Intourist was my host for the trip through the Soviet Union. I was advised when booking the trip in Kabul that it was more appropriate to be a student than a broadcast engineer.
On my guided day trip around Tashkent I discovered that the city was home to the inventor of television. I was also able to watch some of the joint US/Soviet space mission on television in my hotel. It is remarkable how much better the NASA video was than that produced by the Soviets – despite the difficulties of doing the conversion from NTSC to SECAM.