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