Russia Comes to the Fair

THE two-block wedge of Moscow real estate where Vice President Nixon and Soviet Premier Khrushchev held their spectacular verbal fencing matches last week is a wonder of U.S. planning, talent and do-it-yourself ingenuity. Conceived four years ago, the American exhibition in Moscow was not finally approved by the Kremlin until last December, and the fact that it was ready to open on schedule marked some sort of speed record for major international expositions.

Handsomely situated among the lofty old pines of Sokolniki Park, a former czarist preserve, the fair is a wonderful, themeless serving of American science, technology and culture.

At the entrance to the fair is the geodesic dome, a 78-ft.-high, aluminum, gold-anodized building based on the original design by Architect R. Buckminster Fuller, which resembles a giant, gilded armadillo shell and houses a kaleidoscope of scientific and technical exhibits. Across seven screens --which take up one-third of the interior wall space--flash keyed sets of color pictures of U.S. life (e.g., seven cities, seven college campuses, etc., accompanied by Russian commentary and musical score). This unique process was invented by Designer Charles Eames. Watching the thousands of colorful glimpses of the U.S. and its people, the Russians were entranced, and the slides are the smash hit of the fair. Another big attraction: IBM's RAMAC 305, an electronic brain that produces written answers in flawless Russian to any of 4.000 questions about the U.S.

Strangers at a Wedding. Behind the dome is the glass pavilion, a sprawling (50,000 sq. ft.) building of glass and steel with an accordion-pleated aluminum roof. It is the cultural center of the exposition, with everything from a Stuart portrait of Washington to the latest model kitchen. Scrutinizing the latest American modes, the Russian women seemed most impressed by the spectacular wedding sequence. "We used to have that long ago," said one wistful spectator. "But not any more."

Among the other big-drawing displays: a pondful of gleaming new boats, an avant-garde children's playground, the Macy-furnished ranch house, rows of shining 1959 cars, and the 360DEG Circarama film, a leftover from the Brussels World Fair, which has been updated by Walt Disney and fitted out with a Russian sound track. On opening day, uniformed girls handed out free Pepsi-Colas from gaily painted kiosks. More than 60,000 red begonia, white chrysanthemum and blue ageratum plants splashed color through the exhibits--not out of any special patriotic fervor, but because they are the most abundant flowers in Moscow at this season.

Books off the Shelf. For the bedeviled director of the fair, Harold Chadick McClellan, a wealthy California manufacturer (paints and chemicals), former Assistant Secretary of Commerce and onetime president of the National Association of Manufacturers, the project was one unmitigated migraine. On top of his breakneck schedule and a niggardly allowance ($3,600,000) from Washington, he met daily opposition from all sides. The Kremlin vetoed the plan to distribute free Coty lipsticks. President Eisenhower's doubts about the top-heavily modern art show (TIME, July 13) prompted some changes. The Russians haggled like capitalistic stockbrokers over the rent ($142,250).

As the deadline drew near, the crises came almost hourly: a planeload of models was stranded in Helsinki for a while, and 18 trunks of costumes were briefly lost in Copenhagen. At the last minute, Soviet censors confiscated 100 of the fair's 8,000 books--including some Russian folk tales, the IQSQ World Almanac, works of Adlai Stevenson and Norman Thomas--on the ground that they were critical of the U.S.S.R.

In the final frantic hours before the big opening, Chad McClellan and his wife donned coveralls, pitched in alongside the Soviet workers and volunteers from the American colony to apply the final strokes of paint. To get his rest, Impresario McClellan was reduced to taking sleeping pills for the first time in his 61 years. Now he could rest easy: with one-ruble (25¢) admission tickets being scalped for ten times their face value, the American fair had wowed Moscow.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.