Veronica's Bird

by Veronica Bird

  I learned we would be met in Moscow and provided with an interpreter, a driver and a guide. The hotel rooms had been reserved. Nothing was left to chance with the EU planners behind us; nothing could go wrong. Nice feeling.

  Two mistakes were made early on in my planning. Normally, when I travel, I take tea, coffee and biscuits, just in case I am caught out somewhere, something to soften entry into a strange country (rather like the heat shield on a re-entry cone). For some unfathomable reason, I did not. I was to regret it. Secondly, I had always worn a skirt or a dress in the Service. It was part of my recognition, my handle, ‘…. that must be Veronica coming. She’s the one in the skirt.’ Besides, I found a skirt more flexible. This time, I did not, take a skirt that is, I took trousers. Why, you might ask, did you, Veronica, do that?

  I had some notion I might be walking up many open-treaded staircases (I had probably seen one picture of such a Russian stair) and, not wanting most of Russia looking up my skirt, I plumped for slacks.

  We flew from Leeds Bradford Airport down to Heathrow and, not being much of a traveller, was delighted just to gaze down on London and identifying the famous landmarks as they grew out of the clouds.

  We landed without a smidgen of a bump and disembarked to a minor annoyance. As I have said, I have not travelled a great deal so we did not ‘patch’ our cases through from Leeds to Moscow. Thus, I was obliged to tow my case around as if it was an obedient dog until we arrived at our new check-in desk. One lives and learns.

  We took off on a brilliant Sunday sunny afternoon in what one can only describe as a rather basic aircraft, an Aeroflot Ilyushin which was so forgettable I cannot recall eating anything on board. This must have been the case for by the time I arrived in Moscow I was very hungry. (my biscuits were still in the tin in my kitchen).

  The day we flew was during the first week of a no-smoking policy had been declared on international flights. This naturally, divided the law-abiding races from those others, more used to doing what they considered was right. Ghenkis Khan syndrome I believe it is called. Quite unperturbed, our Russian friends on the flight migrated, after negotiation, to the port side so they could continue to smoke while the British, as would be expected, flowed to the starboard side and quite firmly decided not to smoke. Thus, are all great concordats agreed. It made no difference to the result, as the smoke, for some curious and partisan motive, curled and coiled its way over to us as if the tide was coming in on St. Ives beach.

  Emerging into the fresh air of Moscow removed me from the misery of the equivalent of a London smog but into the bedlam which comprised Sheremetyevo airport on a holiday Sunday evening. Over the glass wall arrivals entrance, I gained my first sight of Cyrillic lettering. Добро пожаловать, or ‘Welcome’ to you and me.

  Most of Russia, or so it seemed to me, was on the move, as if this part of the world was caught up in some great moose drive from the Mongolian steppes, as they arrived back from wherever they had been, just as we spilled out of our transit bus.

  No-one likes to queue in Russia – something to remember if you are thinking of going there for a holiday. However, the Immigration queues snaked back and forth (it took an hour) so every five minutes we saw the same travellers reappearing alongside, giving slightly embarrassed smiles. (Hullo, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?). Eventually, tired out with shuffling, and wearing out my shoe leather, I handed over my passport to an Immigration official and firmly asserted that I was here for business and pleasure. I received the all-important stamp and the woman handed it back to me with a curt nod of her head.

  As we emerged into a new throng I heard a shout. ‘Ver-on-ikah!’

  The voice came from an elegant gentleman, a psychiatrist from the prison hospital who spoke excellent English. Now this is better, I surmised.

  I gathered my thoughts together. Civilised, educated and very welcoming. We all shook hands. ‘Ver-on-ikah, we must get your currency changed here. So, you can pay the hotel when we arrive.’

  I knew this as it had been explained to me back in Britain. Besides, Tony had already pointed out the bureau de change. We had a problem for we had no idea what additional roubles we would need as we did not have the faintest idea of where we were going. Adding in the hotel costs, we guessed; it proved to be passably accurate. Armed with a sheaf of dirty notes, the six of us walked out to climb into a black limousine (was this a Zil?) and off we sped into a very late night, hungry, confused and tired, but we were there, St. Petersburg, Pushkin and Putin in our minds.

