Moscow Station & the Year of the Spy

By the beginning of July 1985, when the novel opens, Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet engineer who'd spent years passing radar secrets to the CIA, had just been arrested in Moscow; his case officer was ambushed and expelled days later. These events came weeks after Washington had arrested a retired Navy officer named John Walker and members of his own family for seventeen years of spying for the Soviets. Cases like these would pile up fast enough that by year's end the press had a name for it: 1985, the Year of the … Continue reading about Moscow Station & The Year of the Spy

In the last week of July 1985, Moscow turned itself inside out for the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students, a Soviet-hosted event that, that year, drew roughly 26,000 delegates from 157 countries, the largest in the history of this festival. The opening ceremony at Lenin Stadium ran four hours: a sea of national costumes, card-stunt displays rippling across the stands, athletes and schoolchildren performing in massive coordinated formation, thousands of white doves released into the sky, the whole thing … Continue reading about 12th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow