I had spent seven hours on Sunday working on a radio talk about the death penalty, and really trying to tailor it to a local audience and make the Russian alive. On Wednesday I went up to the radio station at Ostankino to give it. There was no pass waiting for me and no one would help me by phone or at the desk. As I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and had spent so long preparing my piece, I was suddenly infuriated and made a huge scene at the pass desk, until the woman wiped the dumb insolence off her face, made some phone calls and got me in. I heard her say warily to someone on the other end of the phone, “Her Russian’s good”, and it is good enough now to answer back. But I felt physically ill again afterwards. Something spiralled downwards inside and I felt as though my battery had gone flat. God knows what my face looked like, but everyone who passed me did a double-take and looked again. However, it was quite an achievement actually to get in and read the thing.
I’ve been flogging off my empty jam jars at the Danilov Market to the honey and dairy traders. Fifty roubles on the nail. Not bad. I also took my jeans to the dry cleaners. As I’m leaving the area she offered to do them urgently and stuck 10 roubles in the back pocket for the driver. A bit of free enterprise between the two of them.
During the week I had lunch with the Portuguese Ambassador who was wanting to have Amnesty’s material about the Caucasus. We ate our way through four years of Viktor’s salary, but I have to say it was very nice. A plate of mixed cheeses in thin slices. Lovely. I’ve rehired Tolya on a new contract, and he has made me a bookend. When I was in the office this week, unpacking more papers, he unexpectedly turned up to size up his next tasks. It’s very nice to be back with his reliability and support. Tonight Zaure phoned from Kazakhstan: she’s formed an Amnesty group in Alma-Ata. I felt immensely satisfied.
Friday 24 January
This was the morning that Sasha Lukin and I went to the Peruvian Embassy – a funny, dusty place, more like an obscure trade office than an embassy. They were a bit dismissive in their tone to begin with, but they weren’t by the end. Sasha’s been very good and conscientious about this and I enjoyed planning our tactics with him.
I stayed home the rest of the day waiting for the promised delivery of the six boxes from customs, which didn’t come. They’d changed plans, but hadn’t told me “because it’s a zoo here”. Very winning apology. I packed up the flat until about 11.00pm.
Saturday 25 January
End of a chapter, as I move from Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street. It was a beautiful day with a translucent sky. In the morning the massive milk queue suddenly took direct action and queued across the road, bringing the traffic to a halt. A row of women stood, ignoring the lorries revving at their left ear and, funnily enough, no one blew their horns. At the same time the church bells were tolling and I passed the young man up in the scaffolding, pulling the ropes. A nice scene to remember the place by.
Yelena’s husband, Stanislav, came round at 2.00pm and was terrific, pulling the last things – and me – together. I had really been flagging. We were able to sit for a couple of hours over tea we’d brewed in a jam jar. The movers came at 4.00pm. The driver climbed in through my door because his wouldn’t open, started the engine with two live wires, and we were off. As we bombed along Leninsky Prospekt with the Kaluga Gates looming up against the evening sky and the statue of Yury Gagarin in the distance, I suddenly felt excited about moving. When we arrived at the flat, however, there was rather an unfortunate series of understandings about the rent and my moving-in date: they had thought I would move in only on 1 February. I was sitting there wondering when they would leave and they must have been wondering the same about me. Eventually they left, although I would have been happier to go myself. It is a lovely flat but there is actually little space for office things. As I unpacked I decided this was a good thing, and that it is time to shift over to the office more.
Before they left, Misha began a sinister conversation with me which left me feeling very upset. He said how pampered the West is, and so how much weaker than Russia. “So don’t think you’re Number One.” He then quoted Bulgakov, to the effect that God punishes, but the devil smoothes your way. “I do you good, but I wish you evil.” It was horrible. He thinks most people are animals. I think I was talking to a literal fascist.
Sunday 26 January
Yesterday’s lovely weather continues. I spent the day out skiing in Kuskovo Park with Irina, and listening to Vysotsky with her and her mum. Irina was immensely kind: she knew I was tired out and upset by Misha’s talk last night. Over lunch Natalya Ivanovna began musing over the political scene and blamed the West for being “deceived”. Hearing another onslaught as the eponymous representative of the West made my heart just sink, but Irina stepped in and said, “Not all Westerners.”
When I got home I drafted my next radio talk till midnight.
Monday 27 January
It’s a good bed in this flat and I’m beginning to get over my fatigue. I borrowed money to give Misha as rent, and he came round with flowers.
At 3.00pm I met Natasha from the House of Architects to discuss a sign for the office. She’s been in the wars. A water heater exploded and somehow burned off the hair on one side of her head. In August she’d also been in the underpass at Pushkin Square when the police let off some tear gas with no warning. She only got a sniff, when she turned and ran like everyone else, but she still sounds as though she has a heavy cold. It was just before the coup and she thinks they were practising. But in an underpass… ye gods!
