Thirty-odd years ago, on my “study tour” of the Soviet Union, a common souvenir was a political matryoshka doll of nested Soviet leaders. The sellers would call them “Gorbydolls”, since Gorbachev, who led the USSR from 1985 to 1991, was the current and thus outermost figure.

The most common variety went from Gorby directly to Brezhnev, then Khrushchev, then Stalin, and then Lenin — but savvy students of history (well, back then it was current events) knew that two men served as General Secretary between them.

Brezhnev looms large in Soviet history, since he led the country for longer than anyone other than Stalin: a bit over 18 years, from 1964 until 1982. The first forgotten man was Yuri Andropov, who held the means of production for only about 15 months from November ’82 through February ’84.

The Supreme Soviet then tapped Konstantin Chernenko, who had even worse luck: February of ’84 until March of ’85.

Only THEN did wGorby come to power.

I had an opportunity to get an actual correct doll in Moscow, but I didn’t clock to how rare they’d be, and as it was the first stop on the tour I demurred to avoid toting it for the rest of the trip. More fool me, though, as I never saw another correct example. (I did please a number of black marketeers by even KNOWING about the two missing leaders, though, which was fun.)

Anyway, years later, my pal Lindsey went over, and brought me an updated doll. Sadly, this one’s missing the short timers, too, but it has something else to amuse: it’s two-sided, with the Russian leaders on one side paired with American ones on the other. I had entirely forgotten this aspect of it until I took it off the shelf it’s lived on for 20+ years ahead of our big move.

Sounds fun, right? And it starts reasonably enough, unless you scratch the surface: It’s Putin on one side and Clinton on the other.

Except Clinton was done by January of 2001, whereas Putin took over in May of ’00, and remains in charge. OTOH, they were both “current” at the time, and so get the outer position. Fine.

But let’s look at doll #2: Boris Yeltsin and George H. W. Bush. Yeltsin led from 1991 until 1999; Bush was in office, famously, for only a single term ending in January of 1993. But they were contemporaries, at least for a time, so this makes some sense.

Moving on, at Doll #3, we find Gorby and Reagan. Here we have the strongest correlation, since Reagan served from ’81 to ’89, while Gorby was in office from ’85 to ’91. And, famously, Reagan addressed Gorby in his famous “tear down this wall” speech, so they’re historically linked.

Now we revert to form, as Doll #4 is Brezhnev (who led from ’64 to ’82) and Nixon (’69 to ’74). Sure, pairing an 18 year leader with a disgraced 5-year-man is questionable, but OTOH you gotta pick SOMEONE, right? (I might’ve picked Johnson.)

Doll #5 probably makes the most sense since Reagan and Gorby: it’s Khrushchev (’53 to ’64) and Kennedy (’61 to ’63).

Now we go OFF THE RAILS, though, because Doll #6 is necessarily Stalin. Stalin led the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953; to borrow a phrase from a popular musical, no one else looms quite as large. So whom did the doll designers pick for the American side? You guessed it! Abraham Lincoln, US President from 1861 to 1865.

Doll #7 gives us a very, very tiny V. I. Lenin, who despite his iconic status led the USSR for only a year and 22 days (December of ’22 through January of ’24). That’s less time than either of the forgotten early-80s men. But: founder, so obviously on the tiny American side we find a very small face I presume to be George Washington (1789 – 1797).

POSTSCRIPT: It is only in writing this post that I discovered another forgotten man in the Soviet list: in fact, the Soviet leadership didn’t go directly from Stalin to Khrushchev. Georgy Malenkov held power for like half a year, but things were messier then.

Wheeee!