It was that kind of a day. I was feeling a bit lousy, so spent the afternoon at home, catching up on Izvestiya. I see Vanessa Redgrave has been meeting the Deputy Foreign Minister about her orphans’ fund. Also Moscow Regional Soviet has opposed merging the region with Moscow city under a new mayor in the elections on 12 June. They warned Moscow not to “tempt the region with its lifestyle and the goods in its shops”. That must say volumes about the standard of living in Moscow Region.
There was a weird news programme from Alexander Nevzorov at night. He interviewed the rather wooden and ineffectual general, Makashov, who is standing as RSFSR President, and kept provoking him to promise he would use force to solve political problems. It was hard to tell if Nevzorov was making him look ridiculous or was really encouraging a hard line. He’d already broken news of the as-yet-incomplete USSR Procuracy investigation into the killings in Lithuania, exonerating Soviet soldiers, and said, “Who could have thought that our soldiers would have killed women and children?” Anyone in Tbilisi in 1989, I suppose. But this use of the word “ours” – which everyone, even the most unofficial people, use here – chills me. It’s like the country is sealed tight and outside there’s always “them”.
Tuesday 4 June
Today was the opening up of Irina. She came round to collect a translation and to let me read the draft article about medical workers her mother had written. They’d done a very good job, putting eloquent things into my mouth and even, thanks to Irina, a couplet from Andrey Voznessensky. Irina stayed for two hours and was very interesting and funny. She dropped out after graduating in 1983, when she saw no point in continuing with nineteenth-century Danish and English literature, particularly as she couldn’t go abroad and still hasn’t.
I tried to buy a bottle of cognac today. The booze shop looks like a cowshed and was packed with bodies jostling for their bottle. I couldn’t buy one in the end because I didn’t have an empty cognac bottle to give them. But how do you get hold of your first?
Misha invited me for an ice cream at 5.00pm. It was a super place in Oktyabrsky Square and we had bouillon with egg-filled rolls, bliny with fruit and nuts inside, and ice cream. We then came back here for whisky and on the spur of the moment went to see Fellini’s Juliette and the Spirits, which I liked a lot. At one point Misha recited the whole of Gumilyov’s poem, ‘The Sixth Sense’. This only happens with Russians in my experience. The voiceover spoiled the film for him because he can’t stop noticing misplaced stresses. Conversation with me must be a slow death for him.
Last night as I was lying in bed I could hear a mosquito approaching my head from different directions. It then went straight up my nose, which must have surprised it even more than me. The sound cut out and it made me laugh out loud.
Wednesday 5 June
A man wearing a hankie on his head, pyjamas and slippers walked into the milk shop today. People thought he’d come over from the hospital across the road.
Lunch at the Writers’ Union where the Russian-Soviet PEN Club has its office. It’s on Vorovsky Street, a very beautiful tree-lined street of old mansions. A man was sitting under the trees selling fruit juice from a full-sized fridge which he had fixed up on the pavement. The Writers’ Union is in the house Tolstoy described as the Rostov mansion in War and Peace. I was to meet PEN Club people and Marina Rumshinskaya, to receive materials on an imprisoned Turkmenian poet. Marina and I are on a wavelength, but the other two had no idea how to publicise or help a case, never having had pre-perestroyka experience. Maybe one virtue of the last few years is that new people are getting their first taste of this kind of lobbying, and of helping prisoners. We ate in the high-beamed dining room of the House of Literary Buffs and I noticed the prices were dirt cheap and that the two PEN Club people ate and drank with gusto. A trio of heavy men with T-shirts and ponytails came in – apparently they were from Brighton Beach. They were joined by three Soviets: thin, with dark glasses and long hair.
A quick call to the Shevardnadze Association to deliver our annual report, then home, to find that I couldn’t unlock the door. Eventually a neighbour helped me get in. Things are making me uneasy again. My phone is so bad I might as well open the window and shout out of it. Last night I only worked the lock with great difficulty and this morning the landlord reckoned it had been tampered with. He said he couldn’t rule out that “someone had slid inside”. The word sounded awfully sinister. He is still weighing up the risks of putting some money in the bank. They seem large and immensely complicated.
