Passengers on Soviet Vessel Torn Between View, History

The passengers of the Soviet ship were torn Thursday between the Golden Gate Bridge and Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Should they watch the spectacular view as they steamed into San Francisco Bay? Or should they listen to the Soviet president’s news conference, broadcast live on American radio hours after he survived an attempted coup.

Caught between a moment of history and the wonder of a new city, they rushed back and forth from the radio to the window, hoping to better understand events in their own country as they arrived in California. “It was a tough choice,” said Leningrad musician Boris Flax through an interpreter.

For the 150 passengers and crew of the Akademik Shirshov, their goodwill trip--designed to build cultural and business ties between the Soviet Union and United States--has been a tumultuous journey of coups and defections, anxiety and debate.

“We didn’t think such a thing could happen,” said Flax, who sings bass and is commercial director of Leningrad’s Theatre Rock Opera. “The first day of the coup we were very worried. It was good it just lasted three days.”

The ouster of Gorbachev took place as the vessel was docked in Seattle, inducing five passengers and crew members to jump ship. By the time the Akademik Shirshov reached San Francisco, the Soviet president had returned to power, to the great relief of most of the 80 business leaders, artists, scientists and musicians on board. “We stayed up all night arguing and talking,” said Nadir Safie, a Moscow journalist with the magazine Vokrug Sveta, through an interpreter. “We were all very upset and worried about our relatives. Everyone was in mourning. We sat in front of American television to find out what was happening.”

Several passengers and crew members said Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin won their support and admiration for his defiance of the coup’s leaders. But Gorbachev was another matter.

“The majority were for Yeltsin,” said Viktor Orekhov, a crew member from Valdivostok. “He understands people better. Gorbachev--he says one thing and does another.”

Dmitry Kapoustin, a business journalist from Moscow, called on Gorbachev to step down.

“Gorbachev did not get the right lessons,” Kapoustin said after listening to the Soviet president’s news conference. “He was more worried about his family and his granddaughter than he was about the people. He did not find the right words to say to the people and he ought to resign.”

The defection of the passengers and crew members was no surprise to those who knew them on the ship.

The first to leave was a stowaway passenger who jumped into Puget Sound off Seattle days before the coup and was pulled out of the water by two fishermen, witnesses said.

When the ship sailed Monday night, two crew members and three more passengers were missing.

One of the crew members told his attorney that he plans to marry a woman he met in Seattle--but he already has a wife in the Soviet Union. The other was an Armenian and was apparently motivated to defect on political grounds.

The three passengers who remained in Seattle were a geologist, an artist and a journalist.

“The shock of what was happening made them do it,” said the bearded, 42-year-old Flax. “The nervous, weak ones decided to jump ship.”

The passengers will have the option of traveling on tourist visas and rejoining their ship later. The crew members could face legal problems with both U.S. and Soviet authorities if they are not granted political asylum.

Following the Akademik Shirshov are two more ships that docked in Seattle on Thursday.

The Professor Khromov steamed into port as crew members played an old Russian revolutionary song. A banner in English reading “We Have Overcome” hung from the quarterdeck.

The Pallada, a three-masted sailing ship, docked nearby, and crew members displayed a large portrait of Gorbachev.

All three ships, and a fourth one following, are scheduled to continue to Los Angeles before returning to the Soviet Union.

For now, at least some of the Akademik Shirshov’s crew are eager to return home.

“We’re cut off from our relatives,” said Orekhov, poking his head out of a porthole. “Everyone on the ship is anxious.”

Contributing to this story was Doug Conner in Seattle.