The archive
Search by a name, a place, or a word he wrote — or just scroll to browse all 151.
1991 · Brochure
A printed AIFS orientation/guidebook page (header 'VIPs') profiling key Estonian leaders shortly after Estonia regained independence in 1991. Includes capsule biographies of President Arnold Rüütel, Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar, author Jaan Kross, and Foreign Minister Lennart Meri, with a fifth profile (Marju Lauristin) truncated at the page edge.
February 3, 1991 · Brochure
Five photocopied pages from the U.S. Postal Service International Mail Manual (Issue 9, dated 2-3-91) covering mailing conditions to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: prohibitions, restrictions and admissible quantities, postage rate tables, special services, an English-French glossary of typical items for customs declarations, and Express Mail International Service details.
September 1991 · Form
A typed welcome memo to all incoming Leningrad students from Claire Greenhalgh, Resident Director, covering practical information: the dormitory address at Leningrad State Technical University, public transportation (metro, talonchiki tickets, the 'yidiny bilyet' monthly pass), and communication (phone calls, mail and telegram costs/locations). The page is cut off mid-sentence about the unreliability of Soviet postal service.
October 8, 1991 · Postcard
A handwritten postcard from Seth Baker in Leningrad/St. Petersburg to his parents Don and Jan Baker in Bloomfield, CT, telling his mother about his hobby of collecting currency from every country he visits — noting it is all Rubles since the former Soviet states still use the central money supply — plus an Estonian interwar-period coin, and describing St. Petersburg as the 'Venice of the North,' built on 44 islands linked by bridges.
November 1991 · Letter
A continuation (pages 2-4) of a handwritten letter from Seth Baker describing in detail the food and shopping situation in St. Petersburg in late 1991: the laborious multi-line Soviet shopping process, street vendors, markets, scarcity of cheese and vanilla, dorm-life food trading, learning not to waste food, and his upcoming trip to Lake Baikal.
November 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from a hotel high above Lake Baikal, recounting his friendship with a Russian boy (~age 8, whose name he renders 'Jean'/'Shena') who keeps gifting him cherished pins, a key chain from Petrodvorets, Tsarist banknotes, and hand-painted wooden spoons. He reflects on Russian gift-giving culture, the family on holiday, a taxi-driver conversation about the Hartford Whalers, and his frustrations learning Russian, before flying back to Leningrad.
November 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from a hotel overlooking the Angara River in Siberia, describing his flight on Aeroflot with friend Brian and a man named Vitaly, the Intourist hotel in Irkutsk, the famous Hotel Baikal by Lake Baikal, a long cold walk to the village of Listvyanka, a generous Russian family next door, and his reflections on the 'two extremes' of Russian life. He closes with travel plans (Latvia, Lithuania, Yalta) and a packing wish-list.
November 4, 1991 · Letter
A four-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker to his parents, dated Nov 4, 1991, recounting a weekend trip to Vilnius, Lithuania with his roommate Brett. He describes flying Aeroflot, lax airport security, hunting for a hotel, opening a Lithuanian bank account, drinking all night with two Russians from near Riga, a chaotic delayed-flight day with an Austrian businessman, a Sri Lankan Trotskyite, and a Lithuanian named Eugene, and visiting the artist Ilya Repin's house outside St. Petersburg. He closes with news about his visa extension, plans to teach English, and an upcoming trip to Siberia (Irkutsk).
November 25, 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents recounting a weekend trip from Leningrad/St. Petersburg to Kaunas, Lithuania, to visit his friend Eugene, a Soviet-trained radio engineer now working as a musician. He describes Eugene's nightclub floorshow and apartment, the warmth of known Russians versus the coldness toward strangers, severe gas and electricity shortages, the Devil Museum, the Lithuanian police (including women officers), KGB-headquarters graffiti, a 12-hour airport delay, and a harrowing night of mafia-controlled cabs and tire-slashing taxi drivers at the airport.
November 28, 1991 · Letter
On Thanksgiving morning, Seth writes to his parents from St. Petersburg about an interview at Leningrad State University regarding spring-semester tuition ($350/month, 20 hours/week), the absurdity of needing a 12-hour train to Tallinn just to use a phone, and a hilarious anecdote about his friend Stefan landing a job at the open-air Black Market by hawking chess sets to an American tour group in a fake-perfect English pitch.
December 1991 · Newspaper clipping
A page of newspaper clippings Seth enclosed in a letter home, documenting the final days of the USSR (late December 1991): a New York Times feature on bribe-taking Moscow traffic police, a wire report on Yeltsin liquidating the Soviet Foreign Ministry and absorbing all but two ministries, a Thomas Friedman piece on Washington delaying recognition of the ex-Soviet republics, and an International Herald Tribune story on the German Bundesbank raising interest rates.
December 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents describing how shopping in the collapsing USSR is a constant way of life: he hauls a black gym-bag everywhere, opportunistically buying carrots, champagne (whose price swings wildly from 35R to 350R), and pickles before they vanish. He reflects on escalating shortages, rising theft, a small protest, a naval-cadet friend's chilling remark about a possible military takeover, and his hope that prices will stabilize by March.
December 1991 · Letter
A two-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) to his parents giving logistical instructions: addresses for a photographer holding his film, AIFS program peers staying in St. Pete next semester, and a request to send a $300 check to Elise Ardoyno who will carry the cash to him for rent and bribes. He warns not to give anything to Stephan's parents, notes American Express cannot supply cash in Leningrad, mentions teaching English and collecting tongue-twisters for a Russian teacher, thanks Heather for a card, and wishes the family a Merry Christmas.
December 1991 · Newspaper clipping
Two pages clipped from The Baltic Independent, an English-language weekly. Page 5 carries the tail of a Moscow/Baltics political article (Yevgeny Kogan's Interfront picket; Shaposhnikov on the Soviet troop pull-out), Bank of Latvia and Bank of Lithuania rouble exchange tables, and advertisements for the Viktoria hard-currency shop and the Astoria restaurant in Tallinn. Page 6 is a vox-pop feature, 'People on the street,' in which Tallinn residents and visitors say what they hope for in the new year amid Estonian independence, inflation, and currency reform.
December 2, 1991 · Letter
A quick logistical update Seth hand-delivers via a returning friend rather than the Soviet post. He covers enrolling at Leningrad University, paying tuition, the difficult apartment search, co-teaching his first English class, errands his parents can run for him (a $8 postmaster payment in Ashford CT and a Cyrillic fonts disk for the friend carrying the letter), possible travel to Asia or Europe, and the grim, sunless St. Petersburg winter.
