The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

“Can you imagine, Comrade General?” said the Afghan officer. “I was once inMoscow, it was about thirty degrees below centigrade, and I saw a woman selling icecream. She was wearing huge felt boots, an overcoat with an almost white apron covering amighty bust. I approached her and asked her to sell me some ice cream. She was surprisedand asked, ‘what’s the matter with you, Mowgli? You wouldn’t be able to crack through theice cream in such a frost.’ Then she pulled out a bottle of very cold vodka, two glasses, and apickle from her lunchbox. I drank the vodka and, with difficulty, managed to bite off a pieceof the frozen pickle. She drank with me but didn’t eat the pickle. She didn’t accept anymoney for the treat. So that’s how we met. Then she invited me to visit her at her home.You know, friend, I didn’t even know such women existed.”Gorelov and his assistants traveled across the country without limitation. Theyvisited military installations and never carried any weapons. Sometimes they would takealong guns, made in Tula, if they were planning on hunting somewhere. Mostly they huntedducks at a lake not far from Kabul. Sometimes the brother of the president, Naim, apassionate hunter, joined them. They would go to the north of the country, to the Sovietborder, to hunt wild boar. However, porcupine hunting was the most exotic. Porcupine,cooked for dinner, was not so much a delicacy as a cause to bring together friends and tonetwork with various important people.Other than hunting, there was never any need for carrying weapons. Soviet generalsand officers were always warmly welcomed wherever they went.President Mohammad Daoud used to say to the members of his entourage that if onehair on the head of a Soviet citizen were harmed, the guilty party would pay with his life.General Gorelov was not an ostentatious general. He was a veteran paratrooper who20