Chapter 1  Moscow

"The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they really are."

(Samuel Johnson)

"Without going out of the door

One can know the whole world;

Without peeping out of the window

One can see the Tao of heaven.

The further one travels

The less one knows."

(From the Tao-Te King)

"You will not like it!" warned the Dutchman gloomily, as the K.L.M. plane started its descent on Moscow. Apart from a half hour in the Transit Lounge of Amsterdam Airport, this was to be my first landing on foreign soil. I thought that he was probably right; my ideas were vague but I expected something drab, utilitarian and depressing.

A somewhat severe Russian with whom I had negotiated a visa in London, had rather confirmed me in this view. Trying to build a strong case, I stressed that Machino-import in Moscow wanted me there for discussions and in fact had cabled naming the previous Monday as a convenient date.

"Then why were you not there?" asked the Russian, bleakly.

As we emerged from the plane a dour, uniformed Russian took my passport, gazed silently at the photograph in it and inspected me for what seemed a long time. I wanted to explain a number of things: that my good looks are of the elusive sort which no photographer has yet captured; that this was a particularly sloppy bit of photography; that although on the evidence of the picture I had recently had an outbreak of leprosy on my chin, this was merely an illusion caused by the maladroit use of photo-floods; that anyway, I have a beautiful nature. In silence, he allowed me to set foot on his country and soon I was jostling with two plane-loads of people, all trying to get through passport-control, customs and currency-exchange, where banking operations were being conducted with the aid of an abacus, - a frame of beads similar to one on which, many years ago, I had learned simple addition and subtraction. Here, though, the operators used them expertly to check involved calculations.

Soon, with three other visitors, I was speeding into Moscow in an Intourist car. True, the blocks of apartment-houses were lacking in appeal, but anyone who has seen Huddersfield on a wet November day is not afterwards disposed to be too critical. Darkness had fallen by the time I reached the heart of Moscow.

By the following night, I had a wealth of impressions to absorb. All senses had been assailed by things rich and strange. Two odours seemed prevalent: firstly, the slightly sickly scent of Russian tobacco which reminded me of some Finnish cigarettes I had once been foolish enough to tackle and which explained why so many Russians wanted British or American cigarettes; secondly, some difference - presumably in refining - gave exhaust fumes from Soviet cars a distinctive, all-pervading smell.

The sense of taste had been pleasantly surprised by its first acquaintance with vodka, sturgeon and caviar. I have often felt that it is a mistake to rush for the treats of this life. The setting is all-important. Thus, I tested my first caviar in the Hotel National, Moscow, overlooking the yellow-ochre walls and golden domes of the Kremlin. I was sharing a table with a Belgian who was a frequent visitor to Moscow. Learning that this was to be my first caviar, he rejected the initial serving and demonstrated how to check the colour and resilience to be sure it was good quality and fresh. I have had caviar since, in a number of places, but none the equal of that on my first night in Moscow.

Later during this tour, I was offered Kangaroo-tail soup but refused it, so that my first bowl was taken some thirty-thousand feet above the fantastic red desert heart of Australia, just as the pilot pointed out Alice Springs below us. Without these associations, how could I hope to keep fresh the memory of that bowl of Kangaroo-tail soup? Particularly as it tasted just like Ox-tail!  But caviar - that is a different matter! The food in the main Moscow hotels is good and well-cooked, providing you will eat the Russian dishes. An American tourist who was complaining because she could not have cold turkey, no doubt went home with a different impression.

With less than ten days' notice of this visit to Moscow my Russian language studies were not advanced. I could count up to four, say "Please", "Thank you", "Yes", "No", “Pleased to meet you", or recite the first quarter of their telephone alphabet - ("Ah, Anna, Beh Boris, Veh Vasili, fieh Grigori") - but no more. Although the hotels have a Service-Bureau where the main European languages are spoken, English is not yet widely known. The obliging Belgian had taught me enough Russian so that I could order breakfast in my room - tea, toast, butter and a boiled egg. The egg arrived almost raw and on the second morning I added a second egg and specified "four minutes". Russian minutes are apparently about half the length of British ones and it was not until I had increased the time to six minutes that I had a properly boiled egg.

Intourist had put me in the Hotel Pekin which is solid, clean and Victorian. Apart from breakfast, I ate mainly at the Hotel National, partly because of difficulty with the Pekin's menus, which were in Russian only, but also because the National was more convenient. I enjoyed the walk from the one to the other along the wide and handsome Gorky Street, which accommodates up to twelve lines of traffic. I had been told, by friends who had never been there, that there is very little traffic in Moscow. After I had been almost run down several times by this non-existent traffic, I decided that I had been misled. I spent a few foolish minutes trying to cross the vast expanse of Manejnaya Square, with traffic shooting at me unpredictably and policemen blowing whistles and waving furiously - before discovering that the entrance down to the Metro also gave access to a subway under the square.

I had been warned that all traffic travels on the right and a little preliminary practice along part of the East Lancs road, coming out of Liverpool, had already convinced me that it is shockingly dangerous - I was nearly killed! Fortunately, I did little driving throughout this tour, but as a pedestrian I invariably glanced the wrong way before stepping into the road.

A telephone call from my hotel room had established that my initial interview with Machino-import would be the following morning and so my first day in Moscow was given over to sightseeing.

