Moscow Diary Read online

  Spring here looks great. The new green trees are like plumes and make a lovely contrast with the dark green firs. It’s warm and people are sitting out talking till late. Tonight I went to hear Mikhail Pletnyov conduct the RSFSR National Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven. It’s a new orchestra which he put together from refugees of the old official symphony orchestras, and they are young and very motivated. I don’t like Beethoven, but this was great. Pletnyov really hears something new in the music and lets you hear it too – very dynamic, and very musical. The audience gave him flowers as usual, but he gave them to the orchestra and they divided them amongst themselves. If you were looking for signs of a cultural revival you could feel it here.

  I had lunch and a five-hour (!) Russian lesson with Misha, then put my new printing machine together. This involved a total rearrangement of every piece of furniture in the room so that I could get the equipment close to the only available electrical socket and the phone socket. Pretty tiring.

  Looking back over April I think I was in a prolonged spate of feeling sorry for myself. In the last week I’ve also felt more foreign than ever before and noticed my points of view are irritating people. I think a change of attitude is called for. There have been some big plusses: electronic mail, the premises, five press interviews, the Kuwait news release and the Literaturnaya Gazeta piece.

  Saturday 4 May

  The World Service started with an interview with the Monster Raving Loony Green Giant candidate who won a seat in the UK local elections. Various electors were interviewed who said they were really chuffed. It was followed by Words of Faith, which was going to look at the Bible from the point of view of the donkeys who appear in it. Bizarre. But really the TV news in the evening was hardly less bizarre. It showed the commemoration service in Glasgow for members of the armed forces who died in the Persian Gulf, and had a soldier barking out in a voice of steel, “The peace of God passeth all understanding.” This was followed by Uzbeki dancers celebrating “Pravda Newspaper Day”(!).

  Today I went to the monastery in Zagorsk. Oleg and Father Nikon picked me up in Nikon’s car – pretty beat-up with no front seat – and off we went, Nikon wearing his cross and his leather jacket. We had to ride with the boot open to try to cool the engine and stopped three times en route for Nikon to try to sort the petrol pump. We arrived in Zagorsk with ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ blaring from the tape deck.

  The monastery at Zagorsk is one of only four lavras – top notch holy sites – in Russia, and has now been returned to the believers. For years it has been a plum job for clerics who could find an easy accommodation with the state, and somehow all that tells on the atmosphere. It was touristy and like a museum. It didn’t give me the same sense of care and devotion I had at the Danilov Monastery. However, watching Nikon’s behaviour with people all day, I came to like him very much and feel he has a real religion. He also exudes joie de vivre. We nearly crashed the car on the way home and I got back exhausted.

  Sunday 5 May

  Decided I’ve got so much to do I must make the room into more of an office and introduce some more “poryadok”. Actually had a very productive morning sorting out arrangements for the Sakharov commemoration at the end of the month.

  Went to the Moscow City Soviet for a meeting at 3.00pm. It was called by the commission supervising prison conditions, and other non-governmental organisations were there, including “Prison and Freedom”, the Group to Defend Political Prisoners, and the Moscow branch of the International Society for Human Rights. It took an hour for everyone to arrive and to start the agenda. We were a motley crew and the meeting itself was shambolic. It made me realise how professional Amnesty is, and how comparatively expert we each are in our own fields.

  The commission wants to improve conditions in line with international standards and to arrange a series of prison visits. I asked if they had copies of the standards, and as an afterthought the chairman said yes, there was one copy somewhere or other. I suggested they cover the whole process, including police cells where detainees are kept, right through to the cells where prisoners are executed – but neither idea was very favourably received. Kirill Podrabinek was good, making concrete suggestions and undertaking to provide information. Somehow he has survived his prison experiences, still helps people, but has moved on and seems inwardly very free. Some other ex-prisoners were there who are still living in the past. They looked wrecked by alcohol and were unable to talk about anything but old prison reminiscences, whether or not they were relevant. The commission itself also seems locked into the old system which it professes to hate. The chairman told us how many judges the Moscow Soviet had sacked, in satisfied tones. What became of judicial independence?