December 10, 1991 · Letter
A typed letter from Seth's mother Jan wishing him Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year while he is in the USSR. She reflects on past Christmases, reports that she is typing his letters into the computer and sharing them, discusses sending him his repaired camera, a money deadline at Ashford Post Office, asks him to find dolls or statues from foreign countries for her collection, warns about alcoholism and vodka, explains how American Express in Leningrad can cash personal checks, and expresses hope he finds housing and doesn't get too homesick. Twice she handwrites a Kinko's fax number (203 232-3402).
December 10, 1991 · Letter
A December 1991 letter from Seth Baker to his parents describing the surreal difficulty of finding an apartment in St. Petersburg as a foreigner: closed-city residence permits, the MENU/SNEEMU classified-ad confusion, an open-air flea market where people sell single lightbulbs, a paranoid landlady who believes the KGB is watching her, a monarchist intelligentsia family, the dominance of the black market, and his cheap state-shop cross-country skis. He confesses he regrets staying but intends to stick out the long 7 months.
December 14, 1991 · Letter
Seth writes a four-page letter to his parents describing his newly rented St. Petersburg apartment in loving detail, laying out his 7-month budget, repeating logistical reminders about money/visas/mail, recounting how the KGB intercepted roubles he mailed home, and profiling his wealthy jazz-musician landlord.
December 18, 1991 · Letter
On his birthday, Seth writes to his parents from Leningrad/Saint Petersburg describing his exhausting commute to teach an English class at an institute, the misery of overcrowded trolleybuses and the metro, a compliment on his Russian, a detailed list of food prices versus the average salary, fears of riots and the breakup of the USSR into the SNG (CIS), and observations on Hare Krishnas and Russians' devotion to their children.
December 22, 1991 · Letter
A two-page handwritten letter from Seth to his parents dated Dec. 22, 1991. He thanks them for packing envelopes and toilet paper, jokes about the scarcity of paper products in the USSR, describes news clippings and newspaper subscriptions he is sending about the coup and the Baltics, and recounts a comic visit to Estonian Airlines where there were no flights because there was no gasoline.
December 22, 1991 · Postcard
Seth writes to his parents about playing the board game Monopoly with his English class in Leningrad as a language exercise. The game teaches money vocabulary, leads to a discussion of Soviet monopolies (a student sits on a newly formed 'Anti-monopoly commission'), and Seth observes there are only ~8 basic drinking glasses across the entire USSR because single factories churn out identical products.
December 22, 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents about playing the board game Monopoly with his English class in Leningrad. The game doubled as English practice; he reflects on the Soviet anti-monopoly commission, chronic product shortages and the uniformity of Soviet consumer goods.
December 23, 1991 · Postcard
Seth writes to his parents on a Leningrad picture postcard, recounting an unsettling evening: while having dinner with Russian girls he'd met (who had spent the summer in Bristol, CT), the police phoned the apartment confirming the address and then hung up, leaving everyone shaken. He half-jokingly ties it back to his earlier suspicion that the KGB was reading his mail, reflects on how strange and different the country feels, notes the un-Christmassy quiet, and gives his parents instructions about giving Heather the computer (new disks, install SAM).
December 27, 1991 · Postcard
A December 27, 1991 postcard from Seth Baker in Saint Petersburg to his parents describing the wave of price increases scheduled for January 1st and the mass panic buying he witnessed at the large department stores.
December 29, 1991 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg recounting his 5th or 6th trip to Tallinn, Estonia. He is repeatedly mistaken for Estonian or Finnish because of his Russian, scores a cheap room at the Viru hotel, watches Finnish TV (Beverly Hills 90210), endures a comically silent dinner with a cold Estonian, and on the train back meets a young Georgian/Russian woman from Sochi whom he helps and is smitten by.
1992 · Letter
Seth encloses sample pages he produced and explains, in a short handwritten note, the makeshift production system behind them - a Thunderscan scanner, an Imagewriter printer, and ink pens. The enclosures are clippings from the Saint Petersburg PREMIER magazine: the article 'From Weapons to Wheelchairs' (about the Signal factory converting from weapons to medical equipment), a ComputerLand advertisement, a Pietari restaurant ad, and a Saint Petersburg Metro map that he hand-colored and also hand-printed/offset onto the note's sheet.
1992 · Brochure
A two-page bilingual (English and Russian) advertising fact sheet / media kit for "Saint Petersburg PREMIER," billed as Saint Petersburg's first monthly English-language journal for foreign visitors. It outlines the publication's readership, distribution plans (launching January 1993), format, advertising specs, and a rate card with prices in both US Dollars and rubles.
1992 · Magazine clipping
A printed magazine page (page 22) profiling three prominent Estonian figures of the early-independence era: novelist Jaan Kross (a Nobel Prize candidate), Foreign Minister Lennart Meri, and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Marju Lauristin. Each entry gives a biographical sketch, 'Other Facts', and an office telephone.
1992 · Currency
A set of five Soviet ruble banknotes scanned front and back across ten pages: a 10-ruble note (1961, State Bank, with Lenin portrait), a 5-ruble note (1961, State Treasury, depicting the Moscow Kremlin Spasskaya Tower), and three 1-ruble notes (two State Treasury notes dated 1961 and one State Bank note dated 1991). Kept by Seth Baker as currency souvenirs from his 1991-92 stay in the collapsing USSR.
January 1, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his grandparents on January 1st, 1992 describing how he rang in the New Year on Nevsky Prospect (Main Street) in St. Petersburg at a friend's apartment, with a traditional Russian celebration including the dish 'Herring under Rainclouds.' Despite predictions of violence amid soaring prices, the streets were full of joyful, hugging, champagne-fueled revelers. He recounts spending the week before Christmas in Tallinn, Estonia, and encloses a clipping from The Baltic Independent. He reflects on the gap between Russians' hopes for good government and the lack of individual action, and admits to a little holiday homesickness.
January 1, 1992 · Ephemera
An Estonian-language Diet Pepsi ("DIEET-PEPSI", "SUHKRUTA" = sugar-free, "NUTRA SWEET") product label, printed by A/S Tallinna Karastusjoogid (Tallinn Soft Drinks) from PepsiCo concentrate. The card is laid out as a perpetual calendar with a top row of month Roman numerals (I-XII) and a bottom row of years 1992-1996, kept by Seth as ephemera from the early post-Soviet period.
January 1, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents explaining how grocery shopping works in St. Petersburg (and Moscow): rigidly price-controlled state stores named 'BREAD', 'FISH', 'VEGETABLES' with scant, rotten produce and ration cards ('TALON'); and privately owned co-op stores/'supermarkets' that are slightly better stocked and self-service. The letter notes 'cont.' and is paired with an enclosed Russian-language McDonald's promotional brochure.
