Moscow Diary Read online

  The Clemency Commission had decided to pardon Andrey Zapevalov, five votes to two, on 11 March. Now it is up to Gorbachev to have the final say. Lydia seems to be less hopeful than before. She has a recurring dream that Andrey phones and says, “Mama”. She looks out of the window and sees him looking at her in the courtyard. She waves him to come in but he thinks she is saying “go away”, and turns round and walks off. She runs after him but he is already at a crossroads in the distance and beyond her reach.

  We had quite a peaceful hour. As we sat on a bench an old man came up raging about “this savage country”, because someone had used planks from the other bench to make a bonfire. “They’re criminals! Criminals!” he shouted, absolutely beside himself.

  She took me to a café. I said no to goulash but while I was sitting enjoying a cucumber salad she whipped out a huge sausage and ham from her bag and sliced some of it onto bread for me. I really must get out of this stupid position, because I felt I had to eat a piece but was trying not to gag as I did so. Lydia is really made for happier times; she is very warm, ready to laugh and a real sensualist.

  Afterwards I rushed to Sergey Gitman’s to collect materials for Amnesty’s Women’s Campaign, which I am going to photocopy. They opened the door with much laughter and pleasant smiling: apparently they had turned the house upside down but could not find the materials, so Sergey was going to have to retype it all. I felt a combination of my heart sinking and my blood pressure rising and wanted to reach for a cigarette. However, I sat it out and even though I only got home at 8.00pm, it was all quite enjoyable. There is a relaxed and smiling atmosphere in their home, and although Sergey was meant to be racing against time to finish the job, he kept moving to the easychair and telling me another story. I kept thinking, “What are we doing talking about this?”, but enjoying it all anyway.

  From another part of the flat we could hear someone playing Debussy Etudes very well, then Dave Brubeck. They told me it was their nine-year-old son, Alexander. I visualised a small genius with huge specs, but popped my head round the door and found a nice and normal boy playing, with his budgerigar – Elizabeth Beast – sitting on the keys.

  As I was tired when I got home I asked Viktor if he would come to me, but he was ill and so I went over to him. Two hundred copies of Amnesty’s death penalty report were stacked in his grandmother’s room for Viktor to distribute to the Russian Supreme Soviet. His grandmother was totally confused by them, and told me she didn’t need them and they should have gone to a shop. “They’re all by the same authors and they all say the same thing,” she said. She very nicely made me a cup of tea in their best china, but it was lukewarm and full of sugar. She wouldn’t let me take it through to the other room, so I had to sit and drink it in front of her, trying not to gag. She went off to bed and I later asked Viktor where the pigeon was. It was apparently asleep in the grandmother’s room with her and the death penalty reports. Poor woman.

  In amongst all these comings and goings I managed to buy a pint of milk.

  Thursday 21 March

  I was at Viktor Zarsky’s by 8.30am giving him mailings for Minsk. He’s probably the nicest person I’ve met here. I then went for breakfast with a visitor from the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights in New York, at the Communist Party Central Committee’s hotel. It’s the anonymous modern and prosperous building on Dimitrov Street, which has electronic gates. Inside there’s some nice lighting, plants, wood and marble. Apparently Richard Nixon is staying here, and Ivan Polozkov, head of the Russian Communist Party, lives here, because the Moscow Soviet won’t give him house room. As I was waiting outside Mary’s room, “Knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door” came wafting over the sound system.

  Mary’s here arranging exchanges and seminars on the independence of the judiciary. I ate steadily throughout our meeting. There’s going to be a human rights conference here in September of all the governments who are part of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mary said the Lawyers’ Committee is planning to focus only on the USSR, because in their view “it’s really a conference on the human rights situation here”. I said Amnesty would be focusing on human rights in all the participating states, dropping a sour lemon into the generally pleasant conversation.

  I was home by 10.30am and had a fruitful hour of phone calls to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow News and the Moscow Amnesty group. Then I went over to Krasnopresnensky to see Zhukov about the premises and up to Hella and Siffra’s, to use their photocopier for our material on the Women’s Campaign.

