San Diegans in Art Trip to U.S.S.R.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor and a party of city officials and cultural leaders left for the Soviet Union on Friday to try to persuade Soviet officials to take part in an arts festival in San Diego in 1990.

The main goal of the two-week journey to Moscow and three other Soviet cities will be to make friends with the various Soviet officials who can help realize O’Connor’s plan to stage a monthlong festival of Soviet art in her city.

O’Connor and members of her party will investigate the possibility of arranging for visits to San Diego by the Bolshoi Ballet, the Moscow Art Theatre and folk dance troupes from outlying Soviet areas, city officials said.

Art Display Sought

They also would like to bring artworks from the Hermitage and Pushkin museums as well as contemporary works rarely seen in the West to display during the festival O’Connor hopes to stage in the spring of 1990.

No firm deals are expected to be made during the trip, but the San Diegans hope to persuade officials in the Ministry of Culture that the city is capable of putting on a first-rate festival.

O’Connor proposed the Soviet arts festival in January in her State of the City speech in which she declared 1988 to be “the year of the arts” in San Diego.

Milton Fredman, an attorney who helped arrange an international arts fair at the world exposition in Montreal in 1967 and who is expected to become the first chairman of O’Connor’s arts commission, said San Diego has not been taken seriously as a culture center even though it is home to several museums and theaters.

Sports, Sun Bathing

“San Diego is now known as a sports center and beach place, but we think we have a lot to offer,” Fredman said Thursday as he prepared to leave for Moscow.

After arriving in Moscow, the party of 25--including officials, reporters and camera crews--will visit Leningrad from June 29 to July 3.

O’Connor will host a Fourth of July barbecue in the city of Tbilisi. The delegation then will visit Kiev July 6-8 and travel to Moscow for more meetings before returning to San Diego on July 12.

Talks also are planned with commercial officials about improving trade between the Soviet Union and various San Diego firms.

O’Connor has pledged to pay for the proposed arts festival with private donations and revenues from the hotel room tax. No taxpayer money is being used to pay for the trip.

The city has raised $1.7 million in private donations so far. The largest single donation was $1 million worth of McDonald’s stock, donated by Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc.