During the election in 1989, there was the first Soviet election with alternative candidates to local government. I myself arranged special training for them.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I decided to go into politics because of our Soviet-style government.
I joined the city government, and we start to operate as the bureaucrats on the local level, so we were the only ones in the whole Russian team who were experienced in practical bureaucratic management in the complicated condition of 1990.
Soviet regime in a way deprived me from my childhood in my homeland, because my father was in military, and after the Yalta agreement he was sent to teach in military academy in Riga, and I was born then.
I had a minor in Russian history, and this was at the time when the big Cold War was going on.
In one thousand years of Russia's existence, its first popular national election ever to be held occurred in June 1991. Six days later, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed in Moscow!
We then came to the Soviet Union. One day we were walking and carrying our banner and distributing a few leaflets in Russian to people, and we met two women on the road.
In the first moments, the members of the Presidium who were with me at the Secretariat were taken to the Party Central Committee under the control of Soviet forces.
I decided to create a sports club during the Soviet times. It was my dream.
George McGovern - and I campaigned very hard for his election - was not, in the summer of 1971, a strong feminist ally. But he did come around.
The democratic choice Russian people made in the early 90's is final.