  At night I grappled with my accounts, ready for going home. Heather rang from Kiev, pretty tired but extremely excited by the beginnings of a new group in Drohobych. Good! We are beginning to take off here.

  I was very thirsty in the afternoon and bought what I thought was flavoured mineral water in a green bottle, outside the metro. I asked the man if he would help me open the top. He said uncertainly, “Are you going to drink it?” I took a mouthful and found it was cooking oil. Didn’t know whether to spit it out all over 1905 Street station or swallow, but eventually swallowed it. I was running to the toilet for the next four hours.

  Friday 22 March

  Another day which began promptly at 9.00am and ended with my last visitor at 11.30pm, and last phone call at midnight. In the morning I put together a long letter and materials for Galina Starovoytova, asking amongst other things if she would nudge Krasnopresnensky Premises Fund about our office when I am away in the UK.

  As I was writing to her I got so many calls making confusing arrangements, that when Aleksandr Golding from the Sakharov Foundation arrived at the door, I just stared at him blankly. I was up a ladder changing a light bulb at the time, and although we’d never met before he took his coat off and went straight up the ladder, like a ferret up a drainpipe.

  I had lunch down at Valentina’s. She’s now feverishly optimistic that the “democrats” will “win” by autumn, because of a Nostradamus prophecy. I don’t know how we get from here to there. After a visit to the Deputy Editor of Moscow News, who promised to advertise our Thirtieth Anniversary Campaign, I went to meet Zaure, Viktor Zarsky’s friend from Kazakhstan.

  It was a very memorable three hours at the flat where she is staying on the Arbat. I can’t think I ever have conversations like that outside the USSR – we started off strangers and left arm in arm. She’s a molecular biologist at the Academy of Sciences and a Party member in her mid-thirties, with an exceptionally pleasant manner. She gave me some interesting insights: because Kazakhs have always been herdspeople, she reckons that land privatisation will mean big purchases for outside buyers. In Uzbekistan, where the population works the land, she reckons the locals will benefit from privatisation. She reckons blood will be spilt in the USSR by winter, but that Kazakhstan may escape the worst; simply because the President is in such a vulnerable position he is being very responsive to all sectors of the population. Zaure adores European classical music. “How about Renaissance music?” I asked, but she said no, the Renaissance was a dark, deeply European tradition that she does not like. That puts us in our place.

  We talked a lot about Amnesty, God, different styles of friendship. Through the Afghan-Vietnam veterans’ work she does she’s met a lot of people from the US. One had stayed with her for two weeks, then one day had cut her dead, which devastated her. She mentioned it again later. In some ways US and Soviet friendship does seem like opposite ends of a pole.

  From there I hiked down to the Moscow Hotel to speak with Galina Starovoytova’s assistant, Ludmilla. The TV was on in the lobby, booming through the ground floor and she said Galina was sharing the platform in Leningrad with Yeltsin. We watched together, and it seemed quite a fateful address, presumably part of his election campaign for the 28 March Congress. A lot of deputies from the hotel were glued to the set. Ludmilla Vasilievna reckons there will be violence here by summer.

  Hurried home to pack
for going home tomorrow. The phone suddenly went dead for three hours, just before Lydia Zapevalova arrived, bearing gifts for the Amnesty team in London. She immediately began dismantling the rags that bind the phone lead together and started knotting wires together. I must say Soviet guests are immensely practical. Last thing at night Dr Savenko rolled up.

  Two odd things about the landlord: he waived the phone bill (only 2 roubles, but never mind). He then referred in passing to the many visits I’ve made to the USSR. He doesn’t actually know I’ve made many visits here. As far as he is aware this is only my second. I wonder if he has been making enquiries, or if he always knew.

  I saw a vivid scene today. Officials in leather coats were stacking boxes of Panasonic equipment into the back of an official car, running backwards and forwards from an official building. A few yards down the street a man with a banner was collecting food and money for the striking miners, and a poor couple were giving him money. Perhaps the Panasonic equipment was for orphans, but I kind of doubt it. I just felt, God, the Party has got it coming to it.