  About one and a half hours later somewhere on the E115, our interpreter leaned over the seat back. ‘Ver-on-ikah, we stop now. We eat.’ Good-oh, I thought. At last. It was a roadside restaurant and we were met by a very welcoming restaurant owner. I did not though, receive three kisses on the cheek.

  Six glasses of vodka arrived on the table although I had seen no-one place an order. It was clear, like gin, although I had been told I might expect it to be brown, like whisky, if it was local. Straight vodka, by federal law, has to be clear, for what reason I know not, but vodka is also aged in oak barrels and there is considerable dispute in Russia as to whether it is lawful to call brown vodka, vodka! What did become clear as gin was the sheer volume of the spirit which was consumed, drunk is another word and drunk is the more apt word I feel. Russia leads the world in alcohol related deaths by far, with two-thirds of murders in the country caused by intoxication. As has been reported recently ‘…Russia is quite literally, drinking itself to death.’

  The psychiatrist spoke again as he got into his stride. ‘I order for everyone. Okay?’

  ‘Anything, anything,’ we responded in unison.

  ‘Okay, I order meat with variations.’

  Sounded good to us. I assumed it might mean a mixed grill and the variations would almost certainly be vegetables. The Russians then proceeded to swallow their vodka by a swift jerk of the hand and a well-practised, almost dislocating move of the neck, backwards. My colleagues followed suit…. except me of course. I needed food, not neat vodka on an empty stomach.

  Six more vodkas arrived.

  While we waited, we all introduced ourselves, during which I witnessed the swift action with the glass, still, excusably, as a salutation to us. By now, I had two glasses, so I passed them across to the interpreter to deal with. He passed one to our driver, so not such a good idea really. Thus, two of our team now had three vodkas inside them.

  Aha! The food was on its way. I was very hungry and the idea of a mixed grill with sausage, bacon, liver, chop, steak, a fried egg (or two), mushrooms and crispy frites would go down well with minted peas picked early in the morning on a local farm, felt good.

  A plate was placed in front of me.

  Well. We did have peas. The meat was tongue, circular in shape and cut neatly to fit the bottom depression of a saucer. Under the meat, and well over it, sat the peas, processed, more grey in tone than garden green, although in retrospect, I did see a pale, greenish slime beginning to emerge from the pile starting to spread, highlighting the whiteness of the plate. Our Russian friends tackled their own food without further delay as if they had not eaten for a week. I had to admit I felt the same, so I bit into the edges of the tongue as if I was a garra rufa fish giving a fish pedicure to someone’s feet.

  A third vodka arrived – well, why not? Mine was passed over again and I knew I had made a friend for life. Yes, who else but the driver?

  Off we went again, our driver now four up on me with drinks, driving in the darkness though by now there was a pallor in the east from the arriving northern sun, suggesting to me it wasn’t so much very late as very early morning. Jan, I could not help notice, was very quiet; so were the two men in my party but all three had been topped up with three vodkas, ‘shots’ I believe you call them. I can think of quite a few prisoners back home who would have enjoyed the party.

  You may think I am portraying the image of a naive young girl rather than an experienced, ageing prison Governor more u
sed to dealing with hard-bitten lags. I had spent most of my life in one prison or another, isolated from the impact of external influences`, aligned to prison food, prison generally, prisoners, prison rules, prison staff, all these I could deal with but, heavy drinking at three o’clock of a morning in Russia was not something I did, nor was I going to start it now.

  Finally, with sighs of relief all round and two hundred and fifty kilometres from Moscow, now only a distant memory, we arrived at our hotel in the city of Ivanovo with its population of just over four hundred thousand which is a bit bigger than Leicester. In style, though, it was a mirror of Manchester as it had once been a centre for textile mills which had once dominated the skyline. Money had moved in, up went the large pre-revolution houses until, finally they were split up into many apartments after Lenin came to power. As Confucius once said: Everything goes round in a circle.

