Quest for Peace, Knowledge : Children to Travel to Soviet Union

To Ryan Craig, people in the Soviet Union are “mostly like us, but not as tan.” When he thinks of Soviet homes, he pictures dirty walls, sinks that barely work and cockroaches.

“I don’t know if that’s wrong,” said 13-year-old Craig, who based his impressions mostly on American movies. “I’ll have to find out.”

Craig and 49 other children from the United States will get the opportunity to judge for themselves starting Sunday when they begin a two-week trip to the Soviet Union on a “peace mission” that will take them to Moscow and Leningrad. Three are from Orange County.

Originally scheduled for May but postponed because of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the trip includes visiting Soviet children in their homes and schools, attending the theater and ballet and taking city tours.

“It’s a good opportunity,” said Lauren David, 11, of Seal Beach. “You can always go to Hawaii. Not too many people go to Russia and get to know the culture there. I want to find out what it’s really like in Russia and have them know what we’re really like.”

That’s the purpose of the trip, say directors of Children as Teachers of Peace, the group organizing the event. By encouraging children to form international friendships, they hope world peace can become a reality.

‘Spirit of Samantha’

“It’s in the spirit of Samantha Smith,” said director Gerald Jampolsky, referring to the American girl who visited the Soviet Union at the request of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov in 1983. “Kids seem to be able to bridge the gap of cultures. Most children think it’s possible to live together without killing each other. Most adults don’t think that way.”

The children, ages 6 to 18, will be accompanied by 25 adult chaperons.

Children as Teachers of Peace, formed in 1981, sponsored a similar trip in June, when 17 children went to China for two weeks. The nonprofit group describes itself as nonpolitical and non-religious.

A group under the direction of Pat Montandon, now director of San Francisco-based Children as Peacemakers, worked under the name of the Children as Teachers of Peace group until last year. Montandon often took smaller groups of children to foreign countries, including the Soviet Union and China, to meet with world leaders. That group changed its name when it became “confusing to people internationally,” said Barbara Ross, director of special projects in Children as Teachers of Peace.

Information about the trip was distributed nationwide to churches, schools, and community organizations. Most of the trip’s participants were selected from children who submitted thousands of essays and pictures that flooded the organization’s Tiburon, Calif., office, said Diane Circincione, co-director of the group. Others were chosen by their sponsoring organizations.

Two of the three Orange County youths going on the trip are being sponsored by the Church of Religious Science in Huntington Beach, which is picking up the $2,400 bill for each.

Organizers say nine other children are going to the Soviet Union solely because of individual scholarships, some donated by other families participating in the trip.

Ministers at the Huntington Beach church felt sending two children on the trip would be valuable, partly because of the positive comments of more than 20 church members who visited the Soviet Union on a similar trip last year.

‘Unusual Thing to Do’

“It’s not a usual budgeted item, it is sort of an unusual thing to do,” said Barbara Hart, a minister at the church. “Our hope, of course, is for world peace. And the more people-contact there is between the United States and the Soviet Union, the easier it will be to have peace between those countries.”

Craig, an eighth-grader at Carden Hall in Newport Beach, is replacing another youth selected by the church who couldn’t make the October trip.

Brandon Ushijima, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Roch Courreges Elementary School in Fountain Valley, also is a last-minute substitute.

Ushijima was added to the travel roster about three weeks ago after his parents heard about the trip from a friend who is going as a chaperon.

“Both my husband and I were interested,” said his mother, Joyce Ushijima. “I think he will benefit a lot. He is a very perceptive boy. He will always remember this.”

Ushijima said most of his school friends know about the upcoming trip. He will take a peace ribbon that his classmates signed and letters that they wrote to give to Soviet children.

“I think this will help world peace,” Ushijima said. “I think they want peace, like us.”

In addition to packing warm clothes and cameras, children also will be taking gifts to exchange with their Soviet counterparts. David will be taking T-shirts, post cards, stuffed animals, and stories and letters from her school, she said.

Craig will be taking Disneyland T-shirts, four silver dollars and some of his favorite tapes. He also is taking 100 baseball caps a family friend donated that have the word peace written across the top in Russian and English.

One of the highlights of the trip, organizers say, will be a free John Denver concert Oct. 17 at the Pioneer Palace auditorium in Moscow.

For Craig, however, there is only one mission.

“I basically want to see how that life is and I want to leave a good impression on the Russians so they see how we are, so we don’t have to have all those wars and stuff.”