I'm still on the Apollo reading kick, now with Deke Slayton's memoirs. How's this for a reminder of what the Soviet Union of my youth was like? After the Soyuz-Apollo rendez-vous were planned, the astronauts started visiting the USSR. They knew they were always being followed and eavesdropped-on (one got lost walking home from the Marine's bar at the embassy one night and the driver tailing him figured it out and finally said just get in, I'll take you back to Intourist). It really didn't bother them, but they enjoyed testing "lampshade conversations". They'd grouse about personnel they really didn't think should be working on their capsules and they'd vanish (hopefully not forever, but the astronauts would never see them again) and one night they said, "Boy, I sure wish there were a pool table in this hotel." The next day, they had what might be the only pool table in Russia, the corners were square and the balls didn't fit in the pockets, "so you could play the same game all night".