  *

  We gratefully spilled out into the foyer with considerable sighs and much stretching of backs and arms. I rubbed red-rimmed eyes trying to take in the first Russian building. The floor was covered in dark brown linoleum, well, more dark than brown. The furniture too had been chosen by the same enlightened Architect, for this was also dark brown. The whole vast space was lit by one sixty-watt bulb which sat inside a glass dish of circa nineteen-fifty, possibly pink glass, though quite a long time ago. It was so dim no shadows were cast in the centre of the room, let alone into the corners. Oh, I almost forgot, and the walls were brown wall-paper too, unless they had been cream once…. but were not now…. cream that is. I was allocated a key by a sleepy looking night porter and welcomed to the hotel. I nodded, too tired to speak. Our lift though, stopped at the first floor so we could be shown where we were to have breakfast. We had been beaten by the Architect who had made the decision to cover the floor in dark brown linoleum, more dark than brown. I could go on but you must have the idea by now. Getting back in the lift I said to myself. ‘What on God’s earth am I doing here?’

  But, as I emerged onto the bedroom floor the scene transformed itself. Clean paint, pictures on the walls, good lighting. My bedroom was the same. Basic but bright and clean with my own shower room. It was as though the Russian authorities did not want their own locals to see how the Europeans lived; that the foreign tourists (in Ivanovo?) got a better deal than themselves. It was though, almost impossible to imagine a single reason to visit the town.

  I struggled awake at seven for we had to leave for the prison at eight. Before though, I had promised Mary, my ancient but very good friend of mine, that I would ring her to say I had arrived having previously told her that she should not say anything on the phone for ‘it might be bugged.’ (Honestly, you couldn’t turn this into a West End play). Many friends had given me advice before I left and I had absorbed it all like a sponge. I told Mary, once I was put through, that I had arrived safely and the hotel was fine. Mary, being made of sterner stuff took no notice of my treacly comment.

  ‘How is the food?’ She demanded to know.

  That was another matter. I was just about to reply saying it was ‘appalling’ and ‘interesting’ when whoever was listening in decided, to maintain good relations with Russia, and cut us off. I was left with just the sad burr of the handset and I could only imagine what Mary was thinking. Whether anyone was listening in I have no idea, but all the stories I had been given, courtesy of Ian Fleming and John le Carré began to look as if they might be accurate. I put the heavy handset down and made my way down to the first floor where businessmen were eating their breakfast, mostly in silence. I was offered a sausage along with processed peas or, if not that, a hard-boiled egg and I mean, hard-boiled. The coffee was too strong to drink – ersatz as the Germans would have put it – and there was not a lot else. I ate the egg. I never went back to the restaurant.

  A trifle wearily we walked to the waiting car, noticing Jan was still not with us. She had missed breakfast. A note followed us out. She would not be able to make today as she was too ill. (This lasted for two days). I was now quite pleased I hadn’t tackled the vodka, and we drove off to the prison, one less but, after all, I reminded myself hastily, that is why we were here; to see what Russian prisons were like and to see where we, as representatives of the European Union, could help.

  As we drove to the woman’s prison I witnessed a type of poverty I had not expected in such a major world power in the Noughties. Men were hunched over pails half filled with potatoes hoping to earn a meagre meal themselves. Everywhere was unkempt, a lack of pride, a lack of ownership and a lack of care and money. Ivanovo had been, once, the equivalent of how Manchester had been one hundred and fifty years earlier, when it was at the centre of the cotton industry. But, Manchester had moved on, long ago. Ivanovo had not. Each dormitory of the town or should I call it a city, seemed to specialise in one sector of industry or agriculture, such as light fittings or melons. Melons! I could eat a melon on my half-starved stomach. ‘Stop the car’, I commanded. ‘I want a melon.’

  My driver looked round. ‘Mees Ver-on-ikah, you cannot eat these melons. They come from Chernobyl and these farmers do not understand they are radio-active and dangerous.’

  ‘Buggar!’

