Walk Along a Shopping Street Produces Near-Melee : Muscovites Mob Strolling Reagans

If there ever was an “evil empire,” the walled fortress of the Kremlin lay at the heart of it, shadowed with brutal history from dark medieval princes and Ivan the Terrible to Josef Stalin. President Reagan entered it for the first time at 2:50 p.m. Sunday on a dazzling, sunlit Moscow day.

But, far from demonstrating the harsh anti-communism that has been the hallmark of his long political career, a beaming Reagan exchanged cordialities with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev amid the ornate splendor of the Hall of St. George in the Great Palace of the Kremlin.

Then, for all the world like a politician courting constituents, Reagan took an unscheduled stroll out into surging crowds of cheering Muscovites along the Arbat, the Soviet capital’s most celebrated shopping street--a blend of Greenwich Village street artists and handsomely restored buildings from Russia’s czarist past.

Security Guards Scramble

The Sunday crowd of strollers pressed forward so enthusiastically at the sight of the President and First Lady Nancy Reagan that something close to a melee erupted, sending dozens of American and Soviet security guards scrambling to drive the crowd back.

In choosing the Arbat for his dramatic and unexpected walk, the President selected a pedestrian mall that has become a symbol of Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost or openness. Its street artists, once banned, now display their paintings unhindered, and its private cooperatives, once illegal, now sell their snacks for pleasure and profit.

The location was also symbolic because of a book set in the neighborhood and recently published here, “Children of the Arbat” by Anatoly Rybakov, which deals with life in the era of Stalinist terror. The book, whose publication in the Soviet Union before Gorbachev had been banned for 20 years, has created a sensation in Moscow.

The 10-minute visit began quietly enough: The Reagans were applauded by a casually dressed crowd that moved toward them, and the President reached out to shake the outstretched hands.

The Reagans climbed atop a horse-drawn carriage (sans horse), waved, and the crowd cheered.

But as the Reagans continued down the street, the crowd surged. Soviet security agents, their arms locked together, and U.S. Secret Service agents surged back against the Muscovites. Elbows jabbed, punches landed, clothing was torn and a vegetable stand was toppled.

“It was very scary at the beginning,” said one White House staff member who was standing close to the President. “The President was very close to the crowd.”

Later, when Reagan turned off the Arbat and the crowd thinned, he said with a chuckle to nearby reporters: “Someone must have spread the word in advance.”

It was difficult on this day of a meeting in the Kremlin and a walk on the Arbat to shake the cliche of Reagan, in his fourth summit meeting with Gorbachev, setting foot in the land that he once called the “evil empire.” Some Soviet officials insist that it is an early presidential speech they would now like to forget. But Gorbachev, in warm words of welcome, did not let the President forget.

“Mr. President,” Gorbachev teased in Russian, “you and Mrs. Reagan are here on your first visit to the Soviet Union, a country which you have so often mentioned in your public statements.” There was no doubt about what the smiling Gorbachev meant, and, when the words were translated into English, Reagan, who looked somewhat tired, perked his head up and grinned.

Gorbachev’s Russian Proverb

Gorbachev then quoted an old Russian proverb to underscore the symbolic import of the visit.

“Aware of your interest in Russian proverbs,” Gorbachev said, “let me add another one to your collection: It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”

Reagan was prepared with a proverb of his own to buttress his claim that their meetings have brought forth slow but concrete results, such as the just-approved treaty banning ground-launched intermediate-range nuclear forces.

“In the past, Mr. General Secretary,” Reagan said, “you’ve taken note of my liking for Russian proverbs. And so as not to disappoint anyone on this visit, I thought I would mention a literary saying from your past, another example of your people’s succinct wisdom. Rodilsya, ne toropilsya. It was born, it wasn’t rushed.” When the President pronounced the words slowly in Russian, Gorbachev smiled and nodded in approval.

In an odd way, the mood within the fabled, mysterious Kremlin seemed to lead naturally into the stroll by the Reagans on the street that has become a symbol of modernity and a more open Soviet society.

Reagan Felt ‘Just Fine’

At the Kremlin, a reporter had asked Reagan how it felt to find himself inside the “evil empire.” “Just fine,” the President replied.

It was hard not to feel fine in Moscow this day. When President and Nancy Reagan stepped down from Air Force One at Vnukovo Airport, the cloudless sky was a dazzling blue, the temperature was in the 70s and the trees of the city were full and verdant. President Andrei A. Gromyko, clutching a hat, greeted them, while two banners at the terminal proclaimed, in both English and Russian, “Welcome Mister President.”

The motorcade from the airport took them in less than a half hour into the center of Moscow and through the walls of the Kremlin, the great fortress of castles, Russian Orthodox churches and government buildings on a hill overlooking the Moscow River. The Kremlin served as the seat of power for the medieval princes of Muscovy and later for the czars of Russia.

For more than 200 years, it had lost power when the czars moved their capital to St. Petersburg, now Leningrad, but the Communists, after taking power in the Bolshevik Revolution, moved the capital back to Moscow in 1917, and it has become the great symbol of Soviet might in the modern world.

The Reagans walked up the many steps of the staircase of the Great Kremlin Palace, a huge structure built in the 19th Century that now houses the Supreme Soviet, or Parliament, of the Soviet Union and several important ceremonial rooms.

A First Glimpse

The palace is never open to the public, and the live television coverage of the meeting probably provided the first glimpse of the interior of the palace to most Soviet citizens.

The Reagans entered the Hall of St. George, a magnificent room lit by six gilded chandeliers weighing more than a ton each, while Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, entered from another door at the same time. When they met at the center of the room, the two men shook hands while the women did the same. Then the President greeted Raisa Gorbachev as the Soviet leader greeted Nancy Reagan.

With two interpreters a step behind the couples, the scene brimmed with a good deal of chatter, smiles and even laughter. It was a picture of four people determined to show the world their ease and friendship.