January 2, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents describing how he spent New Year's Eve on Nevsky Prospect with a group of Soviet naval officers, cadets, artists and monarchists, recounting the celebration, the lifting of weeks of tension, a sunny day, his frustrated attempt to get money from American Express, and asking to be met at the Boston airport on June 30th with vegetarian pizzas.
January 5, 1992 · Letter
A six-page handwritten letter (Jan 5, 1992) Seth wrote home, beginning as an essay on the Russian sense of humor (black humor, wordplay, anecdotes, and two jokes that 'work' in English) and then recounting in vivid detail a vodka-soaked day in Pushkin with his Russian artist friends Volodya, Sergei, and Piotr — including lighting a candle in an underground church for Sergei's late mother, fending off teenagers, drunken antics, and an evening feast at a 'new rich' businessman's apartment.
January 9, 1992 · Letter
Seth, awake at 3-4 AM and inspired by Dostoevsky and Chekhov, writes a detailed account of a single ordinary winter day in St. Petersburg: rising at dawn, riding the trolley to Finland Station, browsing booksellers and kiosks, a failed daily attempt to cash traveler's checks at American Express (shut down by Moscow), buying bread and feeding ducks on the canals, hunting groceries at the markets, and the emotional pendulum of loving and hating the city.
January 10, 1992 · Letter
A four-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker in Saint Petersburg to his parents, written after a phone call. He reassures them about money (an American Express transfer, tuition, visa deadlines, low cost of living), about personal safety and street risks, about his fears of KGB surveillance in his apartment, and reflects on whether Russia's problems are Communist or simply Russian. He muses about possibly staying for a job and lining up a Procter & Gamble interview.
January 12, 1992 · Letter
A five-page handwritten narrative essay by Seth Baker describing a Sunday afternoon at the Ploshad Mira (Peace/World Square) flea market in St. Petersburg, Russia, in January 1992. Seth walks through the crowd documenting desperate sellers offering their household possessions and ration cards, the poverty of the harsh winter, and a police crackdown on 'speculators' (black-market resellers).
January 17, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes a four-page letter from St. Petersburg describing daily life in the dissolving USSR three weeks after price liberalization: he paid tuition and rent, earned the 'average' Soviet salary of 300 roubles teaching, and itemizes how that salary is consumed by a few groceries amid hyperinflation. He recounts hours spent in bread lines, his landlord Sasha's generous repairs to the apartment, seeing Jesus Christ Superstar in Russian, and devouring nearly 30 English-translation books in two weeks. He closes reflecting on his unstable, disjointed state of mind and his sense of being in a 'state of change' mirroring the country's.
January 29, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg replying to his parents' Dec 26 letter, sharing thoughts on sharing his letters, his plan to return to UConn to finish two degrees (Psychology and Soviet Studies), possible future work in Russia, and reflections on the exciting but difficult post-Soviet moment.
February 2, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg thanking his parents for a care package (boots, Clearasil, vitamins, cheese, Mace) brought over by his friend Eric, comments on a possible Northeast Magazine article, thanks people for school supplies and Rachel's stories, and weighs his options for summer jobs and whether to return home to finish school.
February 2, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from St. Petersburg outlining his plans for the next several months: studying as an independent student at Saint Petersburg State University, possible spring travel either to visit Huan in Vietnam (or Egypt) or backpacking west across Russia to Irkutsk/Vladivostok, and staying in St. Petersburg in June for the White Nights.
February 4, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg as intensive Russian classes resume after a month off. He describes an exhausting multi-hour commute by trolleybus across three islands, his international classmates (a Finn, an English 'chap,' and a beautiful French ballerina), and the surprise that he is getting 22-24 hours of instruction weekly instead of the 12 he paid for. He thanks his parents for food aid, reflects on shortages (sugar, ration cards) and the general improvement of his diet, and notes he may travel to Tallinn or Kiev to find sugar.
February 8, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg reassuring his parents he has recovered from a head injury (headaches and dizziness now passed), jokingly declining to write about Soviet brain surgery. The AIFS students are back and have restarted a barter/trading market (pasta for German chocolate; Cheerios for corn flakes), though there is no milk in the city. He encloses an International Herald Tribune article about the GAI traffic police, comments on jaywalking fines and the high price of cars (~$5,000) signaling wealth, and mentions seeing 'The Naked Gun' and planning to see 'Terminator 2' in Russian. He thanks them for the camera, vitamins, and boots.
February 9, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg about his first week of intensive Russian classes, his difficult daily commute, and a comic episode in which he, Stefon, and friends are mistaken for Latvians by an old woman and end up posing as Latvian black marketeers buying furs at the Polyustrovskii fur market.
February 13, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg on Feb 13, 1992, recounting how his Russian boss abruptly assigned him to teach a Banking course (because his father is a banker and Seth is American) instead of the planned 'How to Survive in America' course. He describes the comedy of translating Western banking concepts into Russian, asks his parents to mail bank brochures, mentions plans to visit Thomas in Singapore and job-hunt abroad, and notes alarming local conditions: a tripled postage rate, a falling dollar, and banks closed because they are 'out of money.'
February 21, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes home from St. Petersburg on Feb 21, 1992, reporting that his Russian-language schooling is going well (26 hours/week, classes taught entirely in Russian), that he has uncovered how the program director was pocketing money via Swiss dollar transfers, and that he is now teaching a 'Banking' course to five 40-50 year old directors of the state bank. He gives a detailed, analytical account of the ruble shortage, the collapsing exchange rate, hyperinflation, food prices, and the distinction between hardship and true 'starvation', closing with reflection on his uncertain future and how he will readjust to life in the United States.
March 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from Saint Petersburg reporting that the first issue of Saint Petersburg PREMIER magazine has finally been published. He details the business challenges of producing the magazine, planned content for the second issue, partnership offers from Russian and German companies, and describes his exhausting, magazine-consumed daily life.
March 17, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes a quick reply to a letter his parents sent via the Loomis-Chaffee group. He covers the Phil Donahue show airing dubbed in Russian, the dominance of European over US relief supplies, his sister Rachel's hand injury, the warm winter, his teaching of banking, job offers from his private-businessman students, the practicalities and costs of his parents possibly visiting Russia, the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church, and his gratitude for shoes and toothpaste from home.
March 19, 1992 · Letter
A late-night letter Seth writes to his parents from St. Petersburg, Russia, admitting he has been depressed and confused for the past month - not from homesickness but from uncertainty about his future and an inner conflict about whether to return to the US in June. He updates them on his fruitless job hunt (he'd take anything paying $10,000/year), his finances (tuition paid from his Amex funds), a planned May cross-country trip he'll log, and asks a favour: to mail him a photo with a $2 bill for his landlord, who collects unusual American currency.
