From the personal archive of a Rusianist, installment thirty-one

Diary notes, Belgium, weekend of Saturday, 21 September 1991

Our 19^th wedding anniversary party – a political debate over the break-up of the USSR

We invite Tanya and Jean, our pianist friends from Namur, and Svetlana and Mark, from Brussels, to a champagne toast at our Braine l’Alleud home, followed by a restaurant in the town. As usual with Russians, the talk turns to politics. Jean becomes fierce in his attack on the stupid break-up of the Soviet Union and its turn away from socialism to a market economy. He says how people will suffer. Why give up political principles that are essentially good just because they have been abused by villains. I see purple!

Jean shamelessly tells us at dinner how splendidly he had lived in Moscow during his student days at the Conservatory. How like other Armenian/foreign students he had smuggled in gold jewelry (the 2 meter long chains!) which, when sold, enabled him to live like diplomats. How he used tricks to get past the bouncers at better restaurants. How he bought a Peugeot 504 from a Yugoslav embassy official and kept the CD plates. Clearly he was and remains a shameless elitist, epicure, sensualist. He wants 280 million Soviets to remain poor so that he can be rich among them.

Our dinner is mediocre. But our bon vivant friends are not discouraged and we go through numerous bottles of red and white wine, ending in Havana cigars for the gents, the typically extravagant offer of Mark.

Political debate re-emerges. I am something of a coq in these matters. Jean backs away, mellowed by the food. But the sting is there –we are clearly standing on opposite sides of the barricades.

I am wholly for the market changes, for the break-up of the USSR, whereby I see each of the republics finding its own worth. I deplore the laziness and egoism of our Western diplomatic community, which is conservative and unwilling to acknowledge the necessity of allowing freely elected democratic parliaments. The right to self-determination.

As I see it, no one knows who is rich and who is poor in the Soviet Union. All calculations are built on misinformation. Official statistics show what common sense observation denies.

If Tatarstan is poor, it’s only because its vast mineral wealth is being sold cheaply via the Druzhba pipeline to Comecon for roubles. Let the western oil companies in, let the exports go at world market prices and this down-and-out provincial area of the Russian Federation will be among the richest. Ditto Uzbekistan. Now the papers begin to reveal the truth about its status which official data concealed for reasons of military secrecy. The large gold production, which is second in the USSR after Russia and ahead of Kazakhstan, did not appear officially because the gold mining was conducted in the same fields as militarily operated uranium mining and was enshrouded in state secrecy.

The despoliation of all resources in the Soviet Union, the rape of the land, was legendary. Now control must be turned over to the indigenous peoples. They must assert national interests and must understand their worth on the world stage before any recombinations are possible.

Those in the West who ask how these republics can survive on their own are empty rhetoricians. Let’s take Estonia, for example: a tiny population of under 2 million of whom one-half are Russians, Ukrainians and other non-natives; a land without mineral resources, whose economy is founded on agricultural products which are already over-abundant in Europe. Fine, but Estonia is situated geographically in the position of transit crossroads from Finland-Scandinavia to the south. They rightly emphasize the potential for developing roads to allow a north-south route in the east, where the ecological restraints are not so severe on truck transit as in the pampered West, passing through Germany. Moreover, the Estonians seek to develop their banking activities as financiers of East-West trade. In a word, they’ll survive quite nicely by rendering services to their bigger and more powerful neighbors. Why then should they be compelled to participate in a union which has been till this past August the vehicle for trampling on their rights.

Jean and I are indeed far apart. He’d do better to mind his music and not his politics. I will not mourn the passing of the black market days of the past.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[Memoirs of Russianist, Volume I: From the Ground Up in now in print and available on all national websites of Amazon.com, as well as from other leading online retailers including Barnes & Noble, and http://www.bol.com.]

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment thirty

Yugoslav civil war – where do the Great (and Little) Powers stand?

Diary notes, Sunday evening, 7 July 1991

The past week was filled, filled with impressions and interesting developments.

This was moving week, getting installed in Neuenhofer Allee, Cologne, now that my new UPS offices are here, at the Cologne Airport.

Larisa and Alexa drove down with me last Sunday as I once again took rooms at the Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn. On Tuesday we spend the day in the apartment as movers arrive. How wonderful to see again all of our antiques which had been in storage in Dortmund for the past 15 months. Set out in the new apartment, it looks fine. The ceilings may be too low at 2.5 meters (!), and it is a pity that our living and dining areas are in one room, but otherwise the good state of the apartment house shows off the mahogany and fruitwood very well. By the time they leave at 5.30 everything is in its place. Specialists will come next week to install the chandelier and to mount the mirror and paintings on the walls.

