8/31/2009 Soviet premier's son shifts focus to Coon Rapids host
Sergei Khrushchev leads delegation for 50th anniversary
Sergei Khrushchev joins members of the Garst family for a group photograph during a program Saturday morning at the Garst farm outside Coon Rapids. Khrushchev led a group of about 40 Russian officials to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a visit by his father, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. — Photos by Butch Heman
Khrushchev, who accompanied his father to Coon Rapids on Sept. 23, 1959, recalled the visit and praised Garst for helping “melt the ice of the Cold War.”
"And when he came here he couldn't believe it. It was much higher than his expectation."
-- Sergei Khrushchev, on his father's trip to the Garst farm at Coon Rapids in 1959
COON RAPIDS - On a morning when nearly 200 gathered to remember an historic visit by his father, Sergei Khrushchev turned the attention to the man who welcomed the Soviet premier 50 years ago.
Khrushchev, leading a delegation of about 40 Russians on Saturday, stood again on the Garst fam-ily farm and hailed the late Roswell "Bob" Garst as "one of them who started melting the ice of the Cold War."
The 90-minute program, which also celebrated the farm's recent listing on the National Register of Historic Places, kicked off a day of events in Coon Rapids to celebrate the anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev's visit on Sept. 23, 1959.
Taking a small stage in the north yard of the Garst farm, Khrushchev received a bouquet from Garst's granddaughter Liz, who explained the Iowa farm flowers were a symbol of friendship between the U.S. and Russia, adding, "I hope it will go on the next 50 years as it has the last 50 years."
"Thank you for your friendship, for the warm reception. Thank you, everybody, all the Garst family, all the people here," Khrushchev, 72, told an audience seated on a semicircle of straw bales.
Khrushchev, who accompanied his father on the landmark 12-day trip in 1959 credited with easing tensions between the superpowers, remembered the late-September day as sunny, warm and crowded.
"I can't say it was the warmest reception that I received because it will be not politically correct over the rest of the country," he said, drawing laughs.
The Garst farm wasn't made famous by Nikita's visit; it was already world-known for being the place Garst developed hybrid seed corn nearly 30 years before, Khrushchev said.
"My father was interested in all innovation, not only in agriculture, in many others," he related. "And he was interested to feed the Russian people. And he knew long from the Russian side he can do it through the corn."
Garst began meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in 1955, going to the Khrushchev home in Moscow several times and speaking of the agricultural prowess of the U.S.
Standing within earshot of the barn where Garst developed hybrid corn, Khrushchev said his father "wanted to come here and look, does it really look like Mr. Garst told him? And when he came here he couldn't believe it. It was much higher than his expectation."
Khrushchev shared an exchange that took place between his father and Garst long after the reporters and photographers left the farm.
Nikita asked Garst how many worked on his farm and was told five - Garst and his four sons, "and they are as big and strong as I am." Nikita replied that it sounded impossible since 60 worked on similar-sized collective farms in the Soviet Union.
"Mr. Garst said, 'Send your people over. We will teach them how to work better.' It was the beginning of these things," Sergei said.
Khrushchev said the remembrances and historic designation for the farm were "very good for the United States, for the Iowa, for all the people" because new generations will come to the farm and "see the place where many achievements years ago came, and not only in agriculture but also in the politics, because Mr. Garst was one of them who started melting the ice of the Cold War.
"Of course he could not do everything alone ... but if we all together try to do this, we can do it, and we will do it."
Garst's daughter Tosh and granddaughter Liz explained the history of the farm and the family's gifting of it and adjoining property to Whiterock Conservancy. The nonprofit foundation will use the 5,500 acres along eight miles of the Middle Raccoon River to demonstrate conservation and sustainable land management and provide educational and recreational opportunities to the public.
Lee, who became a world traveler herself and spent a career teaching in Great Britain, credited the Coon Rapids community for her family's success, adding, "We have a long-standing relationship and friendship with Russia which makes us especially happy that we have Russians with us today."
After the Garst family held a private lunch for their busload of Russian guests in the opposite yard, Khrushchev rode beside Lee in a convertible during a parade of farm machinery through the streets of Coon Rapids.
Saturday's celebration also included speeches on Main Street, presentations of a documentary film and a play that showed the Garst-Khrushchev friendship, displays, food stands, live music, a Khrushchev and Garst look-alike contest, even a silage-throwing contest to commemorate Garst's act of disgust at photographers who interrupted the 1959 farm tour.
The "Khrushchev in Iowa" celebration was a statewide event, with speeches, dinners and tours Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