April 1992 · Letter
Seth narrates the start of a two-week Siberia trip in April. With the Trans-Siberian Railroad on strike and a 96-hour nonstop rail trip ruled out, he flies from Pulkovo Airport (Saint Petersburg). He describes Russian luggage-wrapping, cocker spaniel puppies in the airport, drunk Arab journalism students on the Aeroflot flight, a refueling stop in Tiumen, and arrival in a sunny Irkutsk. The bulk of the letter is a comic ordeal of trying to find an affordable hotel (Intourist, Angera, Baikal, Siberia), being quoted 1,500 roubles a night for foreign students, being thrown out of the Angera, and having three local kids steal his jug of (undrinkable Leningrad city) water thinking it was juice. He ends with a riff on the 'appeal to pity' as the best strategy for Soviet 'service.'
April 5, 1992 · Letter
A four-page handwritten letter dated April 5, 1992, from Seth Baker in St. Petersburg, Russia to his parents Don and Jan Baker. Seth recounts playing Monopoly with Russian bankers, attending Catholic mass for the English, frustration with the U.S. consulate, his rent doubling amid rising prices and a satellite-dish promise of American TV, a leftover-Communist anti-Yeltsin demonstration in Palace Square, getting a library card, sporadic spring weather, and a long introspective passage on solitude, the 'Russian Soul,' and self-discovery.
April 14, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes home from Saint Petersburg about getting American cable TV installed via a co-op satellite dish, a comic saga of waiting for a perpetually-drunk cableman, the chaos and inflated prices of booking domestic and international flights for a weekend trip to Yalta, and a Palm Sunday Mass where pussywillows replaced palms.
April 15, 1992 · Letter
An April 15, 1992 four-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker in St. Petersburg to his parents. He describes a frustrating ongoing battle over his student visa with the University director (who threatens to terminate it unless Seth signs a school contract), a disappointing business meeting at the U.S. Consulate, observations on corruption and the two-tier ruble economy, social awkwardness around a Russian girl Stefan tried to set him up with, reflections on the language barrier in relationships, the maddening on-again-off-again spring snow, the completion of his banking course, a postponed trip to Yalta, and a possible future trip north to Murmansk and closed cities via a contact with military connections.
April 18, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents on April 18, 1992 describing a Russian-style birthday celebration he attended for Christine, a fellow AIFS student, at the town of Pushkin outside St. Petersburg. He recounts the day-long feast and toasting with his boss Volodya and the artists Piotr and Sergei, marvels at Sergei's portrait paintings, the vodka and Champagne, and then closes the letter by writing out two Russian jokes about bread lines, Gorbachev, and kolbasa.
April 24, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents just before departing on a major solo trip across Siberia and the Russian Far East. He explains his visa is being canceled, his Yalta plan fell through, and he has switched from a train to a plane trip to Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, Vladivostok and Kamchatka. He details how he packed (food, money hidden in surgical gauze on his arm), describes a bribe to get a cheap plane ticket, and comments on Russian politics, predicting Gaidar will be the next leader.
April 26, 1992 · Letter
A long serialized travel-journal letter (numbered pages 5 through 32; the opening pages are not present) in which Seth recounts a solo trans-Siberian / Russian Far East journey in spring 1992. He sails the river out of Irkutsk and is inducted into a ship's crew, sleeps in airports under giant Lenin paintings, battles hotel clerks and the lingering internal-visa system in Vladivostok, observes the Japanese economic grip on the Far East, befriends an invalid-rights advocate on a flight, meets American missionaries in Novosibirsk, flies to Kazan in newly independent Tatarstan, changes money via a tuxedoed black-market waiter at the Hotel Rossia in Moscow, eats at McDonald's and Pizza Hut, and finally trains home to St. Petersburg.
May 14, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes a four-page letter to his parents from Russia, sending it back to the States with the departing AIFS group. He covers his new visa, full-time English teaching, several job leads (an American Business Center in Moscow, hotels, IBM/P&G/AT&T, an English-language newspaper idea), domestic life with dubbed American movies, rappelling plans, a trip to Sochi and Riga, his uncertainty about whether to come home or stay, and farewells to the departing Americans.
September 27, 1992 · Letter
A two-page typed letter dated Sep. 27, 1992 from Seth in Russia (Saint Petersburg) to his parents Don and Jan Baker. He marvels at sending a typed letter from Russia, describes wrestling with Mac System 6/7 and MultiFinder, then recounts domestic life: sealing his cold apartment's windows with cotton and tape, buying his first tool set to fix a kitchen sink leak (and banging on pipes to satisfy a hostile neighbor), his cat Charyonka, stockpiling winter food (tomato paste, pasta, cheese), an odd item at his grocery store, slow progress on the business and English courses, and another nearly windless cruise on the yacht with Sanya.
November 6, 1992 · Form
A formal business solicitation letter on 'Saint Petersburg PREMIER' magazine letterhead, signed by Seth C. Baker as Manager of Advertising Sales, inviting Saint Petersburg businesses to advertise in the city's first free English-language monthly journal. Page 2 is a full Russian translation of the same letter.
Brochure
A bilingual (Russian/English) promotional brochure for the Russian Commercial-Industrial Bank (Русский Торгово-Промышленный Банк, РТПБ), located at 15 Hertsen St., St. Petersburg. The front cover shows the bank's columned interior; the inside describes the bank's 1889 founding and 1989 refounding as a joint-stock company, its services, hours, departments, and how to reach it by metro/bus/trolleybus. A handwritten 'FYI' note suggests Seth enclosed it with a letter home.
Brochure
A printed introductory letter from Jane Maynard, Editor-in-Chief, presenting 'Saint Petersburg PREMIER', a new free monthly English-language magazine for English-speaking visitors and residents of Saint Petersburg, listing its regular features. Page 2 is a full Russian translation of the same letter.
Letter
A single handwritten letter page in which Seth explains why Western humanitarian aid ends up on the black market in the collapsing USSR, using a tin of canned ham worth 175 rubles as an example: the recipient can sell it and buy far more useful food.
Postcard
A picture postcard of the S-56 submarine memorial in Vladivostok. On the back Seth writes to his parents that he is enclosing/mailing his travel notes (about 30 pages), apologizing that they dwell mostly on airports, hotels and bribes because those were the practical survival concerns of Soviet travel. He also mentions sending a book on Kazan, joking that the church would have preferred a book on Vladivostok or Irkutsk but, by 'Soviet Logic,' the least interesting town was the only one with a picture book printed about it.
Postcard
A photo postcard of the Samarkand Bus Station (Uzbek SSR) that Seth mailed to his mother, Jan Baker. He writes that since it may be a while until he gets home he thought he'd send a few Soviet coins ('Koneeks'/kopecks, 100 to a rouble), noting that all the money carries only two dates, 1961 and 1991, and that he has sent both. He adds that the postcards depict Samarkand, one of the warmer spots in the USSR, and hopes things are going well at home.
