Saturday 30 November
A gorgeous bright morning. I caught up with Amnesty letters and did my first ironing in eleven months, shameful to say – on the floor, because there’s no other surface.
After lunch Irina and I met up at Perovo station to go to an exhibition of sculpture by Vadim Sidur. Oddly enough I knew the work already, because the Moscow group is using it on Amnesty postcards. It was mostly good, in the style of Henry Moore, but you could see why Henry Moore is better. We walked back to Irina’s, had dinner, then played Mozart duets. It was fantastic being back at a piano.
Today the country felt like a runaway train. The State Bank is refusing to pay state employees, because it has no more money. Passengers struck at two Moscow airports and threatened to occupy the runway, because they face such long delays. Hello Kazakhstan. The tourist exchange rate has been abolished because the rouble is so worthless. How does that affect travellers’ cheques?
Notices signed by “The Workers of Moscow” appeared today calling for a protest march on 22 December, and demanding that the TV and press be taken away from “the hands of capital”. Here we go again.
Sunday 1 December
A grey stony day that never brightened up. Yelena opened the door with a fantastic smile on her face. As usual there was a great atmosphere of peace and cleanliness in their flat. We sat by candlelight and drank some wine, while Stanislav held Alexandra, all tightly swaddled up. Apparently the maternity ward was deserted because so few people are having babies these days.
It occurs to me that I know some fantastic people here. Very free of illusions about themselves or other people. Very deep too.
The Quaker meeting was full of new people, including a one-eyed tour guide from Uglich who had also stood on the barricades, and who impressed me. Remarkably, all the Soviet men there were very interested in what the Soviet feminist was saying. All the young members of the meeting are a thoughtful lot and seem to feel responsible for what they must do in the future here.
Monday 2 December
Every day here is an unpredictable blank, from which you have to try to cobble together a coherent timetable. No one is at their desk. We all seem to be running about the streets trying to call each other. Mind you, not many people have desks.
The Mayor of Moscow has signed our registration papers and Oleg Malginov at the Foreign Ministry’s Human Rights Division has pulled strings to try to get my visa extended. I also managed to make contact with the Russian parliamentary human rights committee, who want my help translating comparative legislation. The number of things I’ve bought, English lessons I’ve given and things I’ve translated, to help with our registration! (Not enough apparently.)
In the morning I met a young seamstress whose brother is doing seven years for economic crimes connected with his garage, and she took me for chips at McDonald’s. She had real charm and seemed to be enjoying campaigning for him because of the interesting people she met.
In the afternoon my naval judge bearded the lion in his den, met me in full military uniform, and took me round the military law institute. I like him immensely. He’s very proud of his institute and the Soviet armed forces, but resolutely against the death penalty and totally intelligent about Amnesty. No slouch either when it comes to law. He is prepared if need be to take part in the death penalty round table with Sovetskaya Justitsiya.
The TV equipment is booked for tomorrow at 10.30am to record the Human Rights Day programme. I prepared my bit until 1.00am and was very impressed by all Amnesty’s materials on Morocco. It seems to have been a fantastic campaign.
Tuesday 3 December
Had a dreadful day. For some reason my interview was in the snow on the street outside the TV centre. As I had no hat and was holding pictures up in gloveless hands, it was bloody freezing. Vladimir Alimov was counting away the minutes with his fingers, off camera, and two minutes from the end my Russian collapsed and I just gabbled.
The Consular Division of the USSR Foreign Ministry was supposed to have my new extended visa ready from 9.00am, but knew nothing about me. I went to sit in the queue and nodded off, then was suddenly surrounded by policemen and a very strident woman, who was extremely patronising and wouldn’t let me finish a sentence. I suddenly sprang to my feet and bullied her back. She was startled. It’s a terrible place. Fat men with bull necks and red faces burst out of an inner sanctum and rage at poor people stuck in the queue, who are only trying to renew their blasted visas. The worst parts of Soviet life writ large. No wonder it’s fallen apart.
I made my second trek to collect some private photos, only to find they’d taken an early lunch break. I stood and battered on the glass door, shouting “Open up!”, until they did and gave me my pictures. I’m afraid I’m going to leap at someone’s throat and dismember them before my time here is up. I find my own behaviour quite alarming.
I went to bed in the afternoon then had a nice evening. The Desperate Donnegans from next door came, bringing me homemade cakes. I had a massage and then Siffra came over late to pick up a letter, and we sat drinking whisky until 2.00am. Gorbachev had sent an ultimatum by letter to all USSR Members of Parliament today, pushing them to accept the Union Treaty, and she’d had to write a late article about it. He really has pinned his colours to the mast about this treaty, even though in essence it is bound to evolve between the republics in time anyway.
Wednesday 4 December
Today the Consular Division had my visa ready in five minutes with a smile. I delivered a list of non-governmental organisations to Oleg Malginov at the USSR Foreign Ministry and more materials to Sovetskaya Justitsiya, before calling again on Yelena and Stanislav. Various ex-prisoners have been bringing Yelena food to help her with nursing the baby. We sat eating white bread and butter and it was really lovely. My eyes must have lit up when I saw the cheese they’d got from the Baltic, and she insisted on giving me some to take home with me.
I couldn’t think what on earth to take to Kazakhstan as presents, so eventually bought a bottle of port and chocolate from a hard currency shop.
Trip to Kazakhstan: 5–11 December
The plane was delayed for five hours because of snow, and then we were diverted via Semipalatinsk for two hours at midnight. It was -18 degrees there and a strange chemical smell was wafting in across the ice on the runway. Got in to Alma-Ata at 7.00am their time. Poor Zaure had been to the airport three times that night to meet me.
It turned out their grandfather had died just ten minutes before I arrived, and so my trip coincided with Muslim family mourning. I felt awkward at first, but they obviously didn’t, and so it was alright. Zaure’s mother is a fantastic figure: tall, with high cheekbones and a turban, from the Kypshak tribe in the north. She sat on a stool in the kitchen, warming her back on the radiator. She’s a professor of biology who has specialised in wheat culture all her life and got various awards, but now says she spends her time worrying about what they will eat. She’s developed a kind of asthma and lost 40lbs in the last year. A very beautiful woman. The flat was very hot and dry and I too got a tight chest and cough.
Alma-Ata is a long thin town, sloping downhill with a fantastic view behind to a mountain range, all in snow. On the other side of the mountains is China. During Brezhnev’s time it got a lot of money and the main buildings all look quite new and prosperous, with very attractive oriental arches everywhere. Nevertheless, the city is on a grid system, and as a whole is not desperately attractive or interesting.