©REESE PALLEY from CRUSING WORLD March 1990
How To Get Into Russia
 
My 46-foot sailboat Unlikely
was the first
Western yacht to arrive in the
Soviet Black Sea port of Odessa.
We had arrived in Odessa from
Istanbul in June of 1988, without
invitation or visas.
We fell passionately in love
not only with the elegant Odessaites,
but with the prospect of
becoming part of the growth of
yachting and cruising in the
Black Sea. So, in the spring of
1989, we took off again from
Kusadasi in Turkey for a
summer-long stay at the 100-year
old Odessa Yacht Club.
The Odessa Yacht Club was
willing to receive foreign
yachts but they had no way at
all to get the message out that
yachts would be welcomed. It
was already June, the season
was relatively short, visas
would be needed and, most
importantly, official invitations
had to be dispatched from
Odessa to boats that wanted to
come. To further complicate
matters, no one knew which
boats wanted to come or where
in the broad Mediterranean
these boats might be.
I turned to the Soviet Amateur
Radio club for advice concerning
the use of ham bands in the
U.S.S.R., because it had become
clear that the only possible way
of getting information out to
prospective yachts was by ham
radio. Telephone calls took
four days to arrange, telex was
almost as bad, and forget
about fax. If boats were to get
through the complicated process
of location, receiving invitations
and getting visas, only
ham radio could accomplish it.
The Soviet hams informed
me with that Slavic shrug and
wink that, of course, a boat tied
up to a Soviet port (or any port,
for that matter) was not supposed
to use a Maritime Marine
call but "don't worry, go ahead."
I worried but, on their advice,
sent out the word that the Black
Sea was open.
My station aboard Unlikely
was state of the art. My Russian
ham friends cooed over the
ICOM 720, the matching ICOM
auto tuner and the integrated
ICOM linear like a young daddy
over a first born son. All was in
readiness except that there was
the enormous hill behind the
club in the exact direction toward
which I had to transmit.
No problem. The Russians
rigged a dipole ashore that
missed the hill and we were
ready to go.
I went out on two nets. The
Cyprus net that monitors almost
all of the sailing boats
from the Indian Ocean to Gibraltar,
and the German maritime
net at 14,313 (now 314).
The response was instantaneous,
and in the course of the
next two months we were able
to contact, instruct and get official
invitations for over 50 vessels,
of which 20 actually made
it to the U.S.S.R. Ham radio had
cut the Gordion Knot.
If you want to go to Russia,
you may send your request to
me at The Odessa Yacht Club,
Odessa, U.S.S.R. You will get
an invitation with which you
can apply to any Soviet consulate
for a visa. If you prefer, a
letter sent directly to Comrade
Prochorovitch at the yacht club
will accomplish the same
thing. You need send only
name, age, and passport numbers
and the name of the yacht.
There is no more exciting
place to be right now than in
the Soviet Union. They love
Americans and they are passionate
sailors.
Reese Palley
Yacht Unlikely, Odessa