WEBVTT - THE LAST SOVIET - EP 5: Three Hot Days in August 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:16.200 August nineteen, my husband and I were woken up by 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:20.000 a telephone call. It was six thirty in the morning. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.480 It's August nineteen ninety one and Marsha Lipman had just 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.320 started working for the Washington Post in Moscow. I woke up. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:31.920 I picked up the receiver. It was a friend from California, 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.120 and what she told me was switch on television. Isn't 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.120 what what are you talking about? It's six thirty year 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:44.840 and she said, switch on television. There is a political 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:52.080 coop in Moscow. There was a presenter there reading this 0:00:52.360 --> 0:01:02.400 litany of stale, recognizable communists speak. Has stepped down, he's 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.680 too sick to do his duties. A new political committee 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:10.560 is now in charge of the country. And I realized that, yes, indeed, 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:16.120 something absolutely horrible was happening, that after years of liberal 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:21.000 reform under Gorbachev, a coup was underway, a coup by 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.800 hardliners determined to take the Soviet Union backwards in time, 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:31.000 away from democracy, back to the old authoritarian days. My husband, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.759 by the time, of course, was also awake, and we 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.279 were standing there in front of the television. I remember 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.039 we're holding hands without normally do this, you know, standing 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.600 in front of me television at six thirty in the morning, 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.080 held it hands, but it was like he wanted to 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.600 hold on to something. Over the next three days, the 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.240 Soviet people were going to live through Communism's final reckoning, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:02:02.960 three days that would change the world forever. I'm Lance 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.080 bass And from Kaleidoscope Exile and iHeart podcasts. This is 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:15.239 the Last Soviet. In the last episode, we left Serge 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.960 Kraklev weighing up the decision of a lifetime stay in 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.160 space and save the galaxy's only space station, or go 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:28.000 back home to Earth, to Moscow, to his wife and daughter. 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.760 I don't know exactly what was going through his head 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.840 at the time, but whenever I make a big decision, 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.080 like when I had to decide whether to train in 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.000 the Russian Space Program, it feels like my brain is 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.800 playing a game of ping pong, conflicting thoughts bouncing back 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.079 and forth. Suddenly you feel like you've reached some clarity, 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.480 and then a new thought just slams its way in. 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:55.200 It's agony, and Serge had a lot of things to 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.440 weigh up. First, he had his family to think about. 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.239 They were prepared for him to leave for five months, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.720 which was hard enough. But if he stayed, they'd have 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:10.280 no idea when sarage would come home. In a BBC 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.680 documentary from nineteen ninety three, Saragey's wife, Yelena, says, I 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:20.160 was so upset at this point. He was meant to 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.120 be more than halfway through his five month mission, and 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.680 my soul and my heart, I kept thinking, just a 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:31.680 little longer and he'll be back home. All the while, 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.400 Saragey is concerned about his family's safety. He knows how 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.880 his country is disintegrating, the poverty, the chaos on the streets. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.280 Anything could happen. And it's not just what's happening on 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.680 the ground that's wearing Saragey. It's also what might happen 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:52.000 to him to his body, because the thing is humans 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.280 aren't actually meant to live in a tin can. In 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:59.880 space and zero gravity, your bones lose density, your muscles weaken. 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:07.240 Then there's the space sickness, nausea and dizziness. Your immune 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.360 system starts to break down, you have trouble sleeping. A 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.080 few people have been in space longer than six months, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:21.880 So sarage just didn't know what would happen to him. 