ANAHEIM : Soviets Get Ideas From Disneyland

Armed with video and still cameras, 21 Soviets inched down Disneyland’s Main Street Sunday, stopping every few steps to take shots of everything from light poles and park benches to a marching band.

For this delegation--mostly architects, artists and designers from the republic of Georgia--Main Street showed them the ultimate slice of Americana. With any luck, they hope to borrow the same design and concept for a proposed park in Moscow called the Children’s Garden of Dreams. For the past week, the delegation has been touring amusement parks on the West Coast.

“We will have in our park our Main Street,” said architect Michael Potskhverashvili, standing on the drawbridge at Sleeping Beauty Castle. “We will have America Street and America land.”

”. . . We want to see all of this,” he said. “We want to do the same in Moscow.”

Although they sampled attractions such as Star Tours and Captain Eo, they spent much of their day just watching, listening and remarking to one another. Jennifer Faust, the 1990 Disneyland Ambassador to the World, gave them a crash course in Disney design.

She explained how Main Street was built to scale, in which floors are built to size on the ground level but become gradually smaller on the second, third and fourth levels. The illusion gives the buildings “forced perspective,” making them appear taller than they actually are.

Then she told how Main Street is based on Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Mo., incorporating the best aspects of small-town America. Faust even pointed out, to great interest from the delegation, that the names on the second-floor windows are of the original contributors to the park, including the designers and architects as well as Disney’s own father and attorney.

As Faust spoke, Zurob Tsereteli, a Soviet sculptor who is in charge of the Soviet project, waved his arms and pointed to Main Street buildings, telling those with cameras to take pictures or to remember what she said. He hugged Faust and said, “Fantastic.”

Although the Soviet project is still in the conceptual stages, planners say it will be based on an ecology theme and built on 700 acres on an island on the Moscow River. It will include hotels, shops and pavilions, and attractions with themes from different countries. The project will be funded through private international investors, whose names are being kept secret, and it is scheduled to be completed in 1997, said Vladimir Tuchinsky, a Los Angeles businessman serving as liaison for the project in the United States.

Although the idea for a park dates 30 years, it has only been seriously considered recently, Tuchinsky said.

“Only with perestroika and Gorbachev did it become possible to engage foreign enterprise and investors,” he said. “Before, it was just a dream. With certain conditions it might be possible.”

As they got farther into the park, architects took notice of other attractions, including Tomorrowland and Fantasyland.

“Everything is made very clever,” said Nougzar Patashouri, referring to the fairy tale-like buildings in Fantasyland. “The architecture is very beautiful. Small, beautiful houses.”

Some members of the delegation took notice of the lack of litter in the park.

“Everything is very clean here,” said Irakli Gordeli, 26.

Disneyland’s long lines, bothersome to many American tourists, went virtually unnoticed by the delegation.

“I’m used to it,” Nadia Zeegofer said. “It’s nothing new for me.”