by Henry Landau
One could not miss the Russians in Berlin; there were thousands of them there, more than in any of the other large capitals of Europe. Many of them, especially the wives and daughters, were very popular with the members of the control commission and with some of the attachés of the different embassies, and it was in this milieu that I first became acquainted with them.
I was delighted. All of them had travelled much, and had lived interesting lives. In addition to listening to the adventures which they had gone through during the revolution and in escaping from Russia, I heard graphic descriptions of Russia, Turkestan, and Siberia, and tales about the Cossacks and the Kirghiz. Most of them had lived at the Russian court, and had a stock of stories about the Tsar and the baneful influence of the superstitious Tsarina on her weak husband, about the Grand Dukes, the court balls, and the lavish entertainments that went on in Petrograd and Moscow before the revolution, and about Rasputin and the scandals connected with him.
Some of them had been with the White armies of Kolchak, Youdenish, Denikin, or Wrangel; they were quite willing to recognise their own mistakes, but from their recital of events, it was quite evident that they had been left in the lurch by the Allies. There was no excuse for the betrayal of Kolchak by the Czechs. It amazed me constantly to see the tolerance with which they took this major catastrophe. It was, however, the same fatalistic attitude which I had known among the Russian refugees in Paris – an air so compounded of stoicism and apparent frivolity that one scarcely knew how to judge them.
Things did not go so badly for these refugees at the start. Some had been able to get hold of a certain amount of money in foreign currencies before they escaped, others had been able to secure their jewels. Accustomed, however, to luxury and extravagance, most of them spent every penny they possessed before trying to engage themselves in some occupation which could secure for them a livelihood. Berlin had practically nothing to offer them in the way of fixed employment; thousands of its own people were out of work. They could not get out of Germany, as they had no passports; the League of Nations had not yet started issuing them, and they had no inclination to ask them of their Bolshevik enemies, who had now been recognised by the Germans as the de facto government.
All that remained then was to join the band of financial adventurers with which Berlin swarmed. Some were remarkably successful; the majority failed completely, and how they ever got enough to eat was a mystery to me. I felt dreadfully sorry for these refugees scattered over the face of the earth; they were not only here, but in every capital of Europe. Many years later, when I visited China, I even found them in Shanghai, half-starved, living in the filth and squalor of the Chinese quarter.
Although as a class they could be criticised for their treatment of the Russian people, and for the mess which they had made not only in governing, but in refusing to see the writing on the wall months ahead, and for their futile attempts to stop the revolution when it did come; yet, for the most part, as individuals, they were not responsible for a system which had been handed down for generations, and which they had learned to accept as part of their heritage. They endured adversity with an astounding philosophy; they were always willing to help each other by sharing whatever they had, and they were invariably cheerful, at least on the surface, even though perhaps they did not have the price of a meal in their pockets.
Some of them held up under the strain; others it broke. Prince K., a former governor of Riga, worked in a department store, and could smile at the strange tricks fate had played him, while poor Prince Pavlik O. took to drugs, and died as a result shortly afterwards. He was the son of the former Russian ambassador to Italy, and, in addition to vast estates, had owned most of the sugar-mills in Russia. For a while he lived on the money which a rich Romanian friend had loaned him. After this, he went around fruitlessly trying to sell an interest in his mills, which he was still in hopes would be returned to him someday. Von Malzahn, who was then in the Foreign Office, and who was later the German ambassador in Washington, was very kind to him. They had known each other when von Malzahn was a young attaché in Petrograd before the war. Prince O. took me around to see him one evening. As we sat and talked, I could see the look of pity in von Malzahn’s eyes; he remembered Prince O. in better days.