Thursday 6 June
A day of work that ended at 1.00am, and a mixed day it was too. I spent the morning psyching myself up for an interview with Moscow Radio, then spent the lunchtime in utter frustration, unable to track down the journalist at the massive TV/radio complex at Ostankino, and unable to phone through to him. Eventually called it a day.
At the other end of town I became the unlikely ally of Olga Ivanovna Lavrova and the Fund for Non-Dwelling Premises, as they were invaded by two totally boorish and aggressive men while I was sitting there. I saw the stone faces and defence mechanisms come into good play as they beat them off and shut the door. Olga I. L. actually has a nice face – though her secretaries don’t – and looks on the point of a nervous collapse with that wretched job. For the first time they were quite helpful to me and I came away with all my documents complete, shaking the dust of the Fund for Non-Dwelling Premises off my feet forever, I hope.
A tremendous thunder, lightning and hail storm then broke, which I saw by the evening had uprooted great chunks of tarmac and cobblestones from the roads and pavements. The Quakers have been given a two-year visa with journalist status to set up an office in the USSR. I went to visit two British Quakers who are running a conflict-resolution workshop here, and spoke with an interesting Ossetian journalist who was doing the course.
Past 11.00pm someone rang from Georgia to say a political prisoner on hunger strike wants to meet the Amnesty representative in Moscow.
Friday 7 June
Today I met a fresh surly face at the Privatisation Commission, where I had to take our premises papers next. My day began at 7.30am with a visit from Nikolay, dropping off a letter for the London office. I was feeling lousy, with a sore throat, a temperature, and very tired. I realise my maternal instincts are very limited. Giving Nikolay breakfast again and having to read through his English essay, I was fighting resentment.
Then someone came round with a letter for me to translate from three gay men to a Dutch contact group. He said he had to be careful who he showed the letter to, and, here, I’m sure that is true. While he was here the sister of the Georgian prisoner rang, crying down the phone. She kept calling me Margaret Thatcher. The morning seemed surreal.
Had a disastrous afternoon trying to fax our news release on the UK to various Soviet newspapers. It was the kind of day when I should have rubbed myself out and started again. Dinner was at Mary Dejevsky’s and it was a very nice evening. On the one hand an archaeologist and the new Times leader writer were there – very Oxbridge and very “British” – and on the other hand, John Lloyd from the Financial Times and Sue Jameson from the Evening Standard, whose backgrounds I don’t know, but who seem more politicised and irreverent. We talked about Soviet racism.
Saturday 8 June
Woke feeling worse. I was very unfair to Nikolay. Today he rang to see how I am, concerned that diphtheria is going round Moscow and his neighbour has got it – symptoms: a sore throat and temperature. As he was going away for the day he then got someone else from Moscow Amnesty to call with details of my nearest polyclinic. Both very kind.
It was a lovely day which I spent mostly sleeping. Went to get my hair cut at Kropotkin Street again. Their hot water has been cut off for a month, so the women were working from a bucket, very quietly, without complaints. I wonder how many times they have to do that in a day.
Fluff from the poplar trees was swirling about
all day like snow. Boys in the yard were setting it alight as it lay on the tarmac and it made a great effect. The fluff immediately vanished and small rings of flame ran along the yard, as though there was a fire underground.
Sunday 9 June
We get some very good people writing in to join Amnesty, apart from some obvious nutters. I spent the day answering twelve work letters.
The poplar fluff was streaming into the flat all day and when I lay down on the bed a great cloud of it rose around me. A weird creepy crawly has joined the flies that walk round the inside of my frying pan as I’m actually cooking, and the cockroaches that lurk under my toothbrush, amongst other places. It had a thick red neck and a black body, which it was dragging around with difficulty over my dried dishes. It didn’t look streamlined for survival somehow.
We were a small group at the Quakers, saying farewell to Margaret and John. Peter and Roswitha were visibly disturbed by their first experience of having their room gone through and someone they had trusted filching their papers. Margaret offered to get Oleg an invitation to Canada to do a Peace Studies course. When I rang later to tell him, he was audibly moved; it had always been his dream.
