to die,” he wrote. “My children and my friends and I all consider a war to be a madness. My friends in America think the same.”

Although Tony and his family seemed to thrill at seeing Okhotsk and meeting its people, Isaev wrote, they looked longingly into the Pacific toward their far-away homeland. Isaev recalled that when the Americans were being ferried across a river to Okhotsk, both Tony and his father looked into the distance where the river met the ocean.

“They were smiling. Maybe they saw the shining gold of this ocean washing the shores of their far and native California,” Isaev wrote.

“Several times, Tony’s look traveled to the horizon. Now on his return to his motherland, he knows what it is like beyond the other side of the sky. He knows the thoughts, the way of life and the aspirations of the people living on the opposite side of the planet. The people--once mysterious and unfamiliar--will now be clear and understandable, plain and open. The (Soviet) boys and the girls are like American boys and girls. Their fathers and mothers are like American fathers and mothers.”