Moscow closed to Soviet visitors for Olympic Games

Press, 12 July 1980, Page 9

Moscow closed to Soviet visitors for Olympic Games

NZPA Moscow Moscow went into Olympic seclusion yesterday — the city was closed to most Soviet citizens except residents and others with pressing business in the capital.

According to announcements in Moscow and provincial papers in recent months, only people with a Moscow residence pass or documents showing pressing business or family reasons may enter the capital until the end of the Games.

A paper in the Volga River city of Gorky, for example, said that train tickets to the capital could not be purchased without proper documentation. The Soviet authorities said that the move was to prevent overcrowding but correspondents suggested that it was intended to inhibit contacts between Soviet citizens and Western visitors.

But plans to ban non/Olympic traffic from 165 km of main roads in the city, starting yesterday, appeared to have been softened.

The “Vechernaya Moskva” evening Moscow newspaper said only that streets adjacent to sports complexes might be closed off during The Games, and that motorists should give wav to special Olympic convoys.

On the 165 km of "Olympic routes” express lanes have been designated for vehicles displaying special passes. But motorists have now been told they may continue to use the other lanes.

Newspapers have also urged motorists to stay off the main streets as much as

possible, but emphasised that this was not an order.

Along Moscow’s periphery, signs have been se't up warning, outside motorists that the city is off limits to non-residents.

Within Moscow yesterday, streets were noticeably less congested, but restrictions were not yet being enforced. Large numbers of uniformed police, many of them brought in by the hundreds from out of town, have been patrolling the streets in twos, threes, and fours for the last three weeks.

Moscow’s population of eight million is usually swelled by an estimated 800,000 to two million nonresidents, who flock to the capita! either as tourists or to shop for goods that may not be available in the provinces.

This flow appears to have been sharply reduced, and the city’s railway stations are mostly free of the usual huge summer crowds of travellers. Muscovites say summer travel throughout the country has been reduced because of the Olympics, and that there has been a rerouting of rail traffic that usually passes through Moscow. Russians have headed into town in advance of the travel ban and are staying with friends or relatives.

They are in Moscow to shop. Rumours are that Moscow will be heavily stocked with food and consumer goods during the Olympics to give a good impression to foreign visitors.

The Soviet President (Mr Leonid Brezhnev) has sent a message of greetings to the

opening of an international sports science conference in Soviet Georgia, Tass has reported.

The conference in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi is devoted to “sport in contemporary society.”

Participation in the conference by physical culture specialists from the United States and other boycott nations participating in the Olympic boycott drew pointed remarks at a Moscow news conference given this week by Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee. “My understanding is that the United States, Canada, Japan, and West Germany are all attending,” Lord Kiilanin said. “It makes you very cynical, when you are a sportsman.” Meanwhile, Soviet scientists have predicted “close to ideal” weather for the Games, but according to old Russian folklore, Moscow could be in for 40 days of rain. According to the Russian Orthodox Church calendar, last Thursday was St Samson’s day. And folk tradition has it that if it rains on St. Samson’s day, you had better pack'an umbrella for the next 40 days. It rained last Thursday. In selecting the dates for the Olympics, Soviet meteorologists used computers to study weather patterns for the past 100 years. • The pattern they predicted for July 19 through August 3, Tass reported, was “conditions close to ideal for ensuring that participants in the Olympics remain in good form.”