When my grandmother, Babua, had just married my grandfather, her father, who headed labor and delivery at the medical school, pulled strings to get them a reservation at a fine restaurant reserved for the elite. They brought a few friends along.
After the meal, the staff served a frothy coffee drink with beautiful little spoons. It was pure luxury, something none of them had tasted or even imagined before. Babua leaned in and whispered to her friends that they should slip the spoons into their coats, take them home, and that the next time they met she would recreate the drink for them herself.
Not long after, the waitress returned with a handful of spotless spoons and said, “Don’t bother with the dirty ones. I’ve brought you clean ones to take home.”
Babua and the others understood at once: there were microphones in the centerpiece of the table. The KGB had been listening.
That was Soviet life. Even in a restaurant reserved for the privileged, even in what should have been a private aside, the state sat with you. The point was not merely that they could hear. It was that you were meant to remember they always could.