  Everyone at the meeting knew who I was and I realised what a high profile this job has. The chairman sat throughout wearing two pairs of glasses at once, which fascinated me.

  I took a cab from there to the Quakers, which was an all-Russian affair this week, except for me. After the meeting two of the Russians began talking about “Mother Russia” and “the intelligentsia” in a compulsive way, as though they were sitting round a Hampstead dinner table. Lusya asked me who I was meeting and said of course it would be the “intelligentsia”. I said no, actually, and purposely not, and then withdrew from the conversation which was making me feel physically exhausted.

  It’s interesting; there’s quite a bit of complacency and ignorance in this attitude that no one’s suffering like they are. It’s like a scab they really enjoy picking at and it saves them having to do anything about it. It’s also completely insensitive to anyone in Cambodia, Iraq, Indonesia etc. After they left I burst out with this, and to my surprise everyone agreed with me, which heartened me. Nikolay and I stayed on talking with Tatyana, who is marvellous, and my tiredness vanished. Nikolay came back with me in the pouring rain to collect his mail from London. He is kind and devoted, carrying my bag and wading through puddles in his tennis shoes. He is still cutting classes and says he calls them “lessons”, because they keep lessening every day.

  Monday 6 May

  I met the lovely Boris Pustyntsev today, head of the “Memorial” group in Leningrad. He said he would be at the Pushkin monument carrying a black bag. When I got there, there were nine men with black bags. I approached one of them and he said, “No, I’m from a different opera.” A nice expression. Boris was representing Helsinki Watch and wanted suggestions on how to set up and register an organisation here. Sergey Kovalyov, the head of the Russian Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, told him I had been living here for the last few months, like “a fish on a plate”. Beautiful description, but it just about sums it up.

  Yesterday’s meeting at Moscow Soviet seems quite providential. It turns out the lawyer I met there, Natalya Vysotskaya, has a practice in Krasnopresnensky District. We met to talk about the death penalty and then she offered to accompany me to the Fund for Non-Dwelling Premises, and she really was good. There seems to be a certain type of professional Soviet woman who is much more courteous and mild than Western professional women, but who really can push. We handed over my letter to the Privatisation Commission, then off her own bat she made rather an impassioned speech about how “we Soviets” should not only pay Amnesty’s rent, but also renovate the premises for us.

  On the way home I dropped off UN materials at the Moscow Soviet for the chairman of yesterday’s meeting. This took forty minutes of argy-bargy, unbelievably enough, because no one would believe the chairman was actually a deputy at the Soviet. The woman behind the desk swung from bullying to servility several times during the conversation, as she thought my case lost or gained strength.

  Had a nice relaxing evening at John and Olya’s. Olya told me that when Sakharov got shouted down at the First USSR People’s Congress, she’d telegrammed the presidium telling them not to treat him like that. She signed it, “Sidorova, Ivanova, Kuznetsova”. These are the standard names of the milkmaids
and other toilers who always sign telegrams here when the righteous anger of the masses has been roused. In the post office she’d met a woman in tears who was also sending a telegram for Sakharov, signed by all her colleagues at the military institute. What a hothouse this is. I was very tired and very hungry all day.

  Tuesday 7 May

  Today I delivered over 26,000 Amnesty words for translation to different parts of Moscow. One stop took me to meet Oleg at the Institute of State and Law, and I realised it was the first time we’d ever spoken to each other one to one. I found it funny that here was Amnesty and our interpreter/minder from the 1989 visit, having a very relaxed and tired chat. He suddenly broke into English and offered to help me in any way he could, and asked me meaningfully if my phone was always as bad as yesterday, when I called him. It is.

  In the afternoon the medical journalist Natalya Ivanovna sent her daughter round to collect our new materials on imprisoned medical workers, to complete the article she’s writing. Irina arrived carrying two tomatoes – a terrific treat – because her mother remembered I’m a vegetarian.

