Bridges of Trust, Friendship and Love: Soviet Union Tour (1985)
Format: DVD
Running time: 116 minutes

In 1985, Projects for Planetary Peace organized a two-week tour of Russia (the former Soviet Union). Eighty distinguished Americans - Swami Satchidananda, Rama Jyothi Vernon, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Patricia Sun, Patch Adams, MD, Mike Farrell, Shelley Fabares, Dennis Weaver, among others - were invited to become citizen diplomats to meet their Soviet counterparts.

The delegates gathered in Helsinki, Finland for an orientation en route to the Soviet Union. The Finnish Peace Society hosted a welcome banquet and the invocation was offered by Sri Gurudev. This tour is a memorable piece of history and shows how the seeds of glasnost and perestroika were planted by this first of many citizen diplomat tours.

Meetings with the Leningrad and Moscow Peace Committees, prominent Soviet citizens from the arts and sciences and Russian Orthodox clergy, as well as a visit to the famed Hermitage museum, Sri Gurudev’s famous talk given during a worship service at the Moscow Baptist Church are all part of this DVD. 

Other highlights include:

• Arriving in Leningrad
• Group meetings and discussions
• Tour of Moscow
• Meeting with journalist, Vladimir Posner
• Meeting Moscow’s “Charlie Chaplin”
• Sri Gurudev’s Talks