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Muscovites Gather at TV Store to Watch Gorbachev Welcome

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Associated Press

Commuters crowded a television store and gathered in front of a four-story-high screen on snowy Kalinin Prospekt tonight to watch Mikhail S. Gorbachev being welcomed at the White House.

About 50 Muscovites who stopped inside the “Blue Screen” television store watched 20 color TV sets in silence as the rare live broadcast from abroad showed Gorbachev and President Reagan exchanging speeches in ceremonies on the South Lawn of the executive mansion.

The quiet was broken only by a woman in her 30s demanding to know whether all the TV sets displayed were for sale.

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Hearing that the ceremony would be at the White House, a youth was overheard joking to a friend about the poor quality of Soviet televisions: “On our TV, it’ll be the yellow house.”

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