At night Irina and I went to a good concert by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. They played a Schnittke piece, commemorating the bloodshed on 13 January 1991 in Vilnius. It was a bit trite, but sitting in that audience with everyone remembering the horrible atmosphere of those days and what happened later in Moscow, I was moved. Some people rose to their feet at the end. The orchestra ended with a fantastic quartet Shostakovich wrote about the Second World War. If you listen to that kind of thing in a British concert, it sounds a bit academic and you feel half the audience is struggling with the discordance. Here it was perfect.
Tuesday 28 January
Up at 7.00am to finish my radio piece, then over to “Memorial” to record it. They were pleased with the content, but I made an awful mess of reading it. I’m beginning to master that style of writing in Russian though.
At lunch I went across town to look at office furniture in a Polish shop. Disappointing. Irina came back to see the new flat. She has got an abscess in her gum and needs to have another tooth out, but can’t afford to deal with either, as it would cost over 500 roubles. People’s health must really be deteriorating here. She said that although nothing is organised here or works to plan, there’s a sense of organisation behind the chaos. I know what she means.
In the evening I did all the office accounts from November onwards. I’ve woken up almost every day with a dislocated jaw these past weeks. Probably tension. Today it lasted till 5.00pm and gave me a headache and pain in the back of the neck.
Wednesday 29 January
Last night I saw on TV that the new draft Russian Criminal Code will whittle the death penalty down to one or two crimes. The Lithuanian Embassy told me they’ve abolished it except for murder. I wonder if Amnesty played any part in this.
I don’t really know why, but I’m feeling jaded and despondent about things. It is all just too much having to badger London and everyone here about everything. I’m losing the drive. It’s partly because the underside of life is showing itself here. I gave my keys to the old flat back today, and the landlord said he’d shown someone round the flat on Sunday. How did he know I moved out on Saturday, unless he’s connected to the people who listen to my phone? I’d overpaid him for one translation and so sorted it out today. He’d known but kept quiet about it, and today made excuses to cover his dishonesty. For devilment I spoke in English throughout the conversation and watched him struggling for words
for a change.
Tonight I had a very strange phone call from a former prisoner, who has now moved back to Moscow from the USA. How did he know my new number? His questions were very nosy and odd.
The landlord told me he is now the Moscow representative of a Belgian humanitarian organisation. Help.
Thursday 30 January
There was a light blizzard all day and a zero-degree temperature. I had a productive time, changing money, getting my plane ticket and dropping in to Izvestiya, where Valery Rudnev told me the GKChP wives have appealed to Amnesty, and Izvestiya wants to publish our reply. Tricky.
I also had an appointment with the Central Prefektura about our rent, and am gratified that we have got the charity rate of 70 roubles. It involved five minutes’ actual work, but I was there one and a half hours. It is a disgusting, shambolic place. A fight broke out in the queue, of the “Shut your face!”, “You’re a loony!” variety, among people who had been waiting for three hours. When I eventually got into the room, two secretaries were standing in the windows, applying their make-up and discussing their shopping with their backs to the room. So I sat there along with three men, who didn’t say anything the whole one and a half hours. Down the corridor a man was shouting and hitting things in an office.
The striking thing was that everyone who came in with an application was reasonable and intelligent, but none of them understood what they were supposed to be doing, or why. I certainly don’t. Working like this must be so unsatisfactory for the people actually in the offices too. I noticed the phone was permanently off the hook, which explains why I can never get through.
In the evening Irina and I went to hear Yuly Kim singing at the Moscow Energy Institute. He did one song lasting about two hours called ‘Moscow Kitchens’, tracing the history of the human rights movement and ending with a roll of honour. A child burst into tears. I had to sit with a pair of gloves down the back of my neck, there was such a draught.
Desperate Donnegan says that Vasilyev, the head of the fascist Pamyat group, lives above the bread shop in Serpukhovskaya Street. Maybe that explains the chauvinistic sign in their window when the Leningrad singer, Talkov, was assassinated.
Knowing I’m leaving tomorrow, I was hit by a great wave of relief. I’m beset by problems I just can’t solve and I’m glad to run away. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Bye!
POSTSCRIPT
Monday 17 February
This time I am trucking five lightshades with me, a roll of Amnesty posters and a ream of photocopying paper. I’ll be glad not to do this anymore. Had beautiful flights, my luggage was second off the carousel, and a very civil cab driver immediately drove me home for roubles. Inside the flat I found everything had changed. Half the furniture had gone and two beds smelling stale and smoky had been put in the front room. I’ll be glad not to be a tenant in someone else’s flat anymore too.
The night news was interesting. I was struck by how much serious work is being put into the new situation all over the country. You don’t necessarily get that impression from the foreign media.
Tuesday 18 February
The temperature has dropped to -16 degrees, but it was a bright, sunny day. It’s very hard to keep energetic and enthusiastic about the string of bureaucratic things I have to do, which I don’t understand and which seem to lead nowhere, very slowly. Today I planned to get the rent agreement stamped by PREO, REU and the Central Prefektura. Don’t ask me what any of the initials mean because I haven’t got a clue. At PREO they told me, “It’s not that easy”, and I have to phone them back at the end of the week.
