Chapter 74

It was a small steel ship or a big ... luxury yacht Uncle Joe probably had stolen from Germany, Poland, Latvia or Estonia. Important men had boats ... Uncle Joe got a boat ... or a ship.

So they faked his death ... or he died and Soviet science brought him back to to life ... or maybe cryogenically frozen ... He was on the boat and the boat was loaded with ‘refugees’. They had to stock the boat ... and nobody noticed. They had to leave from Moscow ... by the canal... 80 miles ... and nobody noticed.

The Moscow canal is one of the busiest in all Russia but not one of the patrol boats stopped to check ‘papers’ even though the fisherman and his rowboat were stopped 10 times a day.

Now hold on ... I’ll get around to the punchline. You need to realize how unusual it was for a boatload of scruffy refugees to leave Moscow in 1953 or 54. Or even one Soviet citizen to walk a mile in Moscow without hearing the demand for ‘papers.’

One thing for sure you can’t tell an army of KGB guards that ‘these aren’t the ‘droids you are looking for.

After the canal, came the turn onto the Volga ... a Russian River, and then Lake Rybinsk ... Yaroslavl a town on Lake Rybinsk is a good 300 miles from Moscow and nobody hauled them over and demanded ‘papers’. All this is upstream and upstream uses bunkerage ... whether it be coal, fuel-oil or diesel, upstream uses resources. We’re 400 miles gone and three days ... SOMEBODY is going to be missing that boat. Three days ... reprovisioning ... Oh good ... go ashore and buy at the market. Not in 1953/4. Then ... eventually the boat makes Saint Petersburg ... A huge harbor and access to the Gulf of Finland ... and the Baltic Sea. Does anybody get this yet?

In 1953 or four, a ship of refugees travels from Moscow to the United States by water and WE LET THEM IN? WELCOMED them with open arms,

“Hey! How are ya? Good to see ya. Got a nice countryside Village for ya ... you guys love little fish and black bread and the place has a snug harbor ... sure it freezes solid ... but you’re used to that. It’ll give your doctors a place to let Joe recover ... Joe Stalin? Any relation to the guy ... nah ... couldn’t be. He’s dead. The place is on the Great Lakes. You guys gonna take the boat?”

Don’t ask me how Uncle Joe was in Pentwater... (giggle)