The city of Bratislava was the twin city of Kiev, and the School of Economics was the twin school of a similar school in Kiev. And this was the reason why Ekonóm would regularly visit Kiev. We went there once in two years. The journey by train took us two nights and one day, but this was always something we would look forward the most. While on the train, we could organize parties, fancy.dress balls, discotheques, etc.
I recall one of our visits in Kiev that was particularly interesting. As usual at those times, before setting out customs officers would come to the school to seal our luggage with the costumes, to prevent us from smuggling any State secret in them. On the day of our departure, the luggage would be loaded to the luggage compartment, and the latter would be thoroughly sealed again by the customs officers, and we could then set out on the thirty-hour entertainment journey.
The next day, during very early morning hours for Kiev but us not at all attempting to exactly determine the hours of the day, we gladly disembarked in the Ukrainian metropole Kiev. Yes, we did but our costumes did not. Namely, it was found out that the seals on the luggage comparment had been broken, and the matter had to be duly investigated and resolved at the international level. So, our costumes, re-sealed again, went on their way to the national capital Moscow. We could not get as far as that with our arts ourselves.
One whole week we would hang around in Kiev, trying to invent some fun, visiting for the mth time all cultural monuments of the city, including V.I.Lenin´s coat shot through by an assassin, organizing pyjama-parties as well as an Eastern-orthodox wedding.
And so did our management hang around. They visited numerous offices, discussed with numerous good and also nervous customs officers, phoned numerous staff at our Embassy (maybe, even the Ambassador himself). Simply, they did whatever possible to return to us again our beloved costumes purchased for money that had been acquired so hardly.
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