KREMLIN
CRISIS
DETROIT
Disbelief To Relief,
All In Three Days
Local New Americans worried and waited,
watching news of their homeland on television.
AMY J. MEHLER
Staff Writer
L
udmila Frolovskaya watched TV
this week in disbelief.
Monday's news showed columns
of steel tanks rumbling through
familiar streets and boulevards of
downtown Moscow. Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev was placed
under house arrest at his vacation
home on the Black Sea. An eight-
member state "emergency com-
mittee," comprised of KGB secret
police and right-wing Communist
Party leaders, had taken control of
the country.
"Oh,-my God, not the tanks," cried
Mrs. Frolovskaya as she saw the pic-
tures."My mother lives within walk-
ing distance of the Kremlin."
At Manezh Square, a few streets
from Mrs. Frolovskaya's former
home, about 5,000 Russians swarm-
ed in protest, commandeering buses
and stopping traffic. Crowds formed
human chains and handed each
other bricks and pieces of rope, and
helped build barricades against the
Soviet army.
Soviet Vice President Gennady
Yanayev and other members of the
ruling committee announced on live
television that Mr. Gorbachev was
suffering from fatigue and high
blood pressure and needed a vaca-
tion.
Mrs. Frolovskaya, now in Oak
Park, laughed in their faces. But
even her laugh was tinged with fear.
At least, she said, Russian Federa-
tion President Boris Yeltsin, a
champion of Soviet workers and
democratic reform, looked strong.
A long-time rival of Mr. Gor-
bachev, Mr. Yeltsin climbed atop a
tank outside the Russian Federation
building and called -on Soviet
workers to join a general strike in
defiance of what he said was a
"reactionary and "unconstitutional
coup."
By Tuesday, lines were drawn. Mr.
Yeltsin was holding out inside the
Russian Parliament, refusing to
give in, issuing decrees and deman-
ding to know the whereabouts of Mr.
Gorbachev.
Mrs. Frolovskaya and husband,
Alex, were on edge. Repeated efforts
to contact her mother were unsuc-
cessful.
Her hands twisted nervously as
she watched televised pictures of the
crowd outside the Kremlin and in
the cities of Leningrad and Kiev
grow more and more frenzied. She
said she feared for the public's safe-
ty.
"Yeltsin asked the people to defy
the army and I hoped they would
succeed," Mrs. Frolovskaya said.
"He wants to improve Soviet life, to
do something better for the econo-
my. Gorbachev wanted to do that in
the beginning, but he tried too hard
to compromise and please both sides.
"Gorbachev was failing for a long
time." she said. "He was too
undecided about which side to turn
to. Unfortunately, the decision was
made for him."
Later that day, the Soviet army
tried to break man-made barriers.
Shots rung out. Molotov cocktails
were thrown. At least three Soviet
citizens lost their lives, crushed be-
neath the treads of armored per-
sonnel carriers.
Mrs. Frolovskaya still couldn't
reach her mother. Aug. 24, she said,
is her mother's 57th birthday.
By Wednesday, the news Mrs.
Frolovskaya was praying for: the
State Committee was breaking up;
they were running from Moscow in
an attempt to flee the country.
Mr. Gorbachev was staging a corn-
eback, already en-route to Moscow.
The Soviet people were stronger
than the internal forces arrayed
against them.
Mrs. Frolovskaya, 34, a former
journalist with Kosmolskaya Prav-
da, a Soviet newspaper for youth,
never expected the events that un-
folded this week in the Soviet Union.
Three weeks ago, she was preparing
to leave Moscow for Detroit with her
husband and two sons.
"If I could've been in Moscow I
would have been," said Mrs. Frolov-
skaya, who watched the events with
her sons, Michael, 7, and Niki, 2.
"All I was thinking about was my
mom."
In the face of the upheaval, Sandy
Hyman, director of Detroit's Reset-
tlement Service, maintained a policy
of watching and waiting.
"We usually have no idea what's
going on in the Soviet Union," Mrs.
Hyman said. "These events sent all
of us into shock."
The Resettlement Service has
received more than 200 phone calls
this week, Mrs. Hyman said. "But if
the president of the United States
didn't know what's going on, how
can we?"
Most callers were concerned with
how the coup would impact their
families and friends still in the
Soviet Union, and how it will affect
the future of Soviet Jewish emigra-
tion.
Since news Monday morning of
Mr. Gorbachev's house arrest, two
Soviet Jewish families arrived in
Detroit. The Groissrnan family
arrived Monday night from Moscow
and are settling into their new home
in Oak Park. Tuesday night, the
Shapiro family arrived from Kiev.
Resettlement Service expects a
single Soviet Jewish immigrant Fri-
day.
Dina Kostinsky of Southfield
hadn't seen her younger brother,
Yuri Shapiro, in almost three years.
She and her husband, Semyon, and
son, Henry, left Kiev two years ago.
Mr. Shapiro, 40, was told at the
airport in Kiev on Tuesday that he
and his family caught the last flight
out.
"They (the Shapiros) don't know if
Continued on Page 35
Ludmilla Frolovskaya: "Oh my God! Not the tanks!"
Photo by Glenn Triest
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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