In 1988, Ronald Reagan visited Moscow to finalize a key arms treaty as US–Russian relations continued to warm in what would be the waning days of the Cold War.

Just a couple weeks later, Bernie Sanders and nearly a dozen other Vermonters called a press conference to talk about their own recent trip to the Soviet Union — 10 days in three cities, visits to schools and factories, and an authentic banya session, complete with vodka and patriotic singing. Sanders gushed about the Moscow Metro and the low price of theater in Yaroslavl, with which he was working to set up sister city status with Burlington, of which he was mayor. Reporters asked how much that would cost, and if anyone they met over there had thoughts about Sanders being a socialist (not realizing, perhaps, that by that time in the Soviet Union any ideological fervor was long gone). And then, just as everyone was ready to pack it in, a reporter asked, kind of quietly: “Of anybody you met, was anyone familiar with Vermont?” The reporter continued: “When you said you’re from Vermont, they said, ‘Oh yeah, Solzhenitsyn,’ right?”

Sanders remained silent, but his wife Jane jumped in: “Yes! Yes! Yes!”