Postcard
A Soviet tourist postcard of the Admiralty Tower in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). The back carries trilingual printed captions and a brief handwritten note from Seth reading 'Some Samples of Soviet currency!', evidently accompanying enclosed banknotes/coins sent home.
February 3, 1991 · Brochure
Five photocopied pages from the U.S. Postal Service International Mail Manual (Issue 9, dated 2-3-91) covering mailing conditions to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: prohibitions, restrictions and admissible quantities, postage rate tables, special services, an English-French glossary of typical items for customs declarations, and Express Mail International Service details.
September 1991 · Form
A typed welcome memo to all incoming Leningrad students from Claire Greenhalgh, Resident Director, covering practical information: the dormitory address at Leningrad State Technical University, public transportation (metro, talonchiki tickets, the 'yidiny bilyet' monthly pass), and communication (phone calls, mail and telegram costs/locations). The page is cut off mid-sentence about the unreliability of Soviet postal service.
October 8, 1991 · Postcard
A handwritten postcard from Seth Baker in Leningrad/St. Petersburg to his parents Don and Jan Baker in Bloomfield, CT, telling his mother about his hobby of collecting currency from every country he visits — noting it is all Rubles since the former Soviet states still use the central money supply — plus an Estonian interwar-period coin, and describing St. Petersburg as the 'Venice of the North,' built on 44 islands linked by bridges.
A continuation (pages 2-4) of a handwritten letter from Seth Baker describing in detail the food and shopping situation in St. Petersburg in late 1991: the laborious multi-line Soviet shopping process, street vendors, markets, scarcity of cheese and vanilla, dorm-life food trading, learning not to waste food, and his upcoming trip to Lake Baikal.
November 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from a hotel high above Lake Baikal, recounting his friendship with a Russian boy (~age 8, whose name he renders 'Jean'/'Shena') who keeps gifting him cherished pins, a key chain from Petrodvorets, Tsarist banknotes, and hand-painted wooden spoons. He reflects on Russian gift-giving culture, the family on holiday, a taxi-driver conversation about the Hartford Whalers, and his frustrations learning Russian, before flying back to Leningrad.
November 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from a hotel overlooking the Angara River in Siberia, describing his flight on Aeroflot with friend Brian and a man named Vitaly, the Intourist hotel in Irkutsk, the famous Hotel Baikal by Lake Baikal, a long cold walk to the village of Listvyanka, a generous Russian family next door, and his reflections on the 'two extremes' of Russian life. He closes with travel plans (Latvia, Lithuania, Yalta) and a packing wish-list.
November 4, 1991 · Letter
A four-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker to his parents, dated Nov 4, 1991, recounting a weekend trip to Vilnius, Lithuania with his roommate Brett. He describes flying Aeroflot, lax airport security, hunting for a hotel, opening a Lithuanian bank account, drinking all night with two Russians from near Riga, a chaotic delayed-flight day with an Austrian businessman, a Sri Lankan Trotskyite, and a Lithuanian named Eugene, and visiting the artist Ilya Repin's house outside St. Petersburg. He closes with news about his visa extension, plans to teach English, and an upcoming trip to Siberia (Irkutsk).
November 25, 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents recounting a weekend trip from Leningrad/St. Petersburg to Kaunas, Lithuania, to visit his friend Eugene, a Soviet-trained radio engineer now working as a musician. He describes Eugene's nightclub floorshow and apartment, the warmth of known Russians versus the coldness toward strangers, severe gas and electricity shortages, the Devil Museum, the Lithuanian police (including women officers), KGB-headquarters graffiti, a 12-hour airport delay, and a harrowing night of mafia-controlled cabs and tire-slashing taxi drivers at the airport.
November 28, 1991 · Letter
On Thanksgiving morning, Seth writes to his parents from St. Petersburg about an interview at Leningrad State University regarding spring-semester tuition ($350/month, 20 hours/week), the absurdity of needing a 12-hour train to Tallinn just to use a phone, and a hilarious anecdote about his friend Stefan landing a job at the open-air Black Market by hawking chess sets to an American tour group in a fake-perfect English pitch.
December 1991 · Newspaper clipping
A page of newspaper clippings Seth enclosed in a letter home, documenting the final days of the USSR (late December 1991): a New York Times feature on bribe-taking Moscow traffic police, a wire report on Yeltsin liquidating the Soviet Foreign Ministry and absorbing all but two ministries, a Thomas Friedman piece on Washington delaying recognition of the ex-Soviet republics, and an International Herald Tribune story on the German Bundesbank raising interest rates.
December 1991 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents describing how shopping in the collapsing USSR is a constant way of life: he hauls a black gym-bag everywhere, opportunistically buying carrots, champagne (whose price swings wildly from 35R to 350R), and pickles before they vanish. He reflects on escalating shortages, rising theft, a small protest, a naval-cadet friend's chilling remark about a possible military takeover, and his hope that prices will stabilize by March.
December 1991 · Letter
A two-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) to his parents giving logistical instructions: addresses for a photographer holding his film, AIFS program peers staying in St. Pete next semester, and a request to send a $300 check to Elise Ardoyno who will carry the cash to him for rent and bribes. He warns not to give anything to Stephan's parents, notes American Express cannot supply cash in Leningrad, mentions teaching English and collecting tongue-twisters for a Russian teacher, thanks Heather for a card, and wishes the family a Merry Christmas.
December 1991 · Newspaper clipping
Two pages clipped from The Baltic Independent, an English-language weekly. Page 5 carries the tail of a Moscow/Baltics political article (Yevgeny Kogan's Interfront picket; Shaposhnikov on the Soviet troop pull-out), Bank of Latvia and Bank of Lithuania rouble exchange tables, and advertisements for the Viktoria hard-currency shop and the Astoria restaurant in Tallinn. Page 6 is a vox-pop feature, 'People on the street,' in which Tallinn residents and visitors say what they hope for in the new year amid Estonian independence, inflation, and currency reform.
December 2, 1991 · Letter
A quick logistical update Seth hand-delivers via a returning friend rather than the Soviet post. He covers enrolling at Leningrad University, paying tuition, the difficult apartment search, co-teaching his first English class, errands his parents can run for him (a $8 postmaster payment in Ashford CT and a Cyrillic fonts disk for the friend carrying the letter), possible travel to Asia or Europe, and the grim, sunless St. Petersburg winter.
