I saw a nice scene in the park. One speaker talked of the CPSU’s war against the people, and a genteel old lady in furs began to clap as she walked along. She was overtaken at that moment by a punk on roller skates, who was also clapping. According to Radio Rossiya, similar large demonstrations took place in several Russian cities today. At ours people were admiring each other’s posters and enjoying their wit. At one point during the speeches the compère announced that a six-year-old girl was looking for her parents – a nice touch, more like a village fete than a mass meeting of nearly a third of a million people. It was big, but judging from their reaction, the authorities don’t think it was big enough to be a threat.
Ten of us were at the Quakers tonight. I was struck by the purity and saintliness of Sasha Lukin’s face and on the way home told him so. He was going to say thank you, but remembered that at times like these Buddhists say, “You’re welcome.” Nice.
I lit my first cigarette for six years today but put it out. I’m definitely needing more stimulus/stimulants than I’m getting.
Monday 11 March
I reached some sort of a personal crisis today. I have got to get away from what I am doing and find some more fun. At the same time I was ready to murder someone in the morning. The computer man, having put me off from Thursday, is now ill. Sergey Gitman from the Moscow group put me off until tomorrow. And of course the man from the USSR Foreign Ministry, who was to give me a final answer today, was completely inaccessible by phone.
I put together materials and a letter and trekked up to Krasnopresnensky again. Olga Lavrova was out of the office and the other official, Tikhanovsky, was not receiving people. I sat for a while in quite a crowded waiting room while a mad woman walked backwards and forwards in front of us all, telling a story and gesticulating wildly. Eventually I left the things for Olga Lavrova and went to John just for company and conversation. John very nicely gave me lunch and invited me to their dacha at the weekend, possibly sensing that I have reached my limit.
I then went to the Foreign Ministry Press Centre and, together with an irate Irish journalist, stormed Sokolenko as he was entering the building at 3.00pm. He said he would extend my visa and give me a letter for the local police passport office. But he did not like this, and there were no smiles or “ty”. But what can I do when I am always being given the run around?
I had called Sergey Gitman and said I would drop off the photos for the Amnesty exhibition today anyway, and did. His street is fascinating. The house looks right out over a seventeenth-century church, very dilapidated, which until recently was a communal flat. In the distance above the rooftops are a sign for Coca Cola on the right and McDonald’s on the left. I enjoyed the quiet talk with Sergey, and looking at his books of photos. There was a wonderful sequence by someone called Vladimir Kuprianov, I think, showing the faces of factory women above subtitles from Pushkin, like: “Pound beneath me, silent ocean” and “I hurried with anguish and desire in my heart”. The faces were inappropriate at one level, but very appropriate at another.
Sokolenko got his revenge and did not leave the papers he had promised.
As soon as I got in two ex-prisoners, Ruslan and Vitaly, came round, partly to chat and drink tea. I think Yelena’s mother had sent them because I’m not having very many visitors and they brought me a sieve from her. As they were leaving Nikolay arrived and I was glad to see him for a long leisurely chat. There was the usual distrust of Russians meeting each other for the first time.
Tuesday 12 March
I slept late and had a lazy and restful day. In the morning I called Vladimir Chernyega, the Pro-Rector of the USSR Academy of Diplomacy. He’s a member of Shevardnadze’s new Foreign Policy Association and I thought we might exchange materials. His secretary answered in a small shocked voice, “He was sacked last night.” Yipes.
I took my mail down to the Warsaw Highway and shopped on the way home. The mail has now gone up from 100 roubles to 115 roubles. I got cheese in the market! My first since I’ve been here, but it cost £2.50 for 1lb. Butter was the same and I didn’t buy it. There were wedding dresses on sale at the market. I saw in Kommersant that inflation in Moscow last month was 14%.
Wednesday 13 March
I realise my landlord gets a kind of erotic charge from talking about money. He’s never seen it in enormous quantity, but it excites him thinking what he’d like to do with it. He asked me how you open an account in a Western bank, but obviously couldn’t bear to be told by a woman, so kept interrupting and saying “nonsense”.
I mailed more materials to journalists in Belorussia, Latvia and Lithuania, then went out for a breath of air. The local bookshop had a handwritten list of books for dog lovers, with the following titles: Canine Infections; Rabies; I Am So Beautiful; Time for Love; Tuberculosis; and Distemper.
It is very hard to read what is going on here. Today I rang the Human Rights Division of the Foreign Ministry and was immediately put directly in touch with Deputy Head, Smirnov, who was all charm and wants to meet tomorrow. Last week I was left hanging. I also called the computer firm and was put through to a different man, who was actually helpful and gave me an idea of the next steps. I rang Vladimir Chernyega too, and our phones must have been double-bugged because we were virtually inaudible to each other. He sounded interested that Amnesty had called.
Thursday 14 March
A horse seemed to play a leading role in my dream. It was sensitive and powerful and was wearing make-up on its face. It seemed more vivid than the people around it.
The World Service is running a series called As We Forgive, which describes each week how someone has come to terms with an experience that devastated them. It is almost too raw to listen to. This morning it was the woman who had been raped and buggered in her father’s vicarage in Ealing. She said it was actually harder to forgive the judge than the rapists. I wonder if he knows that? Or if he has any idea of the effect his remarks had? I hope so.
It was hard to drag myself out of bed this morning. I finished typing up my translation of Professor Kelina’s speech, then went to the Foreign Ministry, Human Rights Division. Nikolay Smirnov, Deputy Head, saw me and was obviously anxious to be pleasant. We had tea and biscuits and I updated him on the office. He said quite plainly that in the UK the police and Home Office probably don’t like what we do, and it’s the same in Moscow. The Russian-language Amnesty material I had given him would help to “convert” them. He said too, as a “personal” opinion, that some government organisations didn’t like the way we came here under the Press Department of the Foreign Ministry, as though we were trying to worm in through the back door. I explained how that had happened through no engineering of our own.
We then talked about the human rights conference that is due to take place in Moscow in September and also about materials Amnesty could provide on refugees etc. He said I will probably end up having contacts with the Foreign Policy Committee of the USSR Supreme Soviet, but for the time being they are “inevitably suspicious”. At least I don’t think I have been imagining a diplomatic cold shoulder these past weeks.
Viktor Zarsky and I didn’t meet up, so ended up seeing The Seagull separately at the Moscow Arts Theatre. It’s a beautiful theatre and the show was good, but I found myself thinking, “When we’re all dead and gone they’ll still be worrying this to death.” It’s almost like family charades, going on and on. The feeling got stronger after the interval as I watched the theatre lights dim, then snuff out.