Where you have Russians, there you will have parties, restaurants, cabarets, and clubs. They love to gather together for a celebration, and above all to talk. Every one of them is a musician; they all know their folk-songs, and love not only to listen but to participate in them. On festive occasions, in their private homes and elsewhere, the meals are always accompanied by bursts of song which produce a general spirit of camaraderie and an indescribable gaiety. Russian friends of mine will remember the palatial flat which I had just off the Kurfurstendamm; I could afford it during the inflation. Here, when I could spare the time, we assembled and sang those never-to-be-forgotten gipsy songs to the accompaniment of a guitarist who was a master. He was an old Turk, who had played before many a Grand Duke; their names and those of many others were inscribed on his instrument.
Sakuskis – hors d’oeuvres which the Russians can consume by the hour – and vodka were plentiful, and we drank innumerable toasts; I learned to drink my first charochka, an intimate ritual among friends where each in turn has a toast sung to him while he drains his glass to the last drop.
As far as restaurants were concerned, it was at Olivier’s on the Motzstrasse that we generally gathered. Olivier had been head chef to the Tsar, and his cooking gave me a taste for Russian food which ever since has led me off in search of a Russian restaurant in whatever town I have visited. Alas, I have often suffered, for every Russian is not a good cook. It was at Olivier’s, too, that I heard those gipsy entertainers, the very best in Tsarist Russia, who had followed the émigrés into exile. Who can equal Gulescu, or even Iliescu on the violin, or Raphael on the accordion, or the deep-throated notes of Nastia Poliakova, in their rendering of this haunting music? For those who wish to hear them, they are now probably to be found in Paris at the Restaurant Muscovite in the rue Caumartin, at ‘La Maisonette’, or at Casanova’s; some, perhaps, are still in Berlin.
It was not all amusement or self-deception with the Russians in Berlin. A good many of them seriously tried to retrieve their fortunes, and it was quite natural that they should turn their attention to their own country. Their schemes generally involved some sort of concession, which the Bolsheviks, pressed for money, were now granting to foreign capitalists. In the background, one frequently found some White Russian acting as technical adviser. At first I listened to the typical Russian enthusiasm surrounding these plans with friendly indifference, but as I thought over the possibilities, my professional interest and my personal curiosity sprang into a new hope. My affairs in Germany were hanging fire; I had options on at least a dozen interesting inventions, and had spent considerable time and money investigating them and trying to dispose of them, only to see a lack of vision and fear of losing money prevent industrial concerns from investing in them readily. Many of these companies today, I know, regret their lack of courage. It was natural, then, that I should grasp at the opportunity to find myself a new field. And here it was.
I spent hours with former Russian owners, going over plans for concessions of every description: manganese, timber, oil, river transportation on the Volga, pigs’ bristles, casings, and trading in every form. Eventually, encouraged by the success of the German concessions of Dr Wirth and others, I set out for London to arrange a trip to Moscow.
In London, among the many English holders of Russian bonds, among owners of confiscated property in Russia, and in the various commercial circles, I discovered a great deal of interest in these concessions, and found myself rushed into a series of interviews at the clubs – if not at the Junior Carlton or White’s, then at the Devonshire or St James’s.
All this culminated in a small holding company being formed by half a dozen persons, of whom one was a peer, one the wife of a baronet, one the direct
or of a steel works, and another a director of a large company trading with India. I was commissioned by this group to proceed to Moscow to negotiate for a general trading concession on the most favourable terms I could secure. It was planned, when this had been obtained, to float a larger company, to include manufacturers who would be interested in buying from or selling to Russia. In the new company I was to have a directorship.
On leaving London, I felt that I was undertaking quite an adventure, for it was early in 1924, and a departure for Russia was still considered news by the papers. So far only a very few foreigners had been allowed to enter the country, and the number of Englishmen had been confined to a few isolated cases. Forced by necessity, a few European concessions were being granted, but if my journey were successful, mine would be the first trade agreement, on a concession basis, made between Russia and an English company. It was quite obvious that foreigners were not wanted at all in the country, and, of course, tourists were unheard of.
