On October 2, 1993, I arrived at Sheremetovo-2 in Moscow, headed for a year-long stint in Novosibirsk as the first IREX "E-mail Fellow." After clearing customs, I met Russian friends on the other side and we left Moscow for Vladimir, a provincial town located some three hours away. The very next day we saw on television the chaos in the streets of Moscow as tanks fired on the White House and the "October Events" got underway. During the first hours while the course of events was still uncertain, the Internet started to buzz with information from Russia as people around Moscow began to send messages to teleconferences, giving what information they were able to gather from the media and from outside their windows. IREX/Moscow used e-mail to locate me in Vladimir and determine that I was alive and well.