December 10, 1991 · Letter
A typed letter from Seth's mother Jan wishing him Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year while he is in the USSR. She reflects on past Christmases, reports that she is typing his letters into the computer and sharing them, discusses sending him his repaired camera, a money deadline at Ashford Post Office, asks him to find dolls or statues from foreign countries for her collection, warns about alcoholism and vodka, explains how American Express in Leningrad can cash personal checks, and expresses hope he finds housing and doesn't get too homesick. Twice she handwrites a Kinko's fax number (203 232-3402).
December 10, 1991 · Letter
A December 1991 letter from Seth Baker to his parents describing the surreal difficulty of finding an apartment in St. Petersburg as a foreigner: closed-city residence permits, the MENU/SNEEMU classified-ad confusion, an open-air flea market where people sell single lightbulbs, a paranoid landlady who believes the KGB is watching her, a monarchist intelligentsia family, the dominance of the black market, and his cheap state-shop cross-country skis. He confesses he regrets staying but intends to stick out the long 7 months.
Seth writes a four-page letter to his parents describing his newly rented St. Petersburg apartment in loving detail, laying out his 7-month budget, repeating logistical reminders about money/visas/mail, recounting how the KGB intercepted roubles he mailed home, and profiling his wealthy jazz-musician landlord.
December 18, 1991 · Letter
On his birthday, Seth writes to his parents from Leningrad/Saint Petersburg describing his exhausting commute to teach an English class at an institute, the misery of overcrowded trolleybuses and the metro, a compliment on his Russian, a detailed list of food prices versus the average salary, fears of riots and the breakup of the USSR into the SNG (CIS), and observations on Hare Krishnas and Russians' devotion to their children.
December 22, 1991 · Letter
A two-page handwritten letter from Seth to his parents dated Dec. 22, 1991. He thanks them for packing envelopes and toilet paper, jokes about the scarcity of paper products in the USSR, describes news clippings and newspaper subscriptions he is sending about the coup and the Baltics, and recounts a comic visit to Estonian Airlines where there were no flights because there was no gasoline.
December 22, 1991 · Postcard
Seth writes to his parents about playing the board game Monopoly with his English class in Leningrad as a language exercise. The game teaches money vocabulary, leads to a discussion of Soviet monopolies (a student sits on a newly formed 'Anti-monopoly commission'), and Seth observes there are only ~8 basic drinking glasses across the entire USSR because single factories churn out identical products.
December 23, 1991 · Postcard
Seth writes to his parents on a Leningrad picture postcard, recounting an unsettling evening: while having dinner with Russian girls he'd met (who had spent the summer in Bristol, CT), the police phoned the apartment confirming the address and then hung up, leaving everyone shaken. He half-jokingly ties it back to his earlier suspicion that the KGB was reading his mail, reflects on how strange and different the country feels, notes the un-Christmassy quiet, and gives his parents instructions about giving Heather the computer (new disks, install SAM).
A December 27, 1991 postcard from Seth Baker in Saint Petersburg to his parents describing the wave of price increases scheduled for January 1st and the mass panic buying he witnessed at the large department stores.
December 29, 1991 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg recounting his 5th or 6th trip to Tallinn, Estonia. He is repeatedly mistaken for Estonian or Finnish because of his Russian, scores a cheap room at the Viru hotel, watches Finnish TV (Beverly Hills 90210), endures a comically silent dinner with a cold Estonian, and on the train back meets a young Georgian/Russian woman from Sochi whom he helps and is smitten by.
1992 · Letter
Seth encloses sample pages he produced and explains, in a short handwritten note, the makeshift production system behind them - a Thunderscan scanner, an Imagewriter printer, and ink pens. The enclosures are clippings from the Saint Petersburg PREMIER magazine: the article 'From Weapons to Wheelchairs' (about the Signal factory converting from weapons to medical equipment), a ComputerLand advertisement, a Pietari restaurant ad, and a Saint Petersburg Metro map that he hand-colored and also hand-printed/offset onto the note's sheet.
1992 · Brochure
A two-page bilingual (English and Russian) advertising fact sheet / media kit for "Saint Petersburg PREMIER," billed as Saint Petersburg's first monthly English-language journal for foreign visitors. It outlines the publication's readership, distribution plans (launching January 1993), format, advertising specs, and a rate card with prices in both US Dollars and rubles.
A printed magazine page (page 22) profiling three prominent Estonian figures of the early-independence era: novelist Jaan Kross (a Nobel Prize candidate), Foreign Minister Lennart Meri, and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Marju Lauristin. Each entry gives a biographical sketch, 'Other Facts', and an office telephone.
A set of five Soviet ruble banknotes scanned front and back across ten pages: a 10-ruble note (1961, State Bank, with Lenin portrait), a 5-ruble note (1961, State Treasury, depicting the Moscow Kremlin Spasskaya Tower), and three 1-ruble notes (two State Treasury notes dated 1961 and one State Bank note dated 1991). Kept by Seth Baker as currency souvenirs from his 1991-92 stay in the collapsing USSR.
January 1, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his grandparents on January 1st, 1992 describing how he rang in the New Year on Nevsky Prospect (Main Street) in St. Petersburg at a friend's apartment, with a traditional Russian celebration including the dish 'Herring under Rainclouds.' Despite predictions of violence amid soaring prices, the streets were full of joyful, hugging, champagne-fueled revelers. He recounts spending the week before Christmas in Tallinn, Estonia, and encloses a clipping from The Baltic Independent. He reflects on the gap between Russians' hopes for good government and the lack of individual action, and admits to a little holiday homesickness.
January 1, 1992 · Ephemera
An Estonian-language Diet Pepsi ("DIEET-PEPSI", "SUHKRUTA" = sugar-free, "NUTRA SWEET") product label, printed by A/S Tallinna Karastusjoogid (Tallinn Soft Drinks) from PepsiCo concentrate. The card is laid out as a perpetual calendar with a top row of month Roman numerals (I-XII) and a bottom row of years 1992-1996, kept by Seth as ephemera from the early post-Soviet period.
January 1, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents explaining how grocery shopping works in St. Petersburg (and Moscow): rigidly price-controlled state stores named 'BREAD', 'FISH', 'VEGETABLES' with scant, rotten produce and ration cards ('TALON'); and privately owned co-op stores/'supermarkets' that are slightly better stocked and self-service. The letter notes 'cont.' and is paired with an enclosed Russian-language McDonald's promotional brochure.
January 2, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents describing how he spent New Year's Eve on Nevsky Prospect with a group of Soviet naval officers, cadets, artists and monarchists, recounting the celebration, the lifting of weeks of tension, a sunny day, his frustrated attempt to get money from American Express, and asking to be met at the Boston airport on June 30th with vegetarian pizzas.