I did not think I was incurring any risks by entering Russia, but I did feel that I was taking a journey into the unknown. I had heard enough about Bolshevik atrocities and about the Cheka, or its successor, the GPU, to make me feel uncomfortable, and the long wait of three weeks before Moscow sent permission for my visa to be granted was not heart-warming. Possibly this was simply the usual Russian delay, to which I became accustomed later on; possibly my association with the secret service was known to the Russian Police, and they felt inclined to question my motives and arrange for a supervision of my movements. Watched in Russia I certainly was – but of that later; in my last days in England it was not any dread of espionage that haunted me, and kept me arguing continually to myself that, after all, mine was a simply harmless commercial enterprise. It was rather, I think, the feeling one has in walking over a trackless plain in the dark, in unfamiliar country: the new Russia was unpredictable, a completely unknown quantity, and I was uneasy before it as one is always uneasy before blankness.
On my arrival in Berlin, where I intended stopping over a couple of days, my mission took on an entirely different aspect. No sooner did my Russian friends hear that I was on my way to Moscow, than I was besieged by requests. Each in turn wanted me to do something for him – to look up relatives or friends, or to examine some piece of property, the return of which was still hoped for. I promised to do my best, and said goodbye to them with a feeling of sadness. I realised that the very fact of my journey must fill them anew with the ache of homesickness; I was on my way to their native land, which, perhaps, they would never see again.
I was packing my bags in great haste at the Adlon Hotel when a telephone message announced that Prince M. was in the lobby and wished to see me. Asked up to my room, he announced on entering that he had an important matter which he wished to discuss with me.
‘I can’t give you much time,’ I replied. ‘I am leaving by the eight o’clock train, and it is now six; I still have to pack and get my dinner.’ What he had to tell me, however, was of such interest that I delayed my departure without objection for twenty-four hours.
Prince M. was one of the few Russians in Berlin who was still comparatively well off. Before the war, he had maintained a palatial home in Paris, in which he had placed a few of the priceless old masters from his magnificent private collection in Russia. He had been fortunate enough to get a good price for them, and had been living on the proceeds. When I first met him I had mistaken him for a Scot: he spoke English with a pronounced Scottish accent, acquired from his boyhood governess. She had spent thirty years in his family, and had remained with them in Russia until about six months previously, when the family had persuaded her at last to return to Scotland. I had met her on her way through Berlin, and had been amused at the similarity of their speech.
I had seen quite a lot of Prince M. in Berlin, and from him had learned a great deal about his family history. He worried continually about his old father, who still remained in Leningrad in spite of his many endeavours to get a visa from the Bolsheviki to leave the country. ‘They are after our family jewels,’ he told me on several occasions. ‘Our emeralds are famous throughout Russia, and the Bolsheviki refuse to believe my father’s story that I escaped with them. That is why they are holding him.’ Naturally then, I was all attention on the evening of my departure, when he spoke once more about the jewels.
‘My father has them hidden away. The stones have been removed from their settings, and it will be simple to transport them,’ he urged eagerly. ‘I will give you the password which the governess brought me from my father, so that you will be secretly identified at home. Are you willing to bring them out for me? It is purely a business proposition; I can pay you £500 if you are successful.’
My first impulse was to refuse, for the money did not interest me in the least. I certainly placed a higher value on my safety. I was already nervous about my trip, and I knew that should I be caught, there would be trouble. I did not relish getting involved with the Bolsheviki; they had already demonstrated that they were not afraid to mete out the severest punishment to foreigners. My love of adventure carried me off, however, and before I was well aware what I was doing, I had told Prince M. that I would not accept the money, but that I was willing to undertake the job. Armed with the password and the address of his father in Leningrad, I continued my journey the next evening, considerably more perturbed in mind than when I had left London. I reproached myself for giving way too easily. Here I was on a trip to Russia to arrange a concession in which I hoped to build up a future, and yet I was jeopardising it right from the start by engaging myself on a foolhardy side-issue. But I knew myself well enough to be aware that, had I been able to withdraw, I would not have done so.