  I am continually struck by the beautiful faces I see on the escalators and in the metro. Russians seem immensely physical somehow and today I tried to think how. They’re not healthy, like some Californian fitness people, but they seem to express themselves and to be fully present in their bodies. With the Californian “type”, you’re not particularly aware of anything expressing itself. Physical, spontaneous, subtle, brutal, collective, dark – I suddenly thought, We’re talking “anima” here. Equally suddenly it seemed clear that for all its similarities, the US is the land of the animus. And Britain somehow doesn’t figure in this scheme of things!

  I rang the head of the USSR Clemency Commission to express our London office’s interest in the outcome of Andrey Zapevalov’s case. It is due to come before Gorbachev in the next ten days. Cheremnykh is a big fan of our Secretary General, it turns out. He said, “We will do everything we can to save that young man’s life.” He will present the case to Gorbachev.

  Saturday 23 March

  Terribly excited about going home today. In the time I’d set aside for packing I was visited by Nikolay, Sergey, Jon, Phil, John and Chris. It was too much and I made a total mess of packing, leaving my camera on the floor and all my things in the bathroom.

  Nikolay came to the airport with me and kept me company for an hour. It was good of him, but he was really having a field day. He started by saying that he didn’t like Arabs in a group, then later said how hard he’d found it working with Jamaicans at a conference last year, but they were “niggers”. As though to make this more palatable for me, he said, “We say in Russia that there are Jews and there are Yids – well, there are blacks and there are niggers!” I said that perhaps he didn’t understand the offensiveness of what he was saying in English.

  I looked at his good, nice face trying to be liked, and after yesterday’s paeans of praise to all things Russian, I thought his narrow, categoric, racist streak is the downside of life here. He has never been outside Moscow and he’s been bombarded with the weirdest information most of his life.

  As I left Moscow, the police were frogmarching two men through the barrier. As I arrived in Heathrow police were also frogmarching two men through the barrier. The woman at the transfer desk was very British-looking: a “certain age”, spectrally thin, terylene top, light perm. I was looking at her and wanted to say, “You look so British”, but thought better of it. I waited for the Manchester plane, sitting opposite a middle-aged couple, who also looked eminently British. They were sitting apart, reading the Sunday papers and not saying a word to each other. I wanted to ask, “Are you married? You look so British”, but decided to keep my mouth shut. Listened to my tapes and arrived home on a wonderful high.

  Sunday 24 March

  Oh, that first grapefruit, that first piece of Kit Kat.

  BACK IN THE USSR: APRIL–JUNE 1991

  Tuesday 9 April

  It’s quite difficult being back. I’m in a sort of daze, which I suppose is the culture shock. I flew back on Sunday. This time the Foreign Ministry in Moscow sent no confirmation of my visa, but the London Consulate decided to give it to me anyway within forty-eight hours “because they know me”. It’s all very strange.

  I travelled out with a German research chemist who’s based in Ostashkov to the north west of Moscow Region. He said there had been shooting there during the referendum and it had been difficult for them to leave the hotel. None of this was reported, I don’t think. It took a mental effort to shift away from friends and food and drink in London, back to this.

  There’d been a mix-up about my flat and Chris wasn’t in by the time I got there. So I sat out in the landing, reading, until 10.00pm. I could hear my neighbour on the phone, first of all talking about her ration cards for vodka and sugar, then about a jumper and skirt she fancied. I felt oddly at home.

  It was the Russian Orthodox Easter weekend. As I went to bed the phone rang and a peremptory voice said, “Marjorie Farquharson? Christ is Risen!” as though it was a message especially for me. I couldn’t bring myself to say, “He has risen indeed!” to this voice, but it also seemed impudent to say, “Who’s speaking?” So, I stammered. It was someone wanting to meet up.

  On Monday I slept till midday, then took stock. Thirteen people had written to my PO box number, including nine Ukrainians following up the interview Heather and Ulla gave: “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” The others were from Kazakhstan. The PO box at least seems to be working.

