The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

would retrieve vodka along with glasses from the trunk of the car. Everyone was poured afull glass of warm vodka. Alexander Mikhailovich would then toast to a successful fishingtrip, and everyone present had to drink their glasses to the bottoms. Refusal was notpermitted. The ambassador customarily was very attentive to the way people drank.Alexander Mikhailovich Puzanov had another simple hobby. In the evenings hewould lure senior diplomats into his residence to have them play Lotto with him and hiswife, Tatyana Alexeyevna. Normally his partners would pretend that nothing in their livescould be more important and joyful than taking balls with numbers out from the cotton bagand then shouting out those numbers. Very few dared to refuse the ambassador when theywere invited to this dubious form of entertainment. Some, however, dared to rejectPuzanov’s invitations. Among those were the KGB and GRU chiefs. Alexander Mikhailovichdid not like them, and was possibly even a little apprehensive of them.The Soviet ambassador in Kabul had a good life. His responsibilities were not tooburdensome; his days were filled with receptions, meetings, and strolls through thefragrant ambassadorial garden. On Fridays he went fishing. That was how things werebefore the dark day, April 27, arrived.Detailed reports about the events taking place beyond the boundary of the embassycompound had to be relayed to Moscow. What was there to report? How could one explainthat the loyal and friendly regime that was fully supported by the USSR could topple at anymoment? And that its executioners were not Islamic reactionaries or members of extremistMaoist groups, but friends who were also supported by the Soviet Union. What wouldLeonid Ilyich and other members of the Politburo think? Why had our trusted friends notinformed us in advance about their preparations for the coup? Why didn’t the plotters ask32