Lost in Leningrad: 1985 — Among My First Espionage-Adjacent Moments
I was just a kid, lost in a country I barely understood — which, come to think of it, was a lot like being at home, only with more concrete and fewer Tim Hortons.
That day in March 1985, I had been wandering the endless halls of the Hermitage Museum, a place so stuffed with fancy paintings and dusty old trinkets that it might have been designed just to make you forget where you were. Somewhere between admiring a portrait of some long-dead noble who looked as bored as I was, I lost track of my group—the other kids, my teacher—all vanished like Soviet transparency.
When I finally stumbled outside, blinking against the bleak Leningrad sky, the tour bus was gone. Poof. Like a magician’s rabbit, except the rabbit was me, and the magician was an entire surveillance state apparently too busy to notice.
The USSR was famous for spies. Our guide had warned us we were likely trailed by KGB agents disguised as tourists, tourists disguised as spies—basically, everyone was playing hide-and-seek with worse odds. Yet somehow, I had slipped through the net. Either I was the world’s worst espionage target or the KGB figured a lost Canadian kid was the least of their worries. Honestly, the latter seems more likely.
You have to remember, there were only so many KGB operatives to go around, even in Leningrad. If my teacher thought I was with the group, the KGB probably checked the list once, shrugged, and went back to sipping their black coffee in a dark room. A lone lost child? Not a threat. More like a mildly interesting inconvenience.
Besides, Leningrad was the USSR’s shiny tourist showroom. Foreigners roamed more freely there than anywhere else in the Soviet Union, especially around places like the Hermitage, where you could find hordes of confused-looking Westerners all trying not to offend anyone or accidentally take a photo of a spy.
Buses were packed and mostly unsupervised. Slipping onto one unnoticed—even for a small, bewildered foreigner—was basically the urban equivalent of sneaking an extra fry from the McDonald’s bag.
Also, a surprising number of foreigners lived there, some with kids who probably looked a lot like me, so I blended in just enough to avoid causing alarm.
But maybe it wasn’t just luck. I didn’t scream or bawl. I didn’t freeze like a deer in the headlights. I quietly sized things up, made a decision, and acted. I climbed aboard a bus that looked vaguely familiar and hoped for the best. I moved like I belonged, or at least like I was too stubborn to be stopped.
Unbeknownst to me, I had developed a kind of quiet authority — not the “I’m the boss” kind, more like “Don’t waste my time” kind. For a ten-year-old kid, that’s pretty impressive, especially when you’re lost in a city where the signs might as well have been written in alien script.
So I wandered the cold, grey streets, looking for faces I recognized. None showed up. Eventually, I climbed aboard a random bus, hoping it would take me somewhere familiar. Instead, it took me two hours into the Soviet countryside—farther from safety than I’d ever imagined.
At one point, tired and scared, I found myself at a small farmhouse. There, an elderly couple took me in. They spoke no English; I spoke no Russian. But they gave me shelter anyway — a brief oasis of warmth in a world that suddenly felt colder than a Siberian winter. Through gestures, smiles, and the universal language of kindness, they helped me find a bus back to Leningrad.
Back in the city’s subway, I was overwhelmed by the cold stone walls, rattling trains, and the serious, unreadable faces of commuters. I tried saying, “I’m Canadian.” No reaction. Just blank stares.
Then I tried a hail-mary:
“Wayne Gretzky?”
Instant magic.
A man who looked like he hadn’t cracked a smile since Stalin died suddenly lit up like I’d handed him the winning lottery ticket. “Ah! Gretzky!” he exclaimed, beaming. Others nearby stopped, curious. The frosty crowd melted into warm smiles and helpful directions. Suddenly, I was no longer a lost foreign kid — I was the kid from the land of hockey legend, bearer of a secret password that cut through suspicion and silence.
I used the magic word a few more times. Each time, it worked like a charm, bridging the vast gulf of Cold War distrust with the simple warmth of shared admiration for a hockey hero.
And that’s how I found my way back.
Of course, who knows what really happened? Maybe the KGB saw me slip away and decided I was too small to bother with. Maybe someone in a grey coat followed me all the way to the farmhouse, satisfied I’d make it back without causing a diplomatic mess. Maybe the kind couple were just that — kind. Or maybe, like any good Cold War story, the truth lies somewhere between memory and myth, wrapped in a fog of paranoia and half-remembered moments.
Years later, I learned these trips were rare. Canadian schools didn’t send students to the Soviet Union—not unless you had a death wish or a very patient teacher. Jim Thurlow, our teacher, called them peace missions. His wife, Setsuko Thurlow, survived Hiroshima. Their lives—and our trip—were part of a bigger campaign for disarmament and understanding.
We thought we were tourists. We were being seen.
So when I went missing, and no one came after me, maybe it wasn’t negligence. Maybe, in that bizarre, paranoid Soviet world, they figured I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
And maybe, for a little while... I was.
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