On D-day, as the movers put in the last pieces, one of our two neighbors on the landing invites all three of us in for tea. Very nice gesture. Larisa sits there like a dummy, but I carry on in German for half an hour about my job, about his retirement and about their apartment in Calpe. Nice people. We have been in Belgium for 11 years and no one has done for us what they have done on the first day.

The week is a hot one. It is the first warmth and summery weather since April. Temperature soars into the low 30s C. Our hotel air conditioner cannot keep up. It is a great time to discover our local beer garden. I invite Nigel and Axel over there and we all have a splendid time over Kolsch.

This is also a hot week in Yugoslavia. The military conflict has intensified since the declaration of independence of Slovenia and Croatia the previous week. Our flights into Zagreb for UPS are touch and go each day. Ljubljana airport is closed after being bombed by federal troops.

I am pleased that at long last Yugoslavia’s big lie has been exposed and the craving of these very different nationalities for self-determination has taken over. At first the reactions of the EEC and especially of the USA are bitterly disappointing. The functionaries in the State Department and their European counterparts in the various chancelleries clearly don’t want their summer holidays to be interrupted by the damned Yugoslavs. But then as the viciousness of the Serbian Communist generals becomes apparent, Kohl and the Austrians are the first to break ranks with all others and to threaten to recognize the independence of the republics. This then becomes EEC policy and even the USA and UK finally, grudgingly agree that Yugoslavia need not hold together.

From among the E. European leaders, the Hungarians and especially the Czechs under Havel come out on the side of the ‘rebels’ and the cause of self-determination. Poland’s Walesa comes out for law and order.

It is remarkable to be living through a situation so reminiscent of the Holy Alliance, where the existing states conspire to thwart emergence of new states from the dying communist order. Bush as Nicholas I.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-nine

Travel notes, Kiev. Ukraine on the path to independence

Monday, 29 October 1990

First visit to Kiev in 24 years. Painful after Chernobyl, which is only 60 miles away as the crow flies. The ‘green city’ they call themselves, as if that were a compliment. It’s a contradiction in terms.

Morning – we go to see the Pechersk Lavra – don’t get very far. Join a Soviet group. The guide is on missionary work, strongly anti-Soviet. She tells how Bolsheviks murdered the prelate and monks, how in 1919 Lenin cynically ordered the plunder and shootings. All the horrors, up to our day. Rather fuddy-duddy group of Soviet ladies. But occasionally it’s clear that the guide lands her punch. She gets through the twaddle in their brains. Scandal of yesterday at the Sophia, where fighting broke out in a protest inspired by Ruch (Ukrainian nationalists) over participation of Russian Metropolitan Alexei in the sanctification of the church.

Afternoon – visit with deputy minister of transport Reva, who grants us only one hour, because he is a parliamentarian and at 4.00 they assemble to elect a new prime minister, the result of a students’ hunger strike. Reva says that Ukraine is going ahead with full independence – sovereignty; is setting up its own embassies abroad, starting with Hungary, and will establish its own foreign ties in all international organizations. This is historic – signals the break-up of the Soviet Union if the most populous non-Russian republic walks out. 52 million population. Reva himself is clearly Russian, as is over one-third of the Ukrainian population.

Dinner at a dacha. The refrain – “Moscow is milking us.” The dinner is staged in imitation of Chernoivanenko’s dacha feast in Odessa, about which our hosts have of course heard. It’s all rather civilized. The dacha itself is a two story affair, and we are perched in the second story with its big ceramic tiled fireplace, which is lit and for a time fights off the frost, though for the last hour I sit quietly freezing. There is a splendid oak parquet floor – better than in Moscow’s best hotels (why do Muscovites always manage to turn parquet into butcher-shop floors?).

The table is spread with Caucasian specialties as our host is Armenian. Marinated patissons, red tomatoes, garlic cloves, wild garlic, stuffed grape leaves. The pièce de resistance is a beef filet mignon barbecued. Drinkable brandy as well as vodka, all consumed with relative moderation. Our hosts are planning to visit the USA, where a friend is living. Business talk moves on to the impending independence of the Ukraine – how to attract investments. I stress that the West has other priorities, so if any large firms are thinking of setting up shop here, grab them; don’t try to fence them in.

Tuesday, 30 October 1990

“Our meeting with the Autotrans group goes badly. November 1^st there will be a new exchange rate. The commercial ruble is being devalued to one third of its old value and our talking partners want us to give them all the implicit gains from this change-over. My point of view is that till now we Westerners were constrained by law – the Soviet ruble was overvalued but we could do nothing. Now the ruble is finding a more reasonable level and any confrontation over what we pay for goods and services will be between us and our Soviet business partners. We are ready for such a fight. We will compromise but we will not automatically yield to the other side the benefits of devaluation. Over the past year, as the dollar devalued, we put up quietly with rising costs in the USSR. Now it is our turn to benefit and the other side will shut up. We will increase our dollar payments only to the extent that the dollar costs to the JV have risen.

