There’s heavy advertising for a “yes” vote in Sunday’s referendum on the state of the union. I got two leaflets in my letterbox saying, “Vote yes – for life!” There were five adverts in the bus shelter: one in full colour, showing the historic city and saying “The collapse of the Union is Moscow’s sunset”; another mawkish one, with a little girl in tears, saying “Mama, save my future – go and vote yes for the Union!”
I found it interesting watching people’s reactions as they passed. They definitely noticed but did not break their step. Derision passed across several faces, although I couldn’t pinpoint how, because scarcely a muscle moved. It is a characteristic Russian reaction. Meanwhile Yeltsin has been refused TV time before the referendum. I think the campaign could backfire on Gorbachev.
Friday 15 March
The five posters had been ripped down today and replaced by three small handbills: one calling for a demonstration against the referendum at Tula metro tomorrow and another in favour of the Union, but not on Gorbachev’s terms. Someone had scrawled on it, “May God save Yeltsin, dear Muscovites”, and someone else had added, “He’s worse than Gorbachev”. People were stopping to study these – but does it mean anything?
I took the translation for Professor Kelina to see. She was looking very nice, fresh and slim, and we had a pleasant short chat. She made a great point of putting me in her address book under “M” for Marjorie, because “that is how she thinks of me”.
When I collected my chitty from the Foreign Ministry Press Centre I found Sokolenko has not extended my visa, but simply allowed me to register retrospectively for the time I’ve been here. So they may want me to leave next Saturday and go through the whole stupid rigmarole of reapplying from London.
I went to the Visa Department to register. I was third in the queue for over an hour while close on twenty people jumped the line. At one point a fight broke out among Brits and Russians behind us, shortly before a French woman in front of me began absolutely howling. When I got into the office it turned out I was in the wrong line and had to queue again at a different window. While I was there an old lady came in and began hitting the policeman on duty, who bundled her out. What a madhouse.
In the evening I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening at Kate Moore and Todd Weinberg’s. Two doctoral students were there and the rest of us were all trying to “set things up” in Moscow. I liked them all. Everyone could be having an easier and wealthier life at home but they are fascinated by the Soviet Union and prompted by some frontier spirit. Got a lift home from one of the men and his Russian girlfriend. I think he was rather in love with the Russian ethos his girlfriend brings, because he was constantly talking, more than he needed to, to show off his handle on domestic Russian. However, the spell was broken when he drove over a trench in the road and she hit her head on the roof and gave him a mouthful.
Saturday 16 March
The grey drizzly weather continues. A Party official came round canvassing in the morning and I noticed the opposition handbills have now been ripped off the bus stop.
A domestic morning. When I came out of the laundrette there was a huge queue outside the “Emergency Repairs to Artistic Boots” shop. I can’t imagine why.
I went up to John and Olya’s, who were going to take me out to their dacha in Peredelkino. Outside Barrikadnaya metro there was a terrific row going on about the referendum. A glamorous tall blonde with an extraordinarily deep voice was enjoining people to vote against the union. Two middle-aged women took her up on it and drew their own crowds. One was well dressed and articulate and kept saying she was for law and order, and hard work. The other was poorer and got herself near to tears, saying she’d lived through the war etc. Everyone was down her throat and saying, “You’re feeding the Communists, that’s all”; “Look at you, your clothes are old and tattered, what an advert for seventy-three years!” At that point I felt like crying and wished they would shut up.
John and I flagged down a cab on Kutuzovsky Prospekt then drove out to Peredelkino, the official Writers’ Colony which, surprisingly enough, is just off the main road about twenty minutes west of Moscow. You can see the suburbs encroaching. There was a woman in the cab too, and it suddenly emerged that she and the driver are married and emigrating to Israel in the autumn. Other members of their family have gone to the US. They have no strong religious affiliation and no illusions about how easy it will be, but are learning Hebrew, want to live in a small town, and are prepared to do anything to earn a living. Both are grandparents at forty and to my surprise kept saying they were still young enough to learn. Soviet women in particular tend to say they’re past it at thirty. They said they were leaving not because of food shortages, but because they had no opportunities to develop their talents. I liked all that.
The dacha is very big, shabby but comfortable, and apparently where the writer Fadeyev shot himself. The Pasternak museum is next door. We took the four-year-old Petya for a long walk through the woods and round the lake, he clutching two spades and a bottle of shampoo. After Moscow it was wonderfully quiet, and there was snow on the ground and a great sunset. We had a beautiful dinner then watched the thriller Sea of Love in Russian. Whenever one of the family moved or coughed, someone else would jump and say “Stop it!” because it gave them such a fright. It’s very easy to be a guest with Russians because people just act normally all round you.
Sunday 17 March
The weather was fantastic. I came home early via the polling station. Some old women were collecting signatures at the door, against a local road-widening scheme. There was a brisk turnout, I would say, of old folk, all filling out their ballot papers in full view of the tellers and not in the booths. There were posies of red flowers on each table, but I didn’t see the famed buffet which everyone told me there would be.
Ludmilla rang me out of the blue from Leningrad. I told her I had been waiting to get official accreditation here before I contacted her, but there were a lot of difficulties. She said, “I thought it would be very difficult – but are you enjoying life?” I said I was enjoying everyday life, was she? “No,” she said, and she’d just voted “no” in the referendum. I said she was breaking the confidentiality of the ballot box. She said she was breaking the confidentiality of two ballot boxes because her husband had done the same. We tried ringing each other back three times, but each time we were barely audible to each other and got cut off.
I was immensely stirred by her call – as though she was “coming out” and had called me straightaway. It seems to mean a lot for our friendship. Also, if someone as loyal and cautious as her has voted “no”, what is happening to this country?
A UK friend came round to borrow my vacuum cleaner and brought me a nice sultana biscuit from his polling station booth. I took Nikolay to the Quakes and, as I expected, he took to the silence straightaway. Vitaly Yerenkov was there in skin-tight leather trousers. We had a very good talk afterwards about spirituality here and abroad. This time it was Russians speaking to show off how much English they know. On the tube home I seemed to be surrounded by people saying “fit as a fiddle” and “honesty is the best policy”. Exhausting.