"Passengers Will Please Refrain"

Moscow-bound Train No. 7 had just pulled into Naushki, the Soviet railroad checkpoint on the Mongolian frontier. Suddenly, swarms of Red Chinese students dashed out of the coaches and into the station, tied themselves with belts to block the entrances. Then, in the words of astounded Stationmaster Prokop Mikhailov, they "emptied their bowels and bladders on the floor, in spittoons, and on benches. And the men's room was only a few steps away."

Cause of the messy melee was the discovery of anti-Moscow propaganda in the compartments of the 19-man Red Chinese train crew and the 73 students aboard the Moscow-Peking express. When four Russian border guards and customs officials tried to confiscate the documents, mobs of Red Chinese defiantly blocked the aisles. Attempting to fight their way through the crowd, the hapless Soviet officials were pummeled, scratched and bitten; finally they were locked into a compartment for five hours.

When the Russians hastily assembled a replacement train for the onward journey to Moscow, the Peking crew locked the emergency brakes on their own equipment, raised red signals, and moved cranes to blockade the rails. In the end, the harried Russians were able to force the Chinese train--and its rambunctious passengers--back over the frontier into Mongolia, and with a sigh of relief, Soviet trainmen chugged off toward Moscow in the replacement train. It might well be the last trip in a long time for the Moscow-Peking express. The Kremlin dashed off a scathing official protest to Peking over the "provocative violation of elementary sanitary and hygienic standards," then peremptorily suspended service on the route until further notice.

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