Hedrick Smith

She was fascinated by the Russian people, especially artists, and she traveled widely to explore in her documentary films the conflict between art and politics, freedom and power, and the end of the Soviet regime.

She also worked with Tom Brokaw of NBC and Hedrick Smith of PBS in producing programs on the end of the Soviet Union.

She directed and produced Russia for Sale, The Rough Road to Capitalism.

Then the Children's Television Workshop took notice and asked her to bring Sesame Street, can you believe it, to post-Soviet Russia at the end of the Cold War.

Did you think of yourself as becoming a journalist or a filmmaker or-

I definitely was focused on being a journalist, and I did work for NBC and CBS in Moscow.

And at some point later on, when I started working with Hedrick Smith, he did a four-part series, which was called Inside Gorbachev's USSR.

And this is in the 1980s, just as reforms were being instituted and the country was opening up.

Headline from history, Soviet may turn to West for fun.

This is September 26th of 1971, the year I was born, 1971. excuse me since the five-day work week was instituted in 67 replacing the six-day week leisure time has become an increasing problem for soviet authorities and it gets more and more tension in sections of the soviet press the times hedrick smith reported on moscow to address the issue of crime among youth and heavy drinking among all age groups no an article in the journal argued for modern Western-style carnival amusements in all cities.

According to the Times, the previous month, an international carnival with amusement rides in Moscow's Gorky Park was considered a great success.

Normally social criticism, Mr. Smith wrote, does not appear in the controlled Soviet press unless some element of leadership supports the point of view.