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.