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.520 That's sarage from the same BBC documentary. He says, first 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.279 of all, I had to ask myself, do I actually 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:37.080 have enough strength to stay mentally physically Sarah says, of 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.560 course I had doubts. So there are a lot of 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.680 reasons for saraga to think, actually, I don't want to 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:49.760 do this. But perhaps there was something else at the 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:55.159 back of Saragey's mind. Because sarage was dedicated to a dream, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:05:03.159 the dream of the Soviet Union dominating space. Well, ministers 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:18.880 and all her subdues have been captivated by the charm 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:22.400 of Gagarin was Saragei's hero. He was the first one 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.800 of us, sarage says, the first to step into the 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:35.120 great unknown should and so perhaps the thing he focuses 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:39.600 on is that dream of Gagarin, the hero cosmonaut, there 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.960 to serve the Soviet Union at all costs, because in 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.280 the end, that's what sarage was trained to do, to serve, 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.719 to do his job. He says, he felt in his 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.520 heart that he could do it, his mind, his body, 0:05:55.640 --> 0:06:00.719 he was prepared for this comes up on it, and 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:06.239 so he dials into mission control and he tells them 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.760 I will stay, stay to protect the station and serve 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.320 my country. But what he didn't know then was that 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:19.680 just a month later everything would change once again. Good evening, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:24.000 the stunning overthrow of Mikael Garbatoff by Communist hardliners dominates 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.480 the news this Monday. Garbertroff is reported under house arrest 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:43.719 as Soviet tanks took our positions throughout Moscow. At seven 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:48.000 am on the Soviet space station, Sergei Krikilev unhooks himself 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.320 from his face caught It doesn't sleep well these days, 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.440 lying awake for what feels like forever, occasionally falling in 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.040 and out of frenetic dreams. He floats into the station's 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.719 main module and gets ready for his daily check in. 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.120 But before he has a chance to read out his vitals, 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:14.440 the Michian control plays him an urgent broadcast. President Gorbachev 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.080 has stepped down. He's too sick to do his due 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.320 to us. A new political committee is now in charge 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:28.400 of the country. What serge is hearing is the beginning 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.440 of a coup by Communist hardliners against the President Mikhail Korbachev. 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.480 These hardliners were old school party big wigs in the bureaucracy. 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.760 Para Streicher is designed to take authority away military leaders. 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.200 The military is worried about losing its political cloud, and 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.240 high ranking members of the KGB, the secret police, are 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.360 worried they're going to lose political control of the people. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.760 They believed that the Soviet Empire was something to be 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.920 proud of. In some ways, these guys were the original 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.280 versions of Vladimir Putin, someone who has written and spoken 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.600 about restoring Russia to the glory days of the Soviet Union. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.000 He's talked about reuniting the Greater Soviet Union, and now 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:14.160 he's been bumping up this Soviet nostalgia. Yea, he was 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.880 actually all about making Russia grade again, long before titald 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.720 Trump was talking about making America grade again. By looking 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.520 backwards back in nineteen ninety one, the hardliners had the 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.240 same aim and so they got together in shadowy back 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:34.200 rooms and had whispered conversations about what to do, and 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.560 eventually they came up with an idea, a plan to 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.120 stage a military coup in Moscow, and on August nineteenth, 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.840 nineteen ninety one, they decided it was their time to act. 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.640 From ADC. This is a special edition of World News 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.000 Tonight with Peter Jenning. The first thing they do is 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.920 lock up Gorbachev at his dacha or summer house and Crimea. 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.360 They put him under house arrest with no communication to 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.400 the outside world. There's a lot we know tonight hand 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.520 still a lot we do not know. There's been no 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.440 word from mister Germatophy. Even as specific whereabouts are not known, 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.600 it is assumed he is not free. Then they seize 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.920 the meeting. Being of somber music on Soviet television was 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.600 one of the first clues here that something had happened. 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.680 Some people thought somewhat important had died. Early in the morning, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.120 they ordered the army to take over the main television 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.760 tower in the north of Moscow. Gas media has been 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.280 taken over by this emergency committee. Newspapers are not answering 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.480 their phones. Clearly glass nows to openness is under attack. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.120 All scheduled programming is replaced by the ballet swan Lake 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:50.320 on loop. It's interspersed with news flashes. A man in 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.960 glasses awkwardly reading a prepared statement from a piece of paper. 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.440 This is what Sergei and millions of other Soviets were 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:07.080 hearing that morning. Were waiting, confused, listening to Tchaikovsky over 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:11.040 and over, were standing in frother me television at six 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.040 thirty in the morning. Hold it hands, that's Musha Litman again. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.960 It was like he wanted to hold on to something 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:24.720 because the effect, the shock was immediate and strong in 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.360 the sense was that everything that will have just lived through, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.760 those times of opening up, of freedom, of wild dreams 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:39.880 coming through, of old constraints falling apart, that this is 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:52.959 about to be over. Both parents they lived in fear. 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.640 They unfortunately brought me up in fear. And I dreamed 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.640 and expected that my children would not grow up in fear. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.680 I had such wonderful dreams about them growing up in 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.360 a free atmosphere. And suddenly it was cut off. It 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:13.240 was being taken away from us with that presenter reading 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.920 from his papers. But Masha isn't going to give away 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:22.480 her children's freedom so easily. We need to find out 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:28.040 whether there would be resistance. She heads out on the streets, 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.120 and that's when she sees the tanks mingling with the 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.880 rush hour traffic. Red army armored personnel carriers on the 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.959 streets of Moscow this morning, heading south towards the River Moscow, 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.520 towards the White House, the seat of the Russian Parliament. 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.360 Tanks from the sofa. Immediately, she has one question on 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.480 her Moscow. Would the people join the coup or would 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.319 they fight back? Christnell carriers rolled by carrying scores of truth, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.040 some of them brandishing machine guns. When she reached the 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:06.600 parliament she has her answer. This was the best street 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:12.360 party ever held in Moscow. Ardamy Troitsky as a culture 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.079 journalist in music critic, but at this moment in time 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.120 he was working on an independent TV news channel, a 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.840 channel that supported democracy, and as soon as he heard 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.439 news of the coup he headed out onto the streets. 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:32.400 It was really like a huge political rave, and of 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.280 course it was happening round the clock. It was incredible. 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.360 I've never seen anything like these, neither before nor after. 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.880 Tanks lined up in front of the Russian Parliament and 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:51.760 stopping them, a huge crowd shouting, singing songs, saying no, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.920 they didn't want to go backwards, and he gathered around 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:59.600 tanks for rating the soldiers. One woman chattered angrily, you 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:05.320 are fascists. They wanted freedom, democracy. They were even trying 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.440 to block the tanks with their bodies. One man laid 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.600 down in front of a tank to try to halt 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.800 its progress. They also started to build barricades. We makeshift 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:19.160 barricades with whatever piece of disused machinery or brickwork was available, 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.960 barricades being made out of cars and the buses. One 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.760 crane driver joined the effort, shifting concrete blocks to the 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:34.320 delight of the crown. Pieces of methyl and wood and lanterns, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.520 I think build the obstacles designed to prevent any army 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.920 attempt to seize the Russian Parliament building. Of course, they 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.120 were also faming fun. I mean they communicated, they sang songs, 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.800 they flirted. The energy was tremendous because on one hand, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.840 of course people they've been afraid, but they fought this fear. 0:13:55.520 --> 0:14:00.480 It was electric. It felt like anything could happen. Some 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.320 people were drinking. Indeed there was some boos, but not 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.439 a lot of it because we got high on other things. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.880 So we got high on revolution, not on alcohol or grass. 