The blue flower of the snowdrop looked out First, little by little Its green small leg it put out, Then stretched with all its Small might and asked quietly: "I see that the weather is clear and warm; Tell me--it's true that Spring is here?" THIS old Russian poem, remembered in rough translation through the years since his childhood in Moscow, inspired Cover Artist Boris Chaliapin to create the background for this week's cover portrait of Soviet Poet Evgeny Evtushenko. And it was, in another sense, a search for the answer to the question "Is spring really there?" that prompted TIME to set out on a cover story about Russia's new generation.

To gauge the humanist season in Russia in the spring of 1962, the editors sent in Correspondent James Bell, a Kansan who has reported for TIME for 17 years in Chicago, New York, Beirut, Hong Kong and Johannesburg, is now bureau chief in Bonn. Bell immediately found that it is much easier to see people than when he was last in Moscow in 1956, and that there is far less fear and red tape. He felt that he was not restricted in any way; the only slight hitch came when neither of his interpreters wanted to be seen talking to the far-out stilyagi youths. Their reluctance, which they eventually overcame, seemed based less on fear than on social position. Reported Bell: "It was like a young Wall Street broker being seen on a tough street in Manhattan consorting with a rumbleprone gang." Bell found that Soviet young people are "furiously interested in everything and have opinions, some considerably distorted, on everything." They were polite, respectful and vigorous in setting forth their ideas.

The personal story of Poet Evtushenko and his family was gathered by Moscow Bureau Chief Edmund Stevens, a native of Colorado who has worked for many years in Russia, is fluent in Russian, and ranks as the senior U.S. correspondent on the Moscow scene. When Reporter Stevens appeared at Poet Evtushenko's apartment for the first interview, the poet greeted him with a cool and quizzical hello. But that first interview lasted until 4 o'clock in the morning, beginning in the living room-study of the poet's two-room flat, and going on in the kitchen over caviar, salmon, cheese and red Georgian wine.

From the reports of Correspondents Bell and Stevens, the cover story was written and edited in New York by Associate Editors Michael Demarest and Edward Hughes. The answer to what kind of spring, and what kind of thaw, has come to the Russian people will be found in THE WORLD, A Longing for Truth.

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