Monday 10 June
A hitch at the Privatisation Commission: Kotova, who promised to deal with our papers as a top priority, is on holiday and no one else knew anything about it.
I spent the day putting off writing a twenty-page article for the Journal of Humanitarian Sciences. Instead, I answered more letters, shopped twice, and went in to Stolitsa to pay for our advert. As usual Vitaly was late and as usual we ended up having a long, interesting chat – this time about single-sex education in Britain, which he found mind-blowing. I wanted to pay for the advert by cheque, which caused a stir. Two managers accompanied me to the accountants’ office, where none of them wanted to touch it. They reluctantly made calls to the bank, and at last, after an hour, I was able to lodge it with them. All this time the carpet was making a strange cracking sound every time someone walked on it. I commented on it to the woman at the desk and she said in a faraway voice, “Everything’s strange.”
Two human rights activists from the Crimea wanted to see me. They were both short, in short-sleeved shirts, and both were called Nikolay Ivanovich. They were obviously driving each other mad after a day in Moscow, and sat on either side of me, bickering. “Get to the point, Nikolay Ivanovich”; “Nikolay Ivanovich, that’s not nice.” The poplar fluff was meanwhile streaming down and getting in my throat every time I tried to speak.
The RSFSR presidential elections are provoking much less buzz than the referendum did. Yeltsin seems to have got it on the posters and I got a leaflet in the mail summoning me to the pro-Yeltsin rally. However, a Ryzhkov/Gromov poster appeared in the stairway today. I watched the regular roundtable of candidates on TV tonight. It’s a long and dreary format. Zhirinovsky, however, does know how to use TV, and quite dynamically. He was the only one who spoke directly to viewers, addressed interest groups – including the intelligentsia – and had answers ready in points. But his message is depressing and responds to the lowest nationalist instincts. He constantly uses that horrible word “ours”. Yeltsin did not take part.
Tuesday 11 June
Got to sleep after 3.00am because of the heat and mosquitoes, then wrote my twenty-page article all morning at the kitchen table.
I went to meet Oleg Vorobyov at 3.00pm to collect the report on the UK, which he had translated. He stood on my toe and made me stand on his, otherwise we would quarrel. Apparently it’s a Russian superstition. He offered good ideas for getting interpreters for our seminar in September and also asked to join Amnesty. He thinks Ryzhkov is ridiculous to be standing for President, when he’s already so unpopular.
The landlord also thinks Ryzhkov is ridiculous and will vote for Yeltsin. Unlike Oleg he doesn’t anticipate a Russian/USSR clash later in the year. I ventured to ask him for some ration cards for sugar and vodka, which he must be receiving for my flat. He said they needed all the sugar for jam-making and as they were doing repairs to the dacha they needed vodka to bribe the workmen. Why didn’t I buy a bottle of cognac? I explained, and so he said he would bring me an empty bottle. Largesse!
At six I went to meet Jim Birley, who’s heading the Review Committee of the World Psychiatric Association, here to assess whether the Soviets should remain in the World Psychiatric Association or leave. They’ve converted several rooms of the Cosmos Hotel into offices and are working frantically. I was surprised to be kissed by both him and Gary Low-Beer, but I think people are delighted to see a familiar face when they’re here.
Wednesday 12 June
More flags out and another public holiday – this time a new one to celebrate the first anniversary of Russian Sovereignty. Election day too and a policeman was outside in the morning, watching the trickle of people going across the schoolyard to the polling booth. Apparently the turnout was higher than for the referendum. Voters were asked on the TV news what they wanted and they openly said, “Freedom”; “Less cruelty – more culture”. I wonder if they’ll get it from any of these candidates.
Father Nikon came round in the afternoon to get me to translate an English letter. He sat in his cut-away T-shirt and cross, with a Beatles tattoo on his arm, laboriously filling out an Amnesty membership form and trying to put down his feelings for Amnesty. At the end of the form he put, “with love, Nikon”. He has a big scar on his left hand: the Rolling Stones tattoo which he removed when he became a priest.