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.920 The Soviet people had turned up. They weren't going to 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.160 roll over and let the tanks take away their dreams 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:29.800 of a freer, more open country. But as day turned 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.000 to night, the party atmosphere started to turn from joy 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.080 to fear. Tonight, small groups of Muscovites gathered around bonfires, 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.320 determined to see what further action the military will take, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.440 and ur Timmy noticed a sense of dread making its 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.040 way through the crowd. I think that there was a 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.920 great deal of anxiety. Soldiers have sealed off the Russian parliament. Inside, 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.880 officials watch nervously. There were a lot of rumors, increasingly 0:14:55.920 --> 0:15:00.480 certain that Russia's great experiment with democracy has suffered irrevers blow. 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.440 A lot of rumors coming all the time from everywhere, 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.840 Some rumors who were rather frightening, like you know, there 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:14.720 is a KGB division coming to Moscow from somewhere and 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.840 they are real killers. We are told that they fear 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.880 an attack by military forces loyal to the Committee of Eight. 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.120 We've all seen it happen before. In fact, it happened 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.680 just a couple of years earlier in China, a brutal 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.840 massacre of Chinese students and other protesters by the Chinese army, 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.359 where Chinese soldiers shot and killed hundreds of pro democracy 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.280 protesters in Tenement Square in Beijing. There was a volley 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.400 of tear gas ben without warning, the army opened up 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:48.200 with bullets, firing indiscriminately at the crowd. As nightfalls, the 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.240 people on the streets of Moscow can't help but think 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:58.800 maybe this is about to happen to them. We managed 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.560 to get a room at a hotel overlooking the barricades 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.240 and overlooking the White House. That's Serge Schmimon, the New 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.960 York Times correspondent we've been hearing from through the series. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.000 He has a prime spot overlooking the battle outside the 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:20.000 Russian Parliament, and what he sees is terrifying. So then 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.320 we all realize that these barricades, dramatic as they are, 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.760 you know, they looked like all these images of revolutions 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:31.440 past with flags and slogans, but that they're totally useless 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.280 against tanks. The flimsy barricades the people had built were 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.000 symbolic they were going to be there, you know, to 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:43.160 protect the future against the past. And then that night 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.320 something happened that made everyone think the past was about 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.600 to destroy the future. An extraordinary drama here in Moscow tonight, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:57.120 it seems of destruction of fire on the street, three 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.160 tanks drove towards the Parliament. The tanks were commanded by 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.960 a guy called Sergey Sorofkin, who until recently was head 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.920 of the Russian Army in Ukraine. To reach the building, 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.840 they had to get through a narrow underpass. They were 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.600 going down to hunder pass, and that's when the people attacked. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.439 Within minutes, the tanks were surrounded mobbed by a crowd. 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.080 They were stuck. They got themselves crapped. From there, young 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.680 men hurled rocks of Molotov cocktails. Because they were being 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.240 fulted by rocks and molotov cocktail. Two men climbed on 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.240 board of one of the tanks. Then one of the 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:42.840 hundred pertainel carriers caught fire. It then slammed into the barricade, 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:48.679 and as the smoke cleared, three protesters laid down, one 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:53.920 who said that shold the fulpened fire into the crowd, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:18:17.919 and one were definitely shot in the head. On the 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.359 Soviet space station, Serge is reading about all this drama 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.920 on Maggie's bulletin board. I'd rewrite articles in very simple English. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.440 They would connect. It's like my own system was a 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.600 tiny bulletin board, and they called it Rita, which is 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.200 my name in Russian. So Rita's information. So I was 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:42.320 their information source. And so he reads the news. Maggie 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.720 sent him shots in the nights. He read about an 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.399 old world represented by taints and a new one represented 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.240 by the people, the people and the security forces, has 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.080 not been seen since the early days of the Russian Revolution. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:57.960 He read about the violence and the deaths of the protesters, 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:02.040 the Soviet food tones blood with three protest is killed, 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.200 and the more Sergey read, the more he became charged 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:11.240 with injustice. Soviet tanks should not be attacking the Soviet people. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.199 It's not in the spirit of the ideals. He grew up, 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:20.400 serving ideals that focused on honor and virtue. And by 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:24.000 the evening Sergey had made up his mind. He was 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.399 going to do something no serving cosmonaut had done before. 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:34.960 He was going to make a political statement, and so 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.240 he wrote a message to send out over the ham 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:42.920 radio waves, a message from outer space, his attempt to 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.360 tell his countrymen this is where I stand as a cosmonaut. 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:52.399 And the message went like this, we stand with Gorbachev. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:57.680 We denounced the coup and I think that's a very 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.919 brave act what they did. This is Gaya Quinto on 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.720 an Australian radio show. Well, because that went out to 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.280 the world, didn't Yes, it certainly did. It was it 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.240 was on their space stations as a message which could 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.639 be read by all hand radio operators and which was 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:17.520 read by them. And when Garabachev disappeared, no one knew 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:19.800 when he was coming back. And they're left in a 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:23.159 fairly precarious position out there, and they are dependent on 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:28.199 people on earth, and yet they sided with Gabachov and 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.600 he didn't come back. It's very courageous. It was courageous 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.480 because if Gorbachev's side lost, who knew what would happen 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.040 to Sergei and his family back home. This was a coup. 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.520 It was reported that coup leaders ordered two hundred and 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.760 fifty thousand pairs of handcuffs from a factory outside of 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:51.120 Moscow in preparation for their victory. The infamous KGB jail 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.040 was also cleared out, ready to take new prisoners. Those 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.119 who opposed the coup, especially such high ranking members of 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:04.439 Soviet society as Cosmonaut, risked prison by speaking out or worse. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.000 And at that point it looked like the coup was 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:20.280 going to be successful. Three protesters lay down, and now 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.439 a hush silence fell over the city, and there were 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:28.359 constant rumors they're coming, and all night people waited for 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.760 the tanks, waited for the tanks that would kill them 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:37.159 in their thousands. But the night went on and the 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.280 darkness began to lift, and of course in Russia and 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.440 the summer, the night is short, and as the sun 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.600 began to rise, an extraordinary scene greeted the protesters. For 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.320 a moment, it seemed the situation was out of control. 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.480 But during the night, the new leadership had lost their love. 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.840 The soldiers were gone. The young conscript soldiers on the 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.399 streets were bewildered. They too were victims of this coup. 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.120 It was one of the most remarkable feelings because there 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:10.280 was no announcement. It was just obvious this coup had failed. 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.920 It had failed because nobody joined it, not even Sergei, 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:20.000 not even the dedicated communist cosmonaut Closeted inside the Kremlin, 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.320 the acting president Yanaiev and the other plotters decided they 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.760 could no longer stay in the city. As they fled 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.600 down the airport road, it was a humiliation, an extraordinary 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.720 climb down. The people had won, and now out in 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.160 the city, there was a different feeling in the air, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:42.080 a sense that we were entering new, uncharted waters. It's 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:46.320 the feeling I remember most clearly. Tired as hell had 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:50.080 and slept, it had napped and people had made little 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:54.560 bonfires around, you know, to cook on. And the bonfires 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:58.040 were put out, and people moved slowly. They got up, 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.919 they gathered up their longings, whatever they had brought for 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.320 the vigil. The vast crowd had gathered to remember three 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.320 victims of the coup, but in reality they were recording 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.240 how close the country had come to disaster. The vigil 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:16.760 to