Soviet Students Begin 2-Week Visit

Exemplifying the dramatic reversals sweeping the communist world, a Moscow high school canceled its annual student exchange program with Czechoslovakia and instead sent 10 students to a school in the San Fernando Valley.

The Soviet students--eight girls and two boys from Moscow Secondary School 39-1288--today begin two weeks of classes in computers, American art and politics at Viewpoint School in Calabasas. Officials of the private school say it is the first time Soviet exchange students have attended a high school in the Los Angeles area.

“We’ll be able to do a little propagandizing while they’re here,” said school spokesman Russell Cooper-Mead. “In July, 10 of our students will be visiting their school in Moscow so they can do a little propagandizing of their own.”

But it doesn’t sound like the American hosts will have to spread much propaganda. The visiting Soviet students already have some pretty strong opinions about the United States.

“The American people are beautiful, “ said Yulia Barskaya, 16. “I think we will become good friends.”

Barskaya and her fellow students arrived early Tuesday in Los Angeles after 36 hours of travel. But despite the long trip, she and fellow student Yulia Ysikova, 15, were ready later in the day to visit Malibu Beach, as well do a little shopping.

The two Soviet students, who are fluent in English but must occasionally refer to a Russian-English dictionary for a word, said they want to buy blue jeans and audio cassettes of rock singer Madonna, as well as visit Disneyland and Hollywood.

“We also want to learn about the traditions in America, how people live, how they work, how their children learn at school,” Barskaya said. She said students at her school have visited Czechoslovakia in the annual student exchange program but officials canceled the trip this year because of the unrest that toppled the government there.

A visit to the school by Soviet scholars attending a conference at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History last year paved the way for the students to come to Viewpoint, Cooper-Mead said.

The scholars were persuaded to visit the school last February by a parent. They “were impressed by the friendly atmosphere,” at an assembly in which the school’s 500 students presented them with presents and school medallions, Cooper-Mead said.