  Whether this was true I have no idea but I got the feeling it was an excuse, as they were late for the meeting. If it was true, then I had been saved from a fate worse than the one Jan was going through. Studying a map later I could see that Chernobyl was some six hundred miles from Moscow and we were further north again, so the likelihood of radio-active melons being sold in Ivanovo was a long way from the actualité. Possibly, I could hire a taxi to take me back at night to see if they glowed in the dark?

  The four-lane highway was busy with old buses trundling along, belting out noxious black fumes. They had obviously not been serviced for a long while, perhaps never. But the road eventually wended its way to the prison where we disembarked. The penitentiary sat in a countryside I would describe as real Russia, surrounded by dense silver birch forests stretching away into the hills. In front, there were pleasant green fields but I saw no animals. Possibly they were kept locked up safely somewhere for I wouldn’t disbelieve it if I was told men would drive up from Moscow each night to pinch a few cows.

  The prison could contain three to four hundred women in one dormitory alone and up to 1,000 women were held here in 2002. It was enclosed by a surprisingly low wall with a corrugated iron gate which anyone could have slipped over or under. Security at first view appeared very basic. We were welcomed by the Governor and senior officers both male and female who, touchingly, had clearly had a whip-round for us to buy a packet of what must have been very expensive biscuits. It was a first indication of how kind the local Russians could be. This was a world far removed from Putin’s domain with its politics and need to prove itself as a major power to the world. It is like most places; remove the politicians and there is peace.

  We sat around a table with our interpreter being called upon constantly as we discussed prison rules, the same ones we had been translated back in England. The idea for us all was to see if we could introduce European methods of running prisons into Ivanovo. We discussed visiting arrangements, washing and cleanliness generally, the no-smoking rules (utter amazement), security and staff benefits (more amazement). I asked what the women were in for and was told Russia had no bail system as we know it, so anyone arrested for whatever matter, could be held in a prison for a year or more. They might well be innocent. I was told the authorities had no idea how long a prisoner would have to wait before they received a trial. (Amazement from our side followed by much clearing of throats as we felt we had displayed too much overt criticism in the form of amazement). But such a thing would certainly start a riot in England.

  I have already related the fact, when I am in England I always wear a skirt, it is more flexible than trousers but some reason, like the omission of biscuits perhaps, I decided to wear trousers on this trip. My decision caused a problem on this first day’s visit when one of the male offi
cers kindly suggested I might like to go to the loo before we moved off on the tour. So, I went to the loo, more of a hole in the ground. This now disgorged a rat (large and dark brown like the linoleum) interested to see who had invaded its kingdom. It popped its head out first then, emboldened, walked out onto the floor heading for my trousers now in the ‘down’ position. It and I filled the tiny cubicle between us.

  Now, as I have said before, I do not like mice, rats, cockroaches or alcohol and certainly not rats the size of a tom cat. I leaped for my trousers to pull them up but they were new and unfamiliar, the buttons stiff, so I managed to get all tied up trying to make as much space as possible between myself and the original occupant. Eventually, shaking, I sprang from the ladies’ loo like a jack-in-the-box to find the kind prison officer waiting for me. He was holding out a piece of soap the size of my thumb nail. It was plainly his own property and had been brought from his home, thinking of me. I smiled encouragingly concerned as to what he might have heard, and said I did not need it. He had, thoughtfully, not only realised I might want to go to the loo after my drink of Russian coffee but brought his very precious piece of soap with him. The other side of the Russian bear, I think? It was the smallest of gestures, the largest offer of peace I had seen.

  The Governor then walked us into the grounds of the prison and I pointed with a finger at the low wall.

  ‘Governor, what about escapes-?

  ‘We do not have escapes in Russia, Mees Ver-on-ikah,’ he replied firmly. He indicated a thin wire which ran around the perimeter inside of the wall. He leaned down upon it. Within seconds, his entire staff erupted from their buildings as a siren went off. They were in full uniform with Kalashnikovs’ slung around their necks. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact the female staff were not entitled to free boots, so shoes had been purchased individually. As they paraded for us we were met with a long line of pink, green and blue shoes of sling-back, high heel and slip-on varieties. Their faces were also plastered with make-up, a strange mixture of feminism and butch reality. I asked the Governor, by now I was able to call him Sergei, the reason.