honor the three dead young men, and then silence, 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.639 breathtaking stillness, as the crowd stood to remember and honor 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:32.359 the victims of the coup and slowly started walking back 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:36.400 into the city, smiling, laughing. You know, it was just 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.840 the feeling of the most pure kind of happiness. There 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.840 was nothing to say. There were moments of high emotion, 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:48.159 some fighting back tears. It was just a beautiful August 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:52.440 morning in Moscow, and people were going home because they 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:55.920 had defeated this coup. Many people spoke of this being 0:23:55.920 --> 0:23:59.200 a funeral not just for the three men, but perhaps 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:03.400 for the Communist party itself. That marked a total turning 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:07.399 point in then the fate of what was left of 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:12.480 the Soviet Union. Victorious protesters marched through the streets, a 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:15.800 tide of people, bringing with them the banner of independence, 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:19.479 a huge Russian flag and shouts of down with the 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:23.119 Communist Party tearing down signs at the Communist Party headquarters 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:25.760 during a day of proud and peaceful attacks on the 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.639 symbols of Communist Russia and scrawling freedom, Freedom across the 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:33.400 walls of the KGB, croud revering in the party's humiliation. 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:37.040 Then they reached the statue of Felix de Zinski, the 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:41.080 infamous leader of the Soviet Union security forces. By this evening, 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:44.600 the demonstrators outside the Luvianko were preparing to tear down 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:47.280 the statue. There was a noose around his neck. Next, 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:50.720 metal cables were attached to the statue. The crane actually 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:54.639 tore him off. The journalist Masha Littman was watching on TV, 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:57.040 and he was dangling in the air for a while. 0:24:57.280 --> 0:25:00.920 One elderly Russian and the crowd said, through lives all 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:03.480 my life. But I am glad I lived long enough 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:08.080 to see this. The people had taken back power, and 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:13.520 that was only the start of it. All around the 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:18.119 Soviet Union, statues of the great heroes of the USSR 0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:24.080 began falling, stalins and linens and Braznev's all over the country. 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:28.640 The attack at Trzynski was an attack at the KGP, 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:33.040 It was an attack at the Soviet's regime. It was 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:37.760 an attack at the omnipotent government that held its population 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:43.720 and fear. People were no longer scared, and the interfere 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:49.040 really marked the end of the Soviet Union. Within a 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:51.480 few months, the hammer and sickle was lowered over the 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:54.879 Kremlin and replaced by the now familiar white, blue and 0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:59.800 red of the Russian tricolor. For most people, this was 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:06.640 a moment of celebration, but for Saragey and the space program, 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:09.520 the collapse of the Soviet Union meant they had no 0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:13.600 idea what their own future looked like. And it's at 0:26:13.680 --> 0:26:18.560 this point that Maggie, Sarage's friend from Australia, begins to 0:26:18.600 --> 0:26:26.080 hear rumors something is wrong on the space station. Journalists 0:26:26.240 --> 0:26:30.600 rang up Saragey's wife and asked her about his illness, 0:26:31.200 --> 0:26:33.720 which is must have been rather devastating for her to 0:26:33.760 --> 0:26:39.040 listen to. And then she heard something even stranger. They 0:26:39.119 --> 0:26:42.200 are in space. They're being stranded there, they're being punished. 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:45.720 At one point Sergey said to me and Russian, he says, 0:26:46.200 --> 0:26:54.240 they say, we are in prison up here. That's next 0:26:54.280 --> 0:27:06.760 time on the Last Soviet. The Last Soviet is a 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:11.399 Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcast and Exile Media, 0:27:11.720 --> 0:27:15.879 produced by Sama's Dad Audio and hosted by me Lance 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:21.119 Bass Executive produced by Kate Osbourne and Mangesh Hata Kadoor 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:27.119 with Oz Wallishan and Kostas Linos from iHeart Executive produced 0:27:27.119 --> 0:27:31.520 by Katrina Norvelle and Nikki Ettore from Sama's Dad Audio 0:27:31.720 --> 0:27:36.400 are Executive producers are Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitzina. Produced 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:41.119 by Assia Fuchs, Dasha Litzitzina and Joe Sykes. Writing by 0:27:41.200 --> 0:27:46.840 Lydia Marchant, Research by Mika Golobovski and Molly Schwartz, Music 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:51.119 by Will Epstein, Themed by Martin Orstrin, Mixing and sound 0:27:51.160 --> 0:27:55.000 design by Richard Ward and special thanks to Nando Villa, 0:27:55.200 --> 0:27:59.199 Will Lissa Pollock, Will Pearson, conal Byrne, Bob Pittman, and 0:27:59.320 --> 0:28:02.479 Isaac Lee. If you want to hear more shows like this, 0:28:03.119 --> 0:28:05.800 nothing is more important to the creators here at Kaleidoscope 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:10.040 than subscribers, ratings, and reviews, so please spread the love 0:28:10.119 --> 0:28:11.040 wherever you listen.