There were forty-one good letters waiting for me at the post office, most of them in response to my Sovetskaya Justitsiya interview. My new landlord came round for the rent, showing me articles from the Kommersant newspaper and spreading doom about the economic situation. Occupational pastime of landlords.
The bright spot was a phone call from Tolya. He’s installed the burglar alarm, found a fridge, and has started the palaver involved in getting us a phone. He’d also bought me an electric samovar which he knew I wanted. What a pal. He’s trying to repair his flat at the same time, before moving out and letting it, so is frantically busy.
Wednesday 19 February
Spent another day waiting in for Amnesty’s six boxes from Customs, which did not come.
I wrote about fifteen letters today. I was struck by the tone of the letters I get from prisoners. It’s like an anonymous choir of protective voices, with some very sober comments about the present situation. Their letters really stand out from the others I receive.
In the evening I ate with Irina and her mother. Natalya Ivanovna has started sewing napkins to supplement their income. She did six in one evening and they are beautiful.
Thursday 20 February
I was given a carrot in my change today. Back in 1975 it was balloons. The exchange rate for foreign currency is now falling, presumably because of some central intervention to cut down the number of roubles swimming round. Meanwhile the prices are still rising. I no longer know what is cheap and what is exorbitant, because the old scale of values has disappeared.
Huge quantities of goods are on sale on the pavement at each metro, like an oriental bazaar, if it wasn’t -16 degrees with snow on the ground. There are hunks of meat, huge cheeses, champagne, honey and mayonnaise. Tolya says some things in the market are now cheaper than in the state shops. I bought halva at the metro for 20 roubles and found it was stale. There was a news programme warning about diseased meat on the streets.
I took Amnesty material to Nikolay Vedernikov at the Russian Constitutional Court and he gave me tea and an hour’s conversation, to my surprise. He also wanted to order me a car from their pool, as it was so cold, but I refused. It was an interesting chat, about life behind the scenes at the court. He seems genuinely responsive to any comments Amnesty wishes to make about the constitution, and gave me a copy of the court’s judgements and also the draft Criminal Code. A nice young man carried my briefcase up and down the corridors, holding his jacket closed over a bulge at the waist. I asked him, “Is that a walkie-talkie?” – no reply – “Or a gun?” and he nodded.
Irina had managed to filch me a copy of the draft Russian Constitution from her library, so I photocopied it today, for 70 roubles. Then I did the rounds of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz embassies, delivering letters from London about Amnesty’s imminent mission to Soviet Central Asia. I struck lucky with the Kazakhs and was shown straight to a young man in the Political Department who knew all about it. He was a political scientist and so forthcoming and pleasant that I’m sure he was very smart.
I got home about 3.00pm, and as is the trouble here, immediately fell asleep. Why is it so exhausting? Later I listened to English-language tapes Irina had lent me. A cut-glass voice was saying, “Avoid stress altogether and you put off that coronary for a few years.” Odd tape. There was a section on relaxation but I never got to the end of it because I fell asleep again.
Thursday 21 February
Paid an early morning visit to Nina Petrovna, to take her relief money for some former prisoners of conscience. She was looking grey in the face and has to go away to a sanatorium for treatment for an irregular heartbeat. As usual I enjoyed my talk with her, and as usual she was funny and generous about everyone. She had been interrogated in 1979 after the arrest of Tatyana Velikanova, the woman who edited the underground human rights journal, A Chronicle of Current Events. However, Nina Petrovna had written a statement in advance, refusing to testify, because she considered Tatyana Velikanova “to be an ideal person, incapable of a criminal act”. Everyone says that about Tatyana Velikanova. She must be quite a person.
Nina Petrovna thinks that Soviet informers should be exposed, at least those who did it for money, as they actually got paid through their wage packets and are clearly traceable. However, the lists of their names should not be made widely p
ublic. She herself had been trying to change money, to provide relief for ex-prisoners, and was amused to see the window in the Savings Bank was called “Currency Operations”. That was the exact wording of the old law forbidding currency dealings. True to form though, underneath the window, it said, “We have no money”.
In the afternoon Natalya Ivanovna took me to her local furniture shop to buy a kitchen table and chairs for the office. Rather nice stuff, and not expensive. We had lunch together, and after Irina came back from work, tea. One of the Moscow Amnesty group had organised an exhibition of modernist photography, and so tonight I went along to the opening night. It was like stepping into Kensington, looking at the clothes and hairstyles on display.
In the few days I’ve been back, my jaw has dislocated again and the eczema has come back all over my thumb.
Saturday 22 February
One unpredictable effect of living here is that I now love Janis Joplin.
It’s hard to distinguish the real situation here from people’s reaction to it. Natalya Ivanovna and Irina were saying how they feel their sphere of freedom is gradually shrinking, which I found hard to believe – but today Tolya said, semi-joking, that before you had to have a pass to get to the Estonian coast, but now you need a visa just to get to Estonia. Viktor’s mother says for the first time that she wants to emigrate. One of the last straws for her is that tickets to Lithuania are now 100 roubles, so they can no longer afford to go.
Moscow Diary Page 26