I then went to meet another man who wants Amnesty’s help. I didn’t much like him, but I think he is a genuine case. He was full of tension and anger and talked non-stop. I had consciously to hold myself apart, otherwise I would have been swallowed by this black rage.
One of the local Amnesty group said he had an urgent letter to give me for tomorrow’s mailing to London. To lighten things up I suggested we meet in the pizzeria near him. It was quite a nice evening, but he hadn’t written the letter and suggested doing it at my place on the computer. I said no. It is this which exasperates and tires me. I would rather have gone to a film or a concert than do another twelve-hour working day. Hey ho. I need a break.
Thursday 13 June
So, St Petersburg it is. First results for the presidency show that the provincial places, where Ryzhkov was expected to do well, are going over to Yeltsin. Funny – on the news the other night Ryzhkov was sensing “a new moral atmosphere” on Channel One, while Channel Two was showing a steamy French video full of corruption, violence and debauchery. Viewers’ phone calls flooded in and the newsreader apologised for Gostelradio.
Nikolay was round with his letter at 8.00am. I told him I was happy to act as his courier to London, but only when his letters were ready in future. He was peeved.
I then went to meet the Head of the Non-Governmental Organisations’ Section at the huge Ministry of Foreign Affairs building at Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square. It used to be called “Dom Gromyko” – “Gromyko’s House”. When I went in the policeman clapped his hands and a young man in a checked jacket appeared across the hall to take me upstairs. He was Pavel Karpov, assistant to Alexander Gorelik, and both were intelligent and quiet. They were discussing the possibilities for registering Amnesty, but I think just wanted the opportunity to size up the beast. At the end Gorelik slipped in, “and naturally you are researching violations here…”, and I explained not, quite firmly.
Another visit to the WPA Review Committee in the Cosmos Hotel. Svetlana Polubinskaya hallooed me in the lobby and was very funny talking about the progress of the draft Law on Psychiatry. I said she should write a play about it. She said she would write a mystery story: why someone official could look her in the eye and say some instructions did not exist, while she’d had copies of them in her bag for months. I like her. One of the Americans there asked me how long I’d been at Amnesty, because my English was really very good. I think she was a bit confuse
d.
I had a nice impromptu evening at the Teplitskys’. They said the floor of Chyromushinsky Market was a sea of tomatoes, strawberries and cherries today. Taxi drivers from Kursk station had come to claim their pay-off and roughed up the stalls.
This afternoon a drunkish man tried to kick me in the street. I got out of his way, then watched him. He avoided a man, then bore straight onto the next woman, who ran away frightened. My first thought was, That’s very Western behaviour. I wonder why I should think that? Except that you do see a generalised hostility to women in films and street gangs there, that you don’t see here.
Friday 14 June
After an immensely tiring and boring day stuffing envelopes, I asked Irina what she thought of the book I’d lent her about a woman who was cured of cancer by diet therapy. She said such an enormous will to live was a little bit difficult for a Soviet person to understand.
Saturday 15 June
A day I reclaimed for myself and not a moment too soon. It was another day of cold driving rain, interspersed with hot bright stretches and blue skies. I really enjoyed the morning, listening to Grace Jones and reading the Manchester Guardian Weekly. I’d no idea the Queen had been to the USA or that Angus Wilson and Coral Browne had died.
I went into town, bought a book and had some photos taken at the Instant Photo shop – instant meaning ready by Monday lunchtime. You go into a backroom hung with posters of Alla Pugacheva and nymphs with wet clinging T-shirts, and a middle-aged woman with an apron and wooden camera tripod sizes you up and shifts the tripod around depending what size photo you want. She stomped up to me and silently yanked my head around until it was straight.
The hefty cashier in the milk shop was sitting in her vest, applying make-up into her compact. A drunk had missed the bench outside my back window and was lying flat on his back on the ground with his arms outstretched. The local grocery shop, the size of the average Spar, has been totally empty for the first five months of my stay here. Now they’ve closed off most of it and opened two stalls selling cigarettes, sausage and cake – less than you’d see at an average boy scout sale. The woman rummages in a big cardboard box to get you your change.
Moscow Diary Page 12