KPBS Call-In Show Links U.S, Soviet Union : Hello, Yelena Petushkova? Go Ahead, Please, You’re on the Air

Yelena Petushkova, a gold medal winner at the 1972 Munich Olympics, is waiting for your call. You don’t have to know how to pronounce her name, or even know her area code. If you want to know more about life in her country, somebody else will dial her number.

“Calling Moscow,” a satellite call-in radio show being produced by San Diego’s KPBS-FM (89.5), goes on the air today, connecting curious Americans with curious Soviets for a long-distance tete-a-tete.

For listeners, the question is whether the hourlong monthly program will provoke genuine dialogue, or simply provide another forum for nationalistic cheerleading.

“The object of the program is not to stir up debate but to open channels of dialogue,” KPBS station manager Tom McManus said. “The goal is just one of sharing (basic) life experiences. It sounds kind of corny, but--if we can get an American mother in Duluth to realize that there’s a Soviet mother in Moscow or Kiev who had the same problems raising children as she did--it makes for a little more understanding.

“We hope to stay out of politics . . . subjects like disarmament and Afghanistan and Central America,” McManus said. “There are other forums for that.”

The initial broadcast will include Petushkova, who chairs the Soviet Olympic Committee, and education and international-relations specialists. The program will be a test of the recent Soviet policy of glasnost, or openness, by focusing on human issues of mutual concern, from life styles to arts and the humanities.

The show will debut at 3 p.m. on KPBS, KPCC-FM (89.3) in Pasadena and KCRW-FM (89.9) in Santa Monica. Topics will include teen-agers, parent-child relationships, education, drug abuse, vandalism and hooliganism, retirement, theater and films.

“Calling Moscow,” which offers U.S. listeners a chance to speak by telephone via satellite with a panel of English-speaking Soviet guests in Moscow studios, will be broadcast conventionally in Moscow, and throughout the world on Soviet international short-wave radio. KPBS is attempting to syndicate the program nationally in the United States.

Given the lack of trust between the two countries--a gap the program seeks to bridge--McManus said he has no idea how well “Calling Moscow” will be received.

Today, callers will be discussing the life styles of women in the Soviet Union, including such topics as child rearing, divorce, sexism and job equality. Observers will learn quickly just how far the spirit of glasnost has spread.

Soviet emigrant Vytas Dukis has his doubts.

Dukis, who was born in Lithuania and studied in a Soviet high school during the Stalin era, is chairman of Russian and East European studies at San Diego State University. He questions whether the Russian guests will honestly talk about problems in the Soviet Union. Though the Soviet Union can boast that 50% of its physicians are women, he said, few are advanced to key posts such as the directorship of clinics. Those are reserved for men.

“Look at the Politburo,” Dukis said. “How many Politburo members are women? No one. In the Central Committee you can count (the women) on your fingers. All the top ministers are men.”

Dukis predicted that the picture of life in the Soviet Union portrayed on “Calling Moscow” will be “all beautiful. It will be all hunky-dory.”

Ruth Hirschman, station manager of KCRW in Santa Monica, does not want the show to become a forum for Soviet-bashing or nationalist propaganda. She sees the first installment as a chance to “really talk about issues, women, sexism, double standards, divorce, child care--really issues that plague both societies.”

Hirschman, who visited Russia on a California Theatre Council-sponsored trip earlier this month, met with “Calling Moscow” co-host Pavel Kuznetsov and other Soviet officials to discuss the program.

“I think they’re concerned about the program, how open and forthright it’s going to be,” she said. “This couldn’t have happened a few years ago. I don’t think they would have been willing to discuss these subjects.”

However, she said she warned the Soviets that her California listeners “are intolerant of pablum” and won’t tolerate a “nice” program.

The Soviet panelists for today’s program are Petushkova, a biochemist at Moscow University; Marina Prutkina, an expert on international relations at the Moscow Zoo; and Valeri Pivovarov, an educator. It will be a long night for the guests at Radio Moscow, where the show starts at 2 a.m.

Petushkova, 47, won the individual silver medal and group gold medal in dressage (an equestrian event) at the 1972 Olympics. The former wife of Olympic gold-medal high jumper Valeri Brumel, she has a 14-year-old daughter.

Prutkina, 31, who is fluent in five languages, has worked for the zoo for 13 years. She is married and has no children.

Pivovarov, 45, who works at the U.S.S.R. Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, is married and has sons ages 20 and 12.

Listeners who wish to speak with the panelists will be given a San Diego number to call. Their names and questions will be taken, and the station will call back those people selected to go on the air.

Among other stations airing “Calling Moscow” today is KMXT-FM (100.1) in Kodiak, Alaska, a port often visited by Soviet vessels.

“I thought it was a neat idea,” said KMXT program director Steve Rennell in a telephone interview. “I like the content not being confrontational. I like the idea of building a bridge between Russia and the United States. We have Russian ships stop here on a regular basis. Sailors get off and shop.”

Rennell said he may suggest that the local school district consider using the program, because classes will still be in session.

McManus, who has produced call-in shows for nearly 35 years, and Hirschman are encouraged by Radio Moscow’s participation. The Soviets suggested teen-agers, hooliganism and drug addiction as subjects, Hirschman noted.

“There’s a lot of positive things they can blow their horn on,” she said, mentioning advances in the field of education. “The main thing is that it be a very frank, open exchange and lively. For the Russians, that’s new. It’s never happened before.”

(Times research librarian Joyce Esbin contributed to this report.)