  I made rather a heart-stopping phone call to the “Unit on Executions” at the USSR Supreme Soviet. It’s just struck me how weird the name is. I wanted to find out for Lydia Zapevalova if her son had been executed or pardoned. He’d been pardoned on 30 April – and no one had told her! In fact, after the legal stage had finished, she said she had no right to approach any of the officials involved. I wonder if other systems are like that; it seems immensely cruel. She was too wrung-out to be elated by the news.

  I got lucky at 5.00pm and managed to buy eggs, butter and milk – my first milk for five days, although I live next door to a milk shop. A woman stopped me in the street and asked me where I’d got it all and how much it cost. I think the food situation is getting worse, or at least mine has.

  I took my Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell tape to Father Nikon, and sure enough, he liked it. He had been called in that day for questioning about the murder of Aleksandr Men last year. The night before both he and his sister dreamed they were trying to call me – which made me feel this is a hell of a responsible job. At the beginning of our dinner two men were outside looking at his car.

  Wednesday 8 May

  Reading my Izvestiya in the morning and listening to music, I suddenly felt immensely happy and at home here. It’s the day before yet another public holiday – Victory over Fascism Day – so everything was shutting down early and the flags were out again. Sovetsky narod prazdnuet na polnom khodu! I had been hoping for a detailed talk at the Foreign Ministry, but Nikolay Smirnov was in a flat spin to finish everything by 4.00pm, so it was very brief. He said the Foreign Ministry Information Department has decided against registering us as an information office after all. What that means I shall have to find out next week.

  I went up to Natalya Vysotskaya’s legal consultancy at Krasnopresnenskaya. There, there was a nice old man from Georgia, panting with a heart condition, asking for help for his nephew who had been sentenced to death. It was another ghastly murder, but another travesty of a trial. Natalya had worked with him all day, preparing appeals, and I took his details to give to London. He probably couldn’t believe that two women in Moscow would devote hours to him to help, and all free of charge. Like Lydia Zapevalova, he was dignified and restrained.

  Natalya Ivanovna phoned to say that Amnesty’s material had opened up a “new and valuable” aspect of medical work for her. People here look on doctors and psychiatrists with suspicion, and it was an eye-opener to see how they are persecuted in different countries. She will ask her editor if they can run appeals for our cases. Good.

  Thursday 9 May

  After great troubles Semyon Gluzman got himself a passport and visa for the US to go to a conference of the American Psychiatric Association. He then found that APA confirmation for his ticket had not come through so could not collect it. I offered to buy him one with my credit card. But it turns out the ticket desk at the airport only works from 4.00 to 6.00am. Can you believe it?

  We’re going to be a very odd trio: Gluzman, who’s an ex-prisoner of conscience, me from Amnesty, and our driver, who apparently is a professor from the Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry. On the phone Svetlana Polubinskaya was highly amused by this and said everyone else is too. She said the professor is a very nice man – “a murderer, but a very nice man”. I don’t know how I feel about this.

  In the evening I went to see The Night Porter with the Teplitskys. There was a strong smell of vodka in the cinema and suddenly a man from the row behind collapsed asleep onto Yasha’s back. While Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling were grinding away in heavy S&M, someone else was snoring. It was a disappointing film, but at the beginning, with its shots of Nazi medicine, it kept making me think of the Serbsky Institute. We came out to rain and a burst of fireworks for Victory over Fascism Day.

  Friday 10 May

  I love the tree at my window. It’s a white poplar, and rustles beautifully in the breeze. The courtyard is a riot of trees, grass, dandelions, and little bushes with delicate white flowers. This has all happened in the last month.

  I got up at 3.30am and we got Gluzman’s ticket at Sheremetyovo airport with no difficulties. It was a beautiful bright day, the temperature had dropped to +2 degrees, and the roads were empty. The professor said, “I work at the Serbsky, excuse me”, and was dashing back to play in a tennis match. I asked him if he’d seen The Night Porter, so I suppose that was my subconscious telling him what was on my mind. He thought I was a journalist, and when he heard I was from Amnesty there was a big pause in the conversation. We discussed whether Soviet society is matriarchal.