From everything I had heard of eastern Europe in those days, I was prepared to feel that I should be jumping from the edge of civilisation at the Russian border. The sensation arrived even earlier. At Wirballen, I crossed the border into Lithuania, the most uninteresting country I have ever been in; when I saw the mud in the streets and the huts out of which Kovno is composed, I readily understood the remark which a Pole once made to me during the Lithuanian conflict – that Poland would never bother to seize Lithuania, because it isn’t worth having.
On the other hand, Riga, the capital of Latvia, was quite a city. It was built on the German plan: the dwellings were all large buildings, with a flat of nine or ten rooms to each floor. The streets were wide, and parts of the town closely resembled certain sections of Berlin. However, the best hotel, the Hotel de Rome, where I spent the night, was a great disappointment. I was nearly eaten up by the bedbugs. In the morning, when I approached the desk clerk with a grim look on my face, he smiled serenely, and before I could get a word in, he countered: ‘Yes, it is terrible, I know, but we will never be able to get rid of them until we strip the papers off the walls. It is a souvenir that the Bolsheviki left us.’ One bright spot I found – a small German restaurant, recommended by Prince K. I had an excellent lunch there; it was the last good meal I was to have for three weeks.
That evening I left for Moscow, and at about 10 p.m. got to the border, where we changed into a Russian train. It was Labour Day; all the cars were decorated with red flags, and the front of the engine carried a huge sickle and hammer, the emblem of the USSR. I was to meet the same colour and the same emblem at every turn during the whole of my stay in Russia.
I was prepared for anything after my experience at the Hotel de Rome, but to my surprise, the train was clean and comfortable. The conductor provided me with tea, piping hot, at regular intervals; this was a privilege, for the few other travellers made their own from the supply of boiling water they got at the stations. Food we carried with us. I had rebelled somewhat at the annoyance of it when I departed from Riga, but I recognised it as a necessity when I saw the food that was on sale at the various stopping-places. I was thankful for the kindly advice and the ample supply of sandwiches which the Riga restaurant owner had supplied me with.
Along the
railway I got my first glimpse of Russia; its rolling hills, stretches of forest – birch trees and pines – reminded me of eastern Canada. But here the likeness ceased; typical of Russia alone were the peasants, all dressed alike, dirty and ill-kept, wandering aimlessly up and down the platform, waiting for the great event of the day, the arrival of the train. From time to time one caught glimpses of relics of the old regime: a departed aristocrat’s country mansion crumbling to ruin in a partitioned estate, or in the villages the church with its five minarets, a large one for Christ and four smaller ones for the gospels.
The hot and tiresome journey dragged on for some thirty-six hours, but at last we were in Moscow. From a distance I was dazzled by the sight – the sun beating down on hundreds of golden minarets gave me the impression of an Arabian Nights city. At the station, however, the first impression seemed a mirage, a mere vision which faded before the depressing reality of new Russia. The place was packed with humanity, people as usual standing about aimlessly, with apparently no reason for having come there and no reason to go away. In the enclosed space their odour was overpowering. They were like a horde of robots, with no distinctions except of age and size, to tell one from another. Their passivity, their dull lack of expression, their absence of any self-direction, made them seem cut and stamped to pattern by a machine. Not a sign of individuality, of self-respect, or taste, did I see. There was not one white collar or tie in the crowd; I did not, in fact, see one during the whole of my stay in Russia.
Outside the station I hailed a cab-driver, who took me to the Savoy Hotel, reserved for foreign visitors. I soon discovered it to be the only hotel open in Moscow. I was the only guest there. The rooms were clean and comfortable, but terribly expensive. In Russian chervonetz I paid the equivalent of £3 per day for a room, plus £1 for each bath I took; the food, which was very poor, was correspondingly dear. I made a rapid calculation of the cost per diem, and resolved to get out of Moscow as quickly as possible, but my resolution was in vain, for it took me three weeks to secure my concession.