Christof

Maybe it's someone in your family, or someone in your community, or someone that you haven't seen since you were a kid, but that you still think about something they did to help you. Whoever they are, wherever they are, however they're helping, we want to hear about it. So give us a call at three three six five one five zero five

to nine. Again, that's three three six five one five zero five to nine, and tell us a story about someone who has shown you how to be a helper and we might just play it on an upcoming episode. Again that number is three three six five one five zero five two nine, or you can tweet you're still with the hashtag finding Fred. Okay, now, let's start the show about a nash studio that sounds studio. Well, that's very much like the place we make our television visits.

It's and Mr Rogers is in Moscow. Here would you like to play? Of course I would. I'd love to touch a piano wherever I go. My neighbor by, the Soviet Union had just begun opening up dialogue with the US, and that somehow landed Mr Rogers on the set of good Night, Little Ones, the USSRS longest running children's program.

Back then, there was no television except for one channel that was played on in Russian, which I couldn't understand, mostly the news propaganda, and then there was a childhood program that played at night that I also couldn't understand. Kristof Putzel was an American kid living in Moscow at the time. Both my parents were journalists. They were assigned to cover what ended up being the collapse of the

Soviet Union. My parents job was to make sense of a place that didn't make a lot of sense, where information was controlled. Kristof's father was the bureau chief for the Associated Press. His mother was the deputy bureau chief for Time magazine. They moved to Moscow in and took seven year old Kristof and his sister along with them. My parents had told me that the biggest toy store in the entire Soviet Union was across the street from

our house. This was the way they tempted me to go there and greeted this whole thing as a seven year old. And let me tell you, it was the first time ever gone to a toy storey. Anyway, it's nothing I wanted to buy, because there was nothing on the shelves. Um, there was I think shoes, some clothes, and a couple of tin toy things and some really complicated models that I think we're for adults. And that was it. That's the biggest toy store. Seven. It's nothing

I wanted. I'm Carlo Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly and partnership with Transmitter Media. We often talk about how adaptable kids are, but Kristoff says, the move to Moscow was really hard. Frankly, I was pretty depressed. Um, you just have to understand just how hard Russia was in the eighties, especially for a kid, you know, it

being so cold, dark, no access to stuff. Um. Sometimes friends would record like tapes, the cassette tapes and then mail them and I would listen to their voices. We didn't live in an embassy. We lived in a square foot apartment. My mom, my dad, my sister, myself, and our Golden retriever, only golden retriever in the entire civic union.

People thought that it was a lion. Our apartment was bugged because the KGB always kept a close eye on them, and they would follow us anytime we were going outside of the city. They would constantly try to attempt to set up my parents to see if they were actually spies, and always monitored whatever stories they're working on. There was always somebody watching and nothing to watch on TV, no familiar cultural touchstones like Sesame Street or three to one contact.

So I would watch the same VHS tapes over and over and over again that people would mail from the US. They just tape whatever was on TV and mail it. We'd get it three, four or five months later, if we got it at all. And those were like gold I like you, Yes, I do, I like you. And on a few of those precious VHS tapes were old episodes of Mr Rogers Neighborhood. Certainly do I'm glad you were with me on my swing. So Mr Rogers in Moscow was big news, and Christoph's parents managed to get

word to Fred telling him about their depressed kid. And for Fred Rogers, a note about a sad child was like the bat signal. There was one day when my parents told me to make sure I was home for dinner, which I always was, but I remember being weird. They're like, now there's a special dinner tonight. I just remember a knock on the door and I'd sort of gotten used to being let down by surprise as of them trying to like cheer us up in communist Moscow, you know.

And I opened the door and there's Mr Rodgers in his card again and the blue shoes, and my jaw apparently just dropped. I remember just being awe struck. I didn't understand why Mr Rogers was at my door. I grew up watching Mr Rogers. I knew every character. I knew I've probably had seen every episode at least for that time frame. Um, And so there I was, and he walks in the door, and he gets down to my eye level and shakes my hand and introduces himself

as Fred Rogers and asked what my name was. And I don't even know if I could get the words out of my mouth because Mr Rodgers in the apartment, and um, it was just him on his own and just by himself. I think it was the first time in my life where I felt seen by an adult, like when he got down to my eye level, introduced

himself and looked me in the eye. Of course I've had adults introduced themselves to me a million times up to that point and asked me what my name was, But the way that he looked at me, I felt like you saw me. Then he came into the living room and we sat down and he opened up his suitcase. He had a suitcase with him. I feel like it

was a briefcase, but it must have been bigger than that. Um. And he opens it up and they're all the puppets I had never put together that Mr Rodgers did the voices I had didn't And so suddenly they were talking and I had King Friday and um and actually owl in my on my couch. This is a real moment for a child, you know. And UM, I think what just really struck me about it was how normal it felt. I mean, not normal, what's the word. UM, It's while it felt surreal, it felt like I was in I

was in the Land of make Believe. Suddenly my couch suddenly turned into that in my apartment, and um, it was just like the show. I mean, he was wearing the same stuff. This isn't a like since it set. It wasn't like backstage he was. He had the cardigan

on and the blue shoes. Like, I mean, first of all, I'm just really struck by the kind of person you have to be, the kind of self possession you have to have to just walk into some strangers houses and spend the evening with them, like we don't, like, we

don't know. I don't know how to do that. I'm like, like, ostensibly my job is to be charismatic in public, and I still don't don't know if I would know how to just go into someone's house with nothing but myself and his suitcase of puppets to spend the evening with them and their family. I have kids, and oftentimes I think about the ways in which illusions are created for

them and also shattered for them. And so it's a tailor as old as time that like the kid has someone that they they have idolized and television, then they meet them and then the person is not who they thought they were, and they're crushed. And you had the opposite experience. You you sort of thought this guy was fine, and then you meet him and you find out that he's exactly who as good as he says he is.

But I wonder if you ever felt let down. Later, mom one time took me to the set of Sesame Street because she was working on a story for Time magazine. And I went and I was horrified because Big Bird was walking around without the top, you know, just the legs, and the muppets were all like, you know, like lying there corpses, and and they'd warned my mom, they said, you know, credit, they said, we don't usually encourage children to come here. And it was a little jarring. Um.

But that wasn't the case with Mr Rodgers. More from Kristoff in just a moment, Mr Rogers visit has stuck with Christop. It's not just that Mr Rogers got down on one knee and looked him in the eye, or that he got to play with King Friday and X the Owl. It's the kindness of Mr Rogers, the effort Fred made in the midst of a busy trip to help a kid like I mean, just think about this

for a second. He when all the way across town in a city he didn't know, which is a hard place to get around, to meet a family that he didn't know, just because he heard that there were some kids that were kind of having a tough time. So why do you think he did that. It's a really good question. I think that he heard that there were some kids that, uh grew up watching the show and

we're having I think a tough time. There wasn't a whole lot of stuff to look forward to, and then it would be amazing if he would meet them, and he apparently just jumped at the opportunity. And so of course, you know, um, you can imagine a number of people that might want to meet Fred Rodgers or I don't know, maybe no one asked him. Yeah, he just came and did it. And he spent real time. He like sat on the couch and did a whole puppet show and I played with them, like I got to hold I

mean that was crazy. I mean I got to hold the king and the owl and the cat and like like. And then he had dinner with us and then we drove him back to the mayor an embassy where he was staying, and so I sat in the back seat of our station wagon. It was one of the only subarus in the entire Soviet Union, and we sat in the backseat and I just sat there with Mr Rogers as we drove him across town and drove him to the front of marrin Amazon Oh. And he was asking

questions because he didn't know anything about Moscow. So when we're driving, he was asking questions about what's this, what's this? I knew the answers like. I was like, oh, that's um you know, that's the monument to your your gagar And he was like, oh, that's interesting. Or do you like space? I was like, yeah, I like space. I remember just wanting, like always fantasizing about friends coming so I could tell them about what this place was like. And I'd be like, I know this looks weird, but

look at this. This is you know, look, yes, it's normal to see like an entire army going down the street, you know, like, oh yeah, we see tanks all the time. Oh yeah, they parade these missiles around constantly. Like I know it looks nuts, but that's what life is here. And it never happened, because no one ever came to visit. And I got to give that to to Mr Rodgers.

He must have known that just by him being there this was had suddenly transformed Moscow, a place that I hated as a child, into the most magical place I've ever been. And then got to ride through Moscow with Mr Rogers and point out all this stuff. I mean, I still look back at that, it's like it was just magical when I was a kid. As odd as

it sounds, I did the exact same thing. I imagined Ricky Ricardo, for some reason, time traveling from the nineteen fifties to my childhood in the eighties and letting me explain everything to him Walkman and pac Man and Prince. I think now that that was a cure for a kind of loneliness that I felt. That Kristof felt that maybe a lot of kids feel this world is so big and some many things are happening to us all the time. We feel sometimes like we're little helpless creatures

in the midst of all of it. So maybe it's just really nice to think that there's someone somewhere who cares what you like. Specifically, you are seeing and experiencing That's the gift that Fred Rogers gave to Christophe that night, and maybe that's the gift he gave to all of us. You know. I have this really, this weird question that's been on my mind. Was I think a lot about good people and what makes a good person, and so much of what Fred Rogers was about was about ways

and systems and methods for being a good person. And I I keep returning to wise and everyone like that. I want to ask you, first, do you think of yourself as a good person? I do, but I think it's taken a lot of time and struggle and experiences with not always being in the best person, interactions with not always the best people, but then also the experience of having genuine connection uh and experiences with people that

consider really good. And I think that has helped me become a better person and someone I'm still trying to be um because I guess I wonder. I mean, I I have this obvious question, which is, why isn't everyone like Fred Rogers like why? Why? Like I assume that you don't think of yourself was being capable of being what he was or doing what he does, not I guess I want to know what you feel like in your own life stands in your way. It's a really

good question. I don't know, you know, like why I think that I just might not have the patience that he had for people, you know, I think just the um at least not always, you know. I think I have my moments, and I've certainly been inspired by him and this memory, and I love what I do for

a living. But for someone to be like that all the time, to have everyone who's ever had an interaction with you, to just feel seen and heard while also like embraced and almost hugged in a way, even if he wasn't doing that physically, I doubt that the people in my life would say that I'm like that, you know, um uh. But what gets in my way? You know? I guess that I think, um, probably cynicism, you know.

I think I've struggled a lot with this question of like, what is like just unconditional love and how do you practice that even with with everybody. Yeah. So I'm working on a podcast right now about my relationship with one of the world's most wanted terrorist. And I had a connection with this guy who was wanted by you know, everyone in the world pretty much, the CIA, the State's Department, the FBI, the African Union. He had a five million dollar bounty on his head and I was the only

one I knew where he was. And he would call me in the middle of the night just to chat because he just wanted to connect with another human being towards the end, and while he was hoping I could help keep him alive. When I couldn't do that, we would just talk and it started just a great scoop for me. But then came this person that I couldn't

help but start caring about. And that gets really confusing, you know, especially when it's somebody that has done terrible things, you know, or supposedly done terrible things, or that's supposed to be an enemy, or somebody that you hate, or somebody that deserves to be killed. UM. And I find all human beings, UM people, everyone you know is worthy of being listened to and being and spoken to. It doesn't mean taking all their b s. It doesn't mean, like you know, set yourself up to be abused or

or or taken advantage of. UM. But I think everyone, all any of us, just want us to be loved and to be heard and to be seen and UM, and I think that your presence is the greatest gift you can give somebody. I just think that's what I believe. It is just actually learning how to be genuinely present, Like in that moment that he came down and sat and just like looked me in the eye, asked me genuine question and then just don't feel like he felt

he needed to be anywhere else. That's presence. And I feel like when you can give that to another human, that's the best gift you can give somebody. And I think what keeps us and the second speak myself, what keeps us from doing that is it's just really hard to be present, you know. I think that we are minds are scattered with our wants of what we think we want, what our desires are, with the ways that we think we're going to get it, our relationship to

the world, how we think the world perceives us. Um. We care a lot about a lot of stuff that usually isn't relevant. And I think that's what gets in the way. I want to I want to ask you, um about the world as it currently stands. And like the last thing he did on television was a public service announcement after nine eleven m that was the last time we saw him on TV uh and he died

soon after that. And when I watched that footage, I often feel like I'm watching a person who has ultimately been outmatched by just the huge well of capacity of for badness among people. And when I look at the world today, it does seem like so much of that badness has like gained energy and momentum, focus and force and push. And I wonder, your journalist, your job is to investigate all, to investigate the human condition via our individual stories and the stories we pursue. And I wonder,

how do I even frame this question? Do you think A do you think his impact can be felt? And B do you think it's enough? God dense question? Um, I think that it's up to us. Two. I think it's up to us to allow his impact to be felt. And what I mean by that is, look, eventually, we can't be relying on Fred Rogers, especially after he's dead. We have to be Fred Rogers. I mean, we're grown up, you know, like I'm about to be forty. I was watching Mr Rogers a kid. It's time for me to

be Mr Rogers. You know, it's time for all of us me Mr Rogers especially now. It is crazy because if we don't, then we we we really are up Ship's creek, you know, like we we are in at time right now where people are so cynical and scared and frankly acting bananas, all of us. Whether you want to blame the people that are making you bananas or your bananas or whatever it is, um uh, but I think we all just need those quiet moments of reflection and it's our job to embody it. I mean, look,

we can't. That's another reason, like we can't we can't idealize him either in a sense where like you know, he's gone. What we have to do is take his teachings and try to embody those ourselves so so you know, we can evolve and become one of our our own version of that love that he was able to embody, because that is what I think the world could really

use right now. And we can't be looking for a savior or or I think be just sad over one like hey, there was one guy that was really good at this once, Like why go and hang out with a kid you've never met her? Family, and you know in Russia, um who's having a tough time because because you can, because you have the he had the ability to. Christof still has a photo of that night. There's Fred on the couch with X the owl, and there's Christoph beaming.

When you genuinely learn how to listen and you're genuinely interested in somebody just because they're them, not because of any other reason that I think I got from just that interaction, I think that's what stayed with me. Screw Moscow next time. When Fred tells us that we are special, he meant that there's something deep down inside each of us, not to some of us, but each of us without which humanity cannot survive. Finding Fred is produced by Transmitter Media.

Our team is Dan O'donald, Jordan Bailey and Mattie Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nis. The executive producer for Transmitter Media is Greta Cohne. Executive producers at Fatherly are Simon Isaacs and Andrew Berman. Thanks to the team at I Heart Media, and also thanks to Christoph Putzel. Our show is mixed by Rick Kwan, music by Blue Dot Sessions and Alison Layton Brown. If you like what you're hearing, rate the show, you the show, and tell a friend I'm Carvel Wallace. Thank you for listening. M hm