Thanks
to his career in physics, Roy and Sylvia had the opportunity to glimpse
into the lives and cultures of people in both western and eastern Europe.
Despite the paranoia of the Cold War, Roy mixed business and pleasure with
scientists on both sides of the "Iron Curtain." The warmth of these
friendships, east and west, can be seen in letters he received from
colleagues in the US and the USSR. Scientific friends included American
Luke Thorington and Soviet Dr. Vera Kartachevskaia. Luke was the leading
engineer with Duro-Test Corp. in New Jersey, who brought his son to the
Sanders' cottage in the early 1970s. (Luke and Roy co-authored an
article in the Journal Optical Society of America in 1973. See the "Physics"
page.) Mme. Kartachevskaia was a
leading Soviet physicist who for many years headed the Photometry Lab at the Mendeleev Institute of Métrology. She had shown Roy and Sylvia around in
Leningrad in the 1960s and they kept in touch for decades. In 1985,
when Roy, Sylvia and Richard went on an "Adventure Peace Tour to the
USSR," they visited her in Leningrad. (Learn more about that trip in
the "Travels" section,
as well as here and here.)
Below are some letters from Mme. Kartachevskaia (1979) and Luke Thorington
(1973, 1975).
Dr. 
Thanks
to his career in physics, Roy and Sylvia had the opportunity to glimpse
into the lives and cultures of people in both western and eastern Europe.
Despite the paranoia of the Cold War, Roy mixed business and pleasure with
scientists on both sides of the "Iron Curtain." The warmth of these
friendships, east and west, can be seen in letters he received from
colleagues in the US and the USSR. Scientific friends included American
Luke Thorington and Soviet Dr. Vera Kartachevskaia. Luke was the leading
engineer with Duro-Test Corp. in New Jersey, who brought his son to the
Sanders' cottage in the early 1970s. (Luke and Roy co-authored an
article in the Journal Optical Society of America in 1973. See the "
