Soviet Official Endorses Plan for Arts Festival

A top Soviet official Tuesday endorsed Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s proposed Soviet arts festival and suggested that San Diego might establish a “sister-city” relationship with a Soviet city, possibly the closed city of Vladivostok.

Gennady Gerasimov, chief spokesman for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, told a luncheon audience at the Horton Grand Hotel that the festival “is a very good idea” and “is certainly going to find support in Moscow.”

“The problem is not that we don’t like it in principle. The problem is simply logistics--when, how, how to find the groups we want to invite,” Gerasimov said. But, at a news conference after the lunch, he expressed confidence that O’Connor will put together the festival.

The dapper, witty Gerasimov, who is head of information for the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, addressed a luncheon for which O’Connor and Citizen Diplomacy, a La Jolla-based nonprofit organization that promotes cultural and educational exchanges between U.S. and Soviet citizens, served as co-hosts. About 65 people, including City Council members and other city officials, attended the lunch, which cost the city $11 a person.

During a private meeting with O’Connor before the session, Gerasimov promised to bring up the arts festival when he and a delegation of 16 Soviet officials meet with U.S. Information Agency chief Charles Wick for three days of talks on how to expand cultural exchanges and the flow of information between the two nations, said mayoral spokesman Paul Downey. The meeting in Washington is scheduled to begin today.

“We’re very encouraged,” Downey said. “He said that we just have to work out the logistics, which is the purpose of the June-July trip.”

O’Connor, who made the proposed festival of Soviet dance, art and music the centerpiece of her State of the City address in January, is scheduled to tour four Soviet cities June 24 to July 12 in an effort to select Soviet groups she and a delegation of local arts leaders would like to bring here.

Tentatively Set for 1990

The festival, which O’Connor called the first major cultural exchange between the Soviets and a West Coast city, is tentatively scheduled for spring of 1990 at a cost of $3.5 million to $4 million.

Gerasimov also raised the possibility of a “sister-city relationship” between San Diego and a Soviet city, and, in response to a question, said he would favor Vladivostok, base of the Soviet Union’s Pacific fleet and air force.

Gorbachev has suggested opening the city of 630,000, which has been virtually closed to foreigners since 1951.

“Vladivostok is a natural choice because it’s just across the water and also a very impressive naval base,” Gerasimov said. “I hope a time will come when it’s not just fantasy, but reality.” Gerasimov also suggested that Odessa, a Ukrainian city of more than 1 million residents on the northern edge of the Black Sea, is another sister-city candidate.

A sister-city relationship involves linking a coordinating group in San Diego with one in the foreign city to arrange cultural and business exchanges, Downey said. San Diego has 10 sister-city arrangements, including ones with Yokohama, Japan, and Perth, Australia.

Although such an arrangement would likely mean an increase in the number of Soviet tourists visiting here, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not opposed to such an exchange, said spokesman James Bolenbach.

While Soviet diplomats need special permission to visit San Diego and must follow an itinerary because of the city’s concentration of military installations, average Soviet tourists are allowed to move freely about the city.

“There are probably more foreign nationals going to college here than will come over in a sister-city program,” Bolenbach said.

In brief remarks during the luncheon and the news conference, Gerasimov spoke of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and the ways cultural exchanges can lead to more important breakthroughs by fostering understanding.

“In order to understand each other better, we must have better information about one another,” he told reporters at the news conference. “If it is a cultural exchange, it gives you an opportunity to feel what the Russians feel.”

O’Connor presented Gerasimov with a key to the city that she said also opens her office door and a paperweight in the form of a small globe that was created by Point Loma artist Steve Correia.

Visible security for Gerasimov’s visit was minimal, with three San Diego Police Department detectives assigned to the hotel, said one of the detectives, who declined to give his name.