Monday 28 October
There were inches of ice on a wire fence today, as though it was embedded in a milk bottle. Then it snowed and it was quite cosy inside, writing up my report on the last four months here. Taxi drivers had a strike today and blocked the main ring road, which caused chaos. Another driver has been murdered and they want more protection.
At midday I was to meet an Armenian, whose relative is an entrepreneur imprisoned on a corruption charge. The Armenian arrived in a Mercedes Benz and gave me a lift to the British Airways office to pick up my plane ticket. There I also bought a film – and got my change in chewing gum.
A funny thing: I renewed my newspaper subscriptions today and only after I’d done it, realised I’d ordered them until March 1992. I’m supposed to be going home in January. Maybe it’s my deep subconscious speaking.
Three superficial and disconnected impressions. Gorbachev looks one hell of a lot better since the coup: he seemed to be a hostage a long time before it. Another thing that struck me was an odd festival of clowns on TV the other week, all arranged on the initiative of one young woman. They asked her why she’d done it and she didn’t really know. She said, “I suppose the clowns need it.” The purposelessness was quite refreshing, and a new thing in public life here. Lastly, the local bread shop was closed for a day in mourning for Igor Talkov, the Leningrad singer who was murdered at a concert. The sign said, “In Russian hearts his memory will never die.” This “Russian” stuff is creeping in everywhere and has lots of overtones I don’t like. I feel some of the Quakers are doing it too. When we were having our photo taken the other night, someone said, “All the Russian Quakers and Marjorie.” This commitment to Mother Russia in her time of need is very close to the Soviet idea of the nation state. Both sides think anyone who leaves is betraying the country.
At night I had a lovely relaxing time at Yelena’s place, eating tons of food and celebrating their first wedding anniversary. The conversation was very interesting and we stayed till past midnight. I couldn’t believe it was only a year ago that I’d been at their wedding party. They said it was because I’d had such a difficult year, and they said it so nicely and with such implicit understanding, that it was a great help. I realised I know almost everyone they were talking about. It is a very close-knit world, and presumably everything I do must also get round like wildfire.
I met a woman in the lift when I came back from the post office with letters in my hand. She asked if I was delivering the mail, then looked at me more closely and said, “No, you must be the neighbour. I’ve seen your picture in the papers.”
Tuesday 29 October
What a day. The landlord came round first thing and we ended up having a terrific scene. He was wanting to raise my rent to £200 a month (from £80), and I think was meaning to “negotiate” with me, but immediately went over the top and threatened to throw me out in December if I didn’t pay. I started listing the things that didn’t work in the flat (oven, fridge, iron etc.) and particularly the door lock. Although it would only cost him 50 roubles and is in his own interest, he refuses point blank to do anything about it. By this time we were shouting at each other. I then played as dirty as he, and asked if he really wanted to have my rent waiting for him in London when he’s over there in November. It was ridiculous; he was threatening to throw me out and I was threatening to give him no money, and all over what? Tolya walked in in the middle of this and began to offer some suggestions where you could buy good cheap locks. “Don’t stick your nose in other people’s business,” Sasha said.
In the last few months I’ve had my phone tapped, my mail read, received a threatening letter, lived through a coup, been robbed, summoned to court twice in London and threatened with eviction. Things aren’t looking too bright.
Later in the day I had to see Alexander Khlopyanov at the USSR Foreign Ministry. He arrived in a black leather coat and fedora hat, looking very debonair, and sent me for coffee while he got me a re-entry visa for November. This is the first time I’ve been allowed to “re-enter”, which I suppose is a positive sign. Andrey Grachev was behind me in the coffee queue – formerly in the Communist Party Central Committee and now in Gorbachev’s Press Council, I believe. Khlopyanov shook hands with him on his way to me.
I had to take this authorisation to the Visa and Registration Department, where they asked me to hand over my passport and visa and collect them tomorrow. As I actually fly at midday tomorrow and their office is shut all day, I did this with a helpless sinking feeling.
Yesterday’s Parliament session was apparently a landmark. Yeltsin is to take direct charge because of the crisis situation (plus ça change), and consumer prices and wages are to be “liberalised”. It sounds like whacking inflation ahead.
I had the usual procession of people bringing mail to post as I tried to write up my accounts until 11.00pm. I’m so weary I could hardly concentrate, or physically keep myself seated. Tolya rang, suggesting two flats I could move to, and telling me not to worry. In an odd way I’m not worrying at all. Irina rang and said she had a gift for me. She finds the current economic lingo odd. She feels we are living in a huge bog with nothing to buy, so what is there to “liberalise”?
Earlier in the day I had to meet someone for the first time. I went up to a guy who fitted the description and asked if he was from the Crimea. He thought I asked him if he was from the KGB. Both of us found it very funny. It wasn’t him.
Wednesday 30 October
Minus three degrees and very slippery on the street outside. But tomorrow really is another day, and today I had one stroke of luck after another. I managed to get my way into the Visa and Registration Department, although it was shut, and a nice smiling woman prepared my new visa. I got taxis there and back with no problem, and managed to book a taxi to the airport with no difficulty at all. At the airport I found a luggage trolley just standing there, unattended, and also a vacant seat. Fell asleep.
Before I left too, the landlord rang and asked if I would forgive him. I said yes, we hadn’t understood each other. I think it takes something to ring up like that and I appreciated it. Irina came round and saw me off. Her gift was a lemon, one of the first lemons she had been able to afford for over a year. It was an immensely nice thing to give me, but I realise I’m making my cultural shift in preparation for going back home, and part of me was amused. How very difficult this is for all of us. My present to her was a disposable syringe for her dental operation, which, when you come to think of it, is just as peculiar.
I seemed to be on the ventriloquists’ flight home. The boarding sign at the airport said GA 873. Yesterday Khasbulatov was made Chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet. That seems to be the point where I came in. Time to go home.
THE LAST LAP: NOVEMBER 1991–MARCH 1992
Monday 18 November
British Airways lost my luggage, so I got home late. Had a bath and watched a slow tide of cockroaches crawling up the walls. The wild patterning of my wallpaper and the kitchen floor leapt out at me this time when I walked into the flat. Glad to find nothing had been stolen.
Tuesday 19 November
I’ve the feeling this will be a tough time and so am taking things softly-softly, in particular sleeping whenever I feel like it. In the morning I laid out my cockroach killer and fly poisons, and in the afternoon I shopped for food. It was twilight at 3.00pm and there was a crowd of dark shapes queuing outside the booze shop and outside the milk shop too. I was shocked by the prices at the market. A jar of smetana that was 15 roubles in January is now 70. A tiny chicken is 50. According to Izvestiya, Yeltsin is “freeing” retail prices and wages next. Piyasheva, who heads the Prices Committee, then plans to free wholesale prices and distribution prices all in the space of two months. It is quite frightening.