  The exchange rate has gone from £1:10 roubles, to £1:48 roubles, apparently very close to the street rate, so a big step towards convertibility. Milk has doubled and bread quadrupled. I noticed it was being sold in smaller portions than before, presumably to help people on a fixed income. There seemed to be more food in the shops; I bought butter for the first time, and that was just in the shop next door. It’s hard to know if the government is putting goods in the shops to sweeten the pill of high prices, or if the higher prices are regulating the demand.

  Things looked quite different when I got back. The snow had gone and people were painting walls, railings and bus shelters. One of the garden benches outside my window had been moved and the tree behind it cut down. A smell of burning kept coming into the flat and I saw families out burning piles of dead grass. Spring.

  The procrastinations began today: the computer firm, the Foreign Ministry, the Premises Fund, all putting me off to later in the week. Emotionally I was out of it all day, reluctant to embark on this daunting assault course again. The church bells were jingling for twenty minutes, three times today, and it was like tinnitus in the background. I had my first visit of the season from my landlord. I would love to know one day what his role is.

  It’s been a real withdrawal of company and fun, as well as of food and drink, but writing this diary has focused me for the first time since my return. Tonight I stuck Georgia O’Keefe flowers on the inside of my window frames. For the last two days I’ve been looking foreign in the street and I wanted to. Now I think I feel more like blending in.

  Thursday 11 April

  I’m sitting out on my balcony in sunglasses, bare feet and T-shirt, enjoying the evening heat. A woman is going past in boots with her coat buttoned up to the throat. There’s a wee haze around the pussy willow tree opposite and bits of green are sprouting on the stretches of brown mud in the courtyard. The place seems to be swarming with children, climbing on roofs, racing about and hitting things. It’s at least +15 degrees during the day here but people warn it will go cold again.

  Yesterday Leonid from SOVAM Teleport came round to set up my electronic mail system and it was a classic case of culture clash, which left me angry. The British computer firm led me through the system explaining step by step and answering all my questions as we went along. Leonid worked away in stony silence and whenever I asked a question he would say, “What do yo
u mean? Forget about it – not worth bothering about.” Some of this might have been the Soviet attitude to teaching, but I think there was a lot of computer macho there – this mean moody guy with the machine mystique. However, he made quite a cock-up with the word processing program and left naked wires hanging out of my phone plug, simply because he was too lazy to tidy up after himself I think. When he left I had a defunct word processing program and no idea how to work my electronic mail.

  In the afternoon I went down to SOVAM Teleport to sign our contract. It was more boy meets toy – Andrey at the keys this time with a woman sitting next to him in total blank confusion. A guy who was declaiming in the office to a vast imaginary audience asked me how long I’d been in Moscow because I was looking tired. “Three months,” I said. “I thought it was three years,” he said. I didn’t tell him it was three days. I signed the contract for a trial two months, “depending on the service”. They then waived the $200 registration fee.

  I walked home from the Foreign Ministry in the sunshine. People were sculling down the Moscow River. I took time over preparing dinner. There’s much more fresh stuff available now: dill, cucumber, cabbage, eggs, tvorog. Slept through till 10.00am again. I’m terribly depressed. Things are alright but I just woke up wishing I wasn’t here in Moscow. It seems people either shout at me, or speak because they want something.

  Today I went off to the north east of Moscow to visit “Christ is Risen” – a Bashkir who is severely disabled. He had false legs, a steel corset and a neck brace. He’d lost the use of his right fingers after he was shot high up in his right arm as a partisan (he showed me the scars) and he read things with a magnifying glass. He greeted me with his trousers hanging off on a piece of string and it only occurred to me later that he had trouser brace clips hanging off a rail to hold up his curtains. The flat was very clean and so was he. He had Jewish, Christian and Muslim pictures propped around the room, and also Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son. This time I noticed how the light falls on the eyes of the jealous brother. I sat in the still airless warmth for two hours and heard his life story. Among other things he’d dossed at railway stations for four years when he was homeless.