Every schoolboy knows that Moscow's climate is extreme and that in late August it will be hot. This knowledge did not prevent a feeling of surprise when I found it hot and sunny, with temperatures in the eighties. Subconsciously, I suppose I was still expecting snowdrifts, troikas and wolves.  Surprise, too, was my immediate reaction on seeing a road-mending gang of women, handling road-rollers, picks and shovels - but a moment's reflection convinced me that this was as it should be. Man was made for finer things than shovelling rubble. As I walked respectfully past these Amazons, a young Muscovite fell in step with me.

"You wish to buy genuine, antique, holy Russian ikons?" he asked. "You come with me to my apartment, I show you valuable ikons!"

Probably he had made them himself the previous day; in any event, it did not seem a good idea to visit his apartment. "I'm afraid I cannot," I began.

"You afraid? Why you afraid?" he asked, looking apprehensively over his shoulder.

"No, I mean I am sorry I cannot."

Shortly afterwards, another young Russian wanted to buy my shirt, a nylon waterproof if I had one, or to introduce me to his sister.

He did not look the sort of young man who would have a sister and I had no intention of going into business in Moscow, but it was refreshing to find, unsubdued, human nature in all its splendid, shifty, sinfulness.

The U.S.S.R. does not yet appear to be releasing nylon for clothing. Although the average Muscovite is clean and decently dressed, the styling and material of their clothes instantly proclaim the visiting Westerner and lead to illegal offers from "spivs". Long, long overdue is an epic poem justifying the ways of the 'spiv", the "con-man", the "grafter", the "fiddler", the “wide-boy". At considerable personal risk they devote to their shifty callings an amount of ingenuity, daring and inventiveness which applied to one of the legally established forms of trickery would give them riches and honours. But the true "spiv" cannot cross the line into normal business thievery. The thrill of the game, the calculated risk, the pitting of his abilities against the weight of society - these are what he lives for.

In the golden August sunshine, the centre of Moscow looked spacious, serene and even graceful. The magnificent squares seem as large as one of the smaller English counties. A child was feeding pigeons near the splendidly barbaric and many-coloured St. Basil's Cathedral. The yellow-ochre tinted walls and the golden domes of the Kremlin under the bright sun added to the general effect of colour and charm.

I had a job of selling to do. The buyer was to be Machino-import, the State Board which buys certain categories of foreign equipment for factories anywhere in the U.S.S.R.

The Deputy-Chairman, with whom I was involved, was virtually the sole buyer of my type of equipment for a nation of over 200 million people. If I could not do business with him, there was no other customer in the whole of the U.S.S.R.

The Deputy-Chairman had two technical assistants with him. He spoke good English, which was fortunate since, apart from my ordering a breakfast from him, we could have achieved nothing in Russian. As the tour progressed, I felt increasingly guilty over the language problem. Regularly, prominent businessmen or trade-journals nag at us and insist that if we wish to sell abroad, we must pay our customers the compliment of learning their language. The point sounds good but it is difficult to apply. Within a week, later on, I would have needed to be fluent in Malay, Thai and Burmese. English is the first or second language of the world and is handled with precision and elegance by people from many countries. The Pakistani in Karachi, who said to me: "Now we go to meet Mr ---. He is an Englishman like yourself and a great scoundrel; you will get on well with him" - clearly was in no need of further English lessons. As a polite compromise, I tried to learn a few words of greeting, thanks and farewell in each language.

With the Deputy-Chairman of Machino-import and his assistants, I spent several hours clarifying technical points. We broke off at one point to stand in silence for a few moments while a funeral procession passed, with solemn music, along the street below us.

It was, explained the Deputy-Chairman, the funeral of his former chief. We adjourned until the next-but-one day. There had been no mention of price and the real battle was still to come.

And then - it was all over and I was enjoying an Aeroflot breakfast (which started with caviar) on my way back to Amsterdam, and buying gift pots of caviar, miniature bottles of vodka, bracelets and other souvenirs from the attractive hostesses. Meetings with Machino-import, over a period of eight days, had produced some hard bargaining down to the limit of my concessions. Pyrrus is remembered for the Battle of Asculum, ("Another victory like that and we're done for.") I had no wish to be remembered by my Company for a Pyrric Sale. I had heard stories of businessmen in Moscow who had bluffed an order from the Russians by packing and booking a flight as though determined to leave. This did not happen to me - perhaps there was something not quite right about the way I packed.

If I did not have an order in my suitcase, at least I had all thirty-two of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas on fourteen long-play records, performed by Soviet pianists. I had learned that, like many cultural or educational materials, records were cheap - about ten shillings each and so I made my way into a record-shop on Gorky Street. No English was spoken and my phrase-book did not help much, but when I saw on a box the figures 32 and the Russian word for Beethoven, 1 needed to look no further.

I also had memories and programmes of two performances of the Stanislavsky Ballet (of which Tchaikovsky was once a Director) - which included Russian words which by that time I was capable of discovering that these were Don Juan and Scheherazade.

".... and two dolls and some caviar and some L.P's and some miniature vodka", I continued, while the Customs officer at London Airport gave me a swift, practised glance to see whether I was stupid or merely pretending to be. You cannot fool them - a quick scrawl on my baggage and I was through.