Patience is not my main virtue, but I had no choice but to wait for

many years to complete my journey to Berlin. It's been 34 years since

I've been there. At that time, the city was divided by the Berlin Wall

and we, Soviet tourists, were allowed to see only the Eastern part of

the city. I remember standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in 1974 and wondering what it would be like to walk through its

Neoclassical splendor and to discover the forbidden Western part of the

city hidden behind the Berlin Wall. It was a time when only a few of

the bravest or most desperate souls would attempt to climb over the

Wall, and for most of them, the price was a bullet in the head...