The first Russian girl of my dreams was just that, a dream. She is Katerina in my novel Peace that was written in the early 60's as a symbol of peace in the midst of the Cold War.

Then came love for real with Russian girls during my time in the Soviet Union. First there was the sexy girl I met at the bar in the old hotel in the center of Moscow. We made love once after dining in the Hotel Varshava, and then I went to her house for a party, but slept on a couch by myself at the end of the party. Then came pretty Marina who was 16 when I met her at a bar in Leningrad and we made out. She took me to her home (her mother was in Cuba as an engineer) and out to dinner at the Architect's Club (not like the scene in Master and Margarita!). When we parted she came onto the train with me and hugged and kissed and wanted to come with me! She was so young! And there was Elvira Beauregard, beautiful with green eyes, who worked at the post office in Novosibirsk. We went dancing until late into the night, and when I got back to Moscow, I received a telegram: Finally in Georgia there was the lonely and talented (10 languages) Marina who came to bed with me naked but without making love, and there was the beautiful gymnast who went on our shashlik but had no eyes for me.

When I arrived at UNESCO I soon met the beautiful Nadia Khromchenko who had come to Paris to be with her lover, Federico Mayor. She had met Federico at the age of 14 in Alma Ata when she filled in as his interpreter when the scheduled interpreter fell ill. Mayor's secretary told me the story. One day, somewhere around when I also arrived in Paris, Nadia shows up in her office. By now she was 17 or so. She told Mary that she had come from Moscow to see Mayor. And sure enough, Mayor confirmed that she could come in. She visited his office regularly and one day Mary interrupted them and found her dancing on top of his desk! I got to know Nadia by sitting next to her at the Executive Board meetings, and she became my close confidante, telling me what Mayor was doing, who he was seeing, in whom he had confidence and whom he considered just pests. She brought me news that I was in good standing and that helped. Over the years we stayed friends and I even considered hiring her for the International Year but Christine convinced me that it would have been a mistake. Anyway, Mayor had other loves and so Nadia had to cope. She got a position as a junior staff member. She had an affair with the English speech writer and later with a very nice guy in Communications from Luxembourg. Finally, she married a young man from Switzerland and went to work for UNESCO in Geneva, eventually quitting and founding her own Russian news agency in Geneva.

Then came the beautiful Ekaterina Saliagina. She had been hired in the Moscow office by my friend Wolfgang Reuther (with whom she is shown in the photo), and I engaged her to develop CPNN-Russia. She came to Paris and I took her for a boat ride on the Seine and walked her home holding hands and singing Moscow Nights. When I went to Moscow, we worked together in CPNN trainings (there is a nice portrait of me that one of participants made and which hangs on my wall here at home). One night I took her out to an intimate dinner and sang lots and walked her home. But, being an orphan without family, she was looking for a man to marry so I was not the one. She went on the mission with me and Wolfgang to Tatarstan where I have this photo as well as one in my history of the culture of peace. Eventually she found a man to marry and bring to Paris, the Russian staff member Sergei Lazerev from Social Sciences with whom I had not been able to work despite Mayor's orders to him. Oh well! Last I know they were posted to Alma Ata, but that was already years ago.