King Pelé, Brazil's Minister of Sports, shares his observations in Eastern Europe with a diplomat friend.
- Letter written and signed by Pelé to his friend John Ivan Huscha of the International Monetary Fund.
- Two pages with yellow paper.
- In English.
- 21.4 cm x 27.7 cm.
- October 10, 1998.
- Excellent condition of conservation.
- Unique piece.
Excerpts
(...) Once again I enjoyed your details about your experiences in Russia. (...) some of our group had purchased expensive Russian fur hats for the winter, but our tour guide warned us not to wear them in Samarkand as you might be mistaken for Russian and beaten by the locals. They have beautiful melons there. In fact, little mountains of them rotting away. People in Moscow or Leningrad would kill for one but that great [illegible] country had no infrastructure to get the melons to the city markets! Almost all the craftsmen working in Moscow were Finnish and Swedish workers under contract.
Koreans, like all Asians, are quick-witted but their history for the last 5 [million?] years has been one of almost total subjection to others, Chinese, Mongols, Japanese, etc. Having consequently developed angry characters, translated as having been denied the use of weapons, they have developed very effective striking [techniques] with hand and foot; Karate, Kung Fu, etc. This, coupled with any brutal communist government, has made North Korea much worse. But the [average?] Korean is far more emotional than other Asians. In this way they are a piece of an enigma - a step beyond Kipling's apt description of the Oriental.
Pelé (born 1940) became a player for the famous Brazilian football club "Santos" at the age of 15. He played there for almost two decades before moving to the United States to play for "Cosmos", where he spent three years. The three-time World Cup champion retired in 1977.
At the time of writing, Pelé was serving as Brazil's Minister of Sports (1995 - 1998). The vast content of this letter, in which he speaks of the difficulties of the Russian and Korean peoples, reveals a little-known aspect of his personality: his interest in history, politics and international culture in general.
There are some autographs of Pelé, but due to the star's fame in Brazil, the risk of forgery is high. When they are authentic, documents signed by the King are usually of poor quality or without content. This handwritten letter, with surprising content, is extremely rare.
