Music: Step Right Up to the Great Culture-Kultura Bazaar

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Whatever problems arise, however, there are assured benefits, maybe even some political gains. "I don't think we can resolve all our differences through cultural exchanges," says Yevtushenko, "but we can create a special atmosphere of trust. And this will make it easier to sign political and nuclear agreements." If that is perhaps too hopeful, the pleasure and enrichment for American and Soviet audiences is enough in itself. And the exchanges should help to make the two superpowers less disagreeable when they choose to disagree. --By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Elaine Dutka/New York and William Stewart/Washington

[*] These treasures were assembled for the most part by two pre-Revolutionary collectors of remarkable prescience, Sergei Shchukin, a tea and grain merchant, and Ivan Morozov, a cotton merchant. Both collections were expropriated when the Bolsheviks took power.