Welcome, or Entry Permitted to Outsiders: Emotional and Everyday Aspects of the Lives of American Trainees in the USSR in the 1960s

This article examines the experiences of American trainees in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, within the framework of the Soviet-American academic exchange program implemented under the 1958 Lacy - Zarubin Agreement. The study is based on the analysis of ego-documents (memoirs and interviews of program participants), enabling an examination of the emotional and everyday aspects of American students’ stay in the USSR. The paper provides a detailed analysis of the trainees’ perceptions of Soviet daily life, including living conditions in dormitories, meal arrangements, shopping practices, and their overall impressions of Moscow’s urban environment. Particular attention is paid to interactions with Soviet students, who, contrary to the initial expectations of the American participants, showed little interest in ideological discussions but displayed an active curiosity about the everyday life of Americans. The study also addresses the challenges faced by American researchers when working in Soviet archives and libraries, including bureaucratic hurdles and limited access to materials. The article highlights the asymmetry in the exchange policies: while the American side predominantly sent humanities scholars, the Soviet participants were primarily representatives of the natural sciences. The study identifies a continuity with the model of the 1930s, when Soviet engineers absorbed American technological expertise. Methodologically, the research is grounded in approaches from the history of everyday life and the history of emotions, interpreting the subjectivity of the participants’ perceptions not as a limitation but as a valuable resource for understanding intercultural interaction during the Cold War. Despite the significant number of initiatives conducted under the USSR - USA Agreement on Exchanges in Science, Technology, Education, Culture, and other areas, including academic exchanges, the program failed to achieve its primary goal of rapprochement between the two regimes. However, the program contributed to the formation of a new generation of American Sovietologists who, like Sheila Filzpatrick, made significant contributions to the revision of traditional approaches to the study of Soviet history.