  The Deputy Editor of Moscow News invited me for a chat. I thought he hadn’t liked my article, but he really did want to chat and gave me coffee. He supports Gorbachev on the miners’ strike and favours a meritocracy, or at least voting and election on the basis of education, over a democracy. I said that would have excluded our Prime Minister. He said maybe, but it would have excluded ten idiots too. He has a gap-toothed smile that is quite boyish.

  I worked in the afternoon, then took Robin et al. to hear Igor Oistrakh at the Conservatoire – unfortunately past his best. They’re here to see me on a Thompsons Tour and it was nice hearing their oohs and aahs when they caught first sight of the Kremlin and the chandeliers in the metro. To bed at midnight.

  Saturday 11 May

  Still beautiful weather, but now much warmer. I had an interesting crop of letters from people wanting to join Amnesty, and others. By now when people say they want my help I feel an almost physical sense of strain. I prepared and printed a standard Russian letter for people wanting to join Amnesty. Robin, Sheila and Helen came round for Moldavian wine and chocolate eclairs, then I took them to 36 Kropotkin Street for dinner. Fantastic waiters and good food – though not what we ordered. We strolled along the Arbat then I took them home. Moscow is looking at its very best for them.

  Sunday 12 May

  At 5.00am I threw up my mushrooms and sour cream from some deep dark place, then went back to bed feeling fine.

  I was seized with rage and frustration in the morning. I remembered when I told Nikolay Smirnov at the Foreign Ministry that Ian Martin is coming next week for the Sakharov commemoration, he said, “Oh, he’s definitely coming is he?” – by which I suppose he knows from telephone transcripts that Ian wasn’t sure. Every time I dial my phone it sounds back through the radio and I’m so bugged that I’m virtually inaudible to everyone on the other end. I’m so fucking sick of being treated like a criminal while the Foreign Ministry farces about, holding me at arm’s length, unable to make up its tiny virgin mind. I’ve been here nearly half a year and feel I’ve done damn all.

  A great box of food arrived for me today from the office – a great morale boost in amongst everything else.

  Armenia has appealed to the UN for help “against Soviet aggression�
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  Monday 13 May

  In the afternoon I collected two translations from the Journal of Humanitarian Sciences. They let me in behind the closed door where I thought they all worked in serried ranks, but it was empty except for Valya and Tanya, drinking coffee. The deputy editor and editor-in-chief joined us and we had a nice relaxed chat. They want me to do an article by mid-June.

  I would have liked to sit on, but had an appointment to meet Irina Kruglyanskaya at Izvestiya. She is the journalist who recently wrote a good piece about the execution of strikers at Novocherkassk in the 1960s. She has a large office to herself on the seventh floor, works on social issues and is promoting free enterprise. The departmental editor, Albert Plutnik, dropped by and I liked him very much. Kruglyanskaya wants to do an interview with me next week anyway, to my surprise.

  From there I went to meet Ruslan and a friend of his, who incidentally had been put through the Serbsky Institute in the early eighties, after he tried to visit the US Embassy. They walked me to the Pushkin monument where I met Robin et al. for a great dinner at Moskovskye Zori. It had been hot all day, then there was a refreshing shower and as we walked home in the dark everything seemed peaceful.

  Tuesday 14 May

  Blow me down, the Law on Exit and Entry failed to get through the USSR Parliament.

  I worked at home all day and did a Russian translation of our letter to Shevardnadze. London have rather blithely sent me train tickets for the AI member who lives in Drohobych – a tiny Ukrainian town – assuming that Semyon Gluzman would be an intermediary in Kiev. As Gluzman’s away, it’s been no go, Joe. So Nikolay has been cabling Drohobych, I’ve been looking for someone to travel to Kiev with the tickets, and a poor Kiev family I do not know has got roped in, trying to find someone travelling to Moscow who could pick them up. All of this has taken many phone calls at 7.00am and midnight, because otherwise the lines are engaged. Now it seems Nikolay or I will have to take the tickets across Moscow on the night train to Kiev so someone can pick them up at the other end. All of this because the post is unreliable. I dread Amnesty’s International Council Meeting.