January 5, 1992 · Letter
A six-page handwritten letter (Jan 5, 1992) Seth wrote home, beginning as an essay on the Russian sense of humor (black humor, wordplay, anecdotes, and two jokes that 'work' in English) and then recounting in vivid detail a vodka-soaked day in Pushkin with his Russian artist friends Volodya, Sergei, and Piotr — including lighting a candle in an underground church for Sergei's late mother, fending off teenagers, drunken antics, and an evening feast at a 'new rich' businessman's apartment.
January 9, 1992 · Letter
Seth, awake at 3-4 AM and inspired by Dostoevsky and Chekhov, writes a detailed account of a single ordinary winter day in St. Petersburg: rising at dawn, riding the trolley to Finland Station, browsing booksellers and kiosks, a failed daily attempt to cash traveler's checks at American Express (shut down by Moscow), buying bread and feeding ducks on the canals, hunting groceries at the markets, and the emotional pendulum of loving and hating the city.
January 10, 1992 · Letter
A four-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker in Saint Petersburg to his parents, written after a phone call. He reassures them about money (an American Express transfer, tuition, visa deadlines, low cost of living), about personal safety and street risks, about his fears of KGB surveillance in his apartment, and reflects on whether Russia's problems are Communist or simply Russian. He muses about possibly staying for a job and lining up a Procter & Gamble interview.
A five-page handwritten narrative essay by Seth Baker describing a Sunday afternoon at the Ploshad Mira (Peace/World Square) flea market in St. Petersburg, Russia, in January 1992. Seth walks through the crowd documenting desperate sellers offering their household possessions and ration cards, the poverty of the harsh winter, and a police crackdown on 'speculators' (black-market resellers).
January 17, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes a four-page letter from St. Petersburg describing daily life in the dissolving USSR three weeks after price liberalization: he paid tuition and rent, earned the 'average' Soviet salary of 300 roubles teaching, and itemizes how that salary is consumed by a few groceries amid hyperinflation. He recounts hours spent in bread lines, his landlord Sasha's generous repairs to the apartment, seeing Jesus Christ Superstar in Russian, and devouring nearly 30 English-translation books in two weeks. He closes reflecting on his unstable, disjointed state of mind and his sense of being in a 'state of change' mirroring the country's.
Seth writes from St. Petersburg replying to his parents' Dec 26 letter, sharing thoughts on sharing his letters, his plan to return to UConn to finish two degrees (Psychology and Soviet Studies), possible future work in Russia, and reflections on the exciting but difficult post-Soviet moment.
February 2, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg thanking his parents for a care package (boots, Clearasil, vitamins, cheese, Mace) brought over by his friend Eric, comments on a possible Northeast Magazine article, thanks people for school supplies and Rachel's stories, and weighs his options for summer jobs and whether to return home to finish school.
Seth writes to his parents from St. Petersburg outlining his plans for the next several months: studying as an independent student at Saint Petersburg State University, possible spring travel either to visit Huan in Vietnam (or Egypt) or backpacking west across Russia to Irkutsk/Vladivostok, and staying in St. Petersburg in June for the White Nights.
February 4, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg as intensive Russian classes resume after a month off. He describes an exhausting multi-hour commute by trolleybus across three islands, his international classmates (a Finn, an English 'chap,' and a beautiful French ballerina), and the surprise that he is getting 22-24 hours of instruction weekly instead of the 12 he paid for. He thanks his parents for food aid, reflects on shortages (sugar, ration cards) and the general improvement of his diet, and notes he may travel to Tallinn or Kiev to find sugar.
February 8, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg reassuring his parents he has recovered from a head injury (headaches and dizziness now passed), jokingly declining to write about Soviet brain surgery. The AIFS students are back and have restarted a barter/trading market (pasta for German chocolate; Cheerios for corn flakes), though there is no milk in the city. He encloses an International Herald Tribune article about the GAI traffic police, comments on jaywalking fines and the high price of cars (~$5,000) signaling wealth, and mentions seeing 'The Naked Gun' and planning to see 'Terminator 2' in Russian. He thanks them for the camera, vitamins, and boots.
Seth writes from St. Petersburg about his first week of intensive Russian classes, his difficult daily commute, and a comic episode in which he, Stefon, and friends are mistaken for Latvians by an old woman and end up posing as Latvian black marketeers buying furs at the Polyustrovskii fur market.
February 13, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes from St. Petersburg on Feb 13, 1992, recounting how his Russian boss abruptly assigned him to teach a Banking course (because his father is a banker and Seth is American) instead of the planned 'How to Survive in America' course. He describes the comedy of translating Western banking concepts into Russian, asks his parents to mail bank brochures, mentions plans to visit Thomas in Singapore and job-hunt abroad, and notes alarming local conditions: a tripled postage rate, a falling dollar, and banks closed because they are 'out of money.'
February 21, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes home from St. Petersburg on Feb 21, 1992, reporting that his Russian-language schooling is going well (26 hours/week, classes taught entirely in Russian), that he has uncovered how the program director was pocketing money via Swiss dollar transfers, and that he is now teaching a 'Banking' course to five 40-50 year old directors of the state bank. He gives a detailed, analytical account of the ruble shortage, the collapsing exchange rate, hyperinflation, food prices, and the distinction between hardship and true 'starvation', closing with reflection on his uncertain future and how he will readjust to life in the United States.
March 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents from Saint Petersburg reporting that the first issue of Saint Petersburg PREMIER magazine has finally been published. He details the business challenges of producing the magazine, planned content for the second issue, partnership offers from Russian and German companies, and describes his exhausting, magazine-consumed daily life.
March 17, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes a quick reply to a letter his parents sent via the Loomis-Chaffee group. He covers the Phil Donahue show airing dubbed in Russian, the dominance of European over US relief supplies, his sister Rachel's hand injury, the warm winter, his teaching of banking, job offers from his private-businessman students, the practicalities and costs of his parents possibly visiting Russia, the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church, and his gratitude for shoes and toothpaste from home.
March 19, 1992 · Letter
A late-night letter Seth writes to his parents from St. Petersburg, Russia, admitting he has been depressed and confused for the past month - not from homesickness but from uncertainty about his future and an inner conflict about whether to return to the US in June. He updates them on his fruitless job hunt (he'd take anything paying $10,000/year), his finances (tuition paid from his Amex funds), a planned May cross-country trip he'll log, and asks a favour: to mail him a photo with a $2 bill for his landlord, who collects unusual American currency.
April 1992 · Letter
Seth narrates the start of a two-week Siberia trip in April. With the Trans-Siberian Railroad on strike and a 96-hour nonstop rail trip ruled out, he flies from Pulkovo Airport (Saint Petersburg). He describes Russian luggage-wrapping, cocker spaniel puppies in the airport, drunk Arab journalism students on the Aeroflot flight, a refueling stop in Tiumen, and arrival in a sunny Irkutsk. The bulk of the letter is a comic ordeal of trying to find an affordable hotel (Intourist, Angera, Baikal, Siberia), being quoted 1,500 roubles a night for foreign students, being thrown out of the Angera, and having three local kids steal his jug of (undrinkable Leningrad city) water thinking it was juice. He ends with a riff on the 'appeal to pity' as the best strategy for Soviet 'service.'
April 5, 1992 · Letter
A four-page handwritten letter dated April 5, 1992, from Seth Baker in St. Petersburg, Russia to his parents Don and Jan Baker. Seth recounts playing Monopoly with Russian bankers, attending Catholic mass for the English, frustration with the U.S. consulate, his rent doubling amid rising prices and a satellite-dish promise of American TV, a leftover-Communist anti-Yeltsin demonstration in Palace Square, getting a library card, sporadic spring weather, and a long introspective passage on solitude, the 'Russian Soul,' and self-discovery.
April 14, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes home from Saint Petersburg about getting American cable TV installed via a co-op satellite dish, a comic saga of waiting for a perpetually-drunk cableman, the chaos and inflated prices of booking domestic and international flights for a weekend trip to Yalta, and a Palm Sunday Mass where pussywillows replaced palms.
April 15, 1992 · Letter
An April 15, 1992 four-page handwritten letter from Seth Baker in St. Petersburg to his parents. He describes a frustrating ongoing battle over his student visa with the University director (who threatens to terminate it unless Seth signs a school contract), a disappointing business meeting at the U.S. Consulate, observations on corruption and the two-tier ruble economy, social awkwardness around a Russian girl Stefan tried to set him up with, reflections on the language barrier in relationships, the maddening on-again-off-again spring snow, the completion of his banking course, a postponed trip to Yalta, and a possible future trip north to Murmansk and closed cities via a contact with military connections.
April 18, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents on April 18, 1992 describing a Russian-style birthday celebration he attended for Christine, a fellow AIFS student, at the town of Pushkin outside St. Petersburg. He recounts the day-long feast and toasting with his boss Volodya and the artists Piotr and Sergei, marvels at Sergei's portrait paintings, the vodka and Champagne, and then closes the letter by writing out two Russian jokes about bread lines, Gorbachev, and kolbasa.
April 24, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes to his parents just before departing on a major solo trip across Siberia and the Russian Far East. He explains his visa is being canceled, his Yalta plan fell through, and he has switched from a train to a plane trip to Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, Vladivostok and Kamchatka. He details how he packed (food, money hidden in surgical gauze on his arm), describes a bribe to get a cheap plane ticket, and comments on Russian politics, predicting Gaidar will be the next leader.
April 26, 1992 · Letter
A long serialized travel-journal letter (numbered pages 5 through 32; the opening pages are not present) in which Seth recounts a solo trans-Siberian / Russian Far East journey in spring 1992. He sails the river out of Irkutsk and is inducted into a ship's crew, sleeps in airports under giant Lenin paintings, battles hotel clerks and the lingering internal-visa system in Vladivostok, observes the Japanese economic grip on the Far East, befriends an invalid-rights advocate on a flight, meets American missionaries in Novosibirsk, flies to Kazan in newly independent Tatarstan, changes money via a tuxedoed black-market waiter at the Hotel Rossia in Moscow, eats at McDonald's and Pizza Hut, and finally trains home to St. Petersburg.
May 14, 1992 · Letter
Seth writes a four-page letter to his parents from Russia, sending it back to the States with the departing AIFS group. He covers his new visa, full-time English teaching, several job leads (an American Business Center in Moscow, hotels, IBM/P&G/AT&T, an English-language newspaper idea), domestic life with dubbed American movies, rappelling plans, a trip to Sochi and Riga, his uncertainty about whether to come home or stay, and farewells to the departing Americans.
September 27, 1992 · Letter
A two-page typed letter dated Sep. 27, 1992 from Seth in Russia (Saint Petersburg) to his parents Don and Jan Baker. He marvels at sending a typed letter from Russia, describes wrestling with Mac System 6/7 and MultiFinder, then recounts domestic life: sealing his cold apartment's windows with cotton and tape, buying his first tool set to fix a kitchen sink leak (and banging on pipes to satisfy a hostile neighbor), his cat Charyonka, stockpiling winter food (tomato paste, pasta, cheese), an odd item at his grocery store, slow progress on the business and English courses, and another nearly windless cruise on the yacht with Sanya.
November 6, 1992 · Form
A formal business solicitation letter on 'Saint Petersburg PREMIER' magazine letterhead, signed by Seth C. Baker as Manager of Advertising Sales, inviting Saint Petersburg businesses to advertise in the city's first free English-language monthly journal. Page 2 is a full Russian translation of the same letter.
Brochure
A bilingual (Russian/English) promotional brochure for the Russian Commercial-Industrial Bank (Русский Торгово-Промышленный Банк, РТПБ), located at 15 Hertsen St., St. Petersburg. The front cover shows the bank's columned interior; the inside describes the bank's 1889 founding and 1989 refounding as a joint-stock company, its services, hours, departments, and how to reach it by metro/bus/trolleybus. A handwritten 'FYI' note suggests Seth enclosed it with a letter home.
Brochure
A printed introductory letter from Jane Maynard, Editor-in-Chief, presenting 'Saint Petersburg PREMIER', a new free monthly English-language magazine for English-speaking visitors and residents of Saint Petersburg, listing its regular features. Page 2 is a full Russian translation of the same letter.
Postcard
A picture postcard of the S-56 submarine memorial in Vladivostok. On the back Seth writes to his parents that he is enclosing/mailing his travel notes (about 30 pages), apologizing that they dwell mostly on airports, hotels and bribes because those were the practical survival concerns of Soviet travel. He also mentions sending a book on Kazan, joking that the church would have preferred a book on Vladivostok or Irkutsk but, by 'Soviet Logic,' the least interesting town was the only one with a picture book printed about it.
Postcard
A photo postcard of the Samarkand Bus Station (Uzbek SSR) that Seth mailed to his mother, Jan Baker. He writes that since it may be a while until he gets home he thought he'd send a few Soviet coins ('Koneeks'/kopecks, 100 to a rouble), noting that all the money carries only two dates, 1961 and 1991, and that he has sent both. He adds that the postcards depict Samarkand, one of the warmer spots in the USSR, and hopes things are going well at home.
A Soviet tourist postcard of the Admiralty Tower in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). The back carries trilingual printed captions and a brief handwritten note from Seth reading 'Some Samples of Soviet currency!', evidently accompanying enclosed banknotes/coins sent home.