Tag #143158 - Interview #78772 (Abram Kopelovich)

But on 18-19th August, 1991, during the coup attempt against Gorbachev [26], we were on Baikal Lake [in Siberia], and we were very scared. There was no connection home to Riga, and besides they were showing all sorts of terrible stuff on TV, so we were very worried. It was in 1991, and we were in a place from where people can't be exiled any farther. It was funny! It was a Soviet tradition for television to show all sorts of cultural programs like the ballet 'Swan Lake,' Beethoven symphonies when some big Communist leaders died, like Brezhnev [27], Andropov, or Chernenko. And in these few days, we had too much culture and not enough news.