Unfortunately the leader on the Ukrainian side, director of the Auto Base…is not up to the challenge and we break off the talks without results.

On the plus side, we discover a possible alternative local partner in the newly created Business Development Center at Hotel Salute. The clever young Soviet manager of this JV outfit seems interested to promote our service as part of his infrastructure offering to foreign businesses. We make our offer. He’ll think it over.

The other major complication is that Kurshin tells me he is thinking of leaving the JV. The story is that Sovtransavto boss Tatishvili forced him out as revenge for his independence during the board meeting in Helsinki. True or false? Maybe.

In any event Kurshin last Friday was elected President of the Soviet Truckers’ Association group in charge of negotiating bilateral agreements with foreign countries. A modest salary but frequent trips abroad. The position of a power broker in a fast changing political situation.

We take dinner together and over half a liter of whisky he tries to seal our personal relations. Tells about his past. In ’39, his father was the chief engineer of Gulag. It all lasted one year, on the Belomorkanal project. Then he was lucky to get out with demotion to a factory directorship. Later he also served the NKVD as head of a factory employing minor offenders. He reveals that his grandfather was a member of the first merchants’ guild of Moscow, a wealthy man with a townhouse in Moscow.

Arkadi wants to keep the door open for a possible return to UPS if and when we break with Sovtransavto and set up our subsidiary. To ingratiate himself, he says he was asked by the KGB if I’m a spy when I applied for a multiple entry visa. Gentle hint that he has friends going back to his father. I’m neither surprised nor shocked. One thing for sure – I do not match his ‘confession’ about my nationality or skeletons in the closet.

Whom to name to succeed him? Better someone from inside, not to start all over again with someone else. Nor do we give Tatishvili the upper hand in our JV.

Jokes from Kiev: we pass new luxury housing block “Vnukovo” built for the grandsons of the nomenklatura. Or the KGB headquartrers is the tallest building in Kiev – from there you can see Siberia.

Tuesday was Political Prisoners’ Day in Moscow with a large demonstration on Dzerzhinski Square. Kurshin wants to watch it on television.

We take a little car tour – past the St Sophia – which is really disappointing – just another Russian church. For some reason I expected the grandeur of Hagia Sophia (Istanbul). The cupolas here are just some more onion shapes. On the other hand Rastrelli’s 19^th century Andreyevski Sobor is magnificent – a blue and white baroque jewel. We descend the cobbled road into the Poddolia, the fine baroque part of the city just starting to be rehabilitated.

Uneventful flight on Aeroflot TU134 from Kiev to Berlin’s Schoenefeld airport. My fellow passengers are a talkative American lawyer turned journalist who proudly shows off his accreditation to Vecherny Kiev for the USA (pay to be all the rubles he can eat). On the other side, a German based manager for General Electric who is a good Russian speaker. A bit on the glum side. Confines himself to travel to Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev. Remembers his ’76 trip to Khabarovsk, as one of the first foreigners. At the time he took an Intourist guided tour and at the lookout point over the Amur asked if it was far to China. The guide said yes, very far; a Chinese standing just nearby said – just look at the hills across the river, that’s China – and the guide turned crimson

As I leave Schoenefeld (where customs inspection is more like the old DDR than like the new BRD), I take a Wartburg taxi and get at once caught in the new traffic jams which seem to be clogging all arterial roads. Takes about an hour to reach Tegel. Lufthansa has played a dirty trick – my direct flight to Brussels is subcontracted to a small turboprop – so we get well bounced around in the high winds by the time we land in Brussels.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-eight

Travel Notes: conquering the Soviet Far East for UPS, 30 September – 4 October 1990

The trip from Tashkent to Khabarovsk on an IL-62 should take six and a half hours. A half hour before the planned landing time (2 am Tashkent time) the steward announces that we are landing elsewhere and will be on the ground for one and a half to two hours before proceeding to Khabarovsk. I am dumbstruck. The next half hour to landing is nervous – till at last we touch down. Then we are told we cannot leave the plane (it is a closed military air base) and we spend 5 hours in our seats waiting for permission to continue. It is rainy and cold outside as we drowse in semi-consciousness. I am wrapped in the Uzbek kaftan which had been the minister’s gift at our final dinner. Finally, my back in pain, we proceed on the one hour flight and reach Khabarovsk where there are broken clouds and sunshine. The confusion over time (no one knows how many hours difference between Moscow and Khabarovsk and to further complicate our lives this is the weekend when the clocks are turned back one hour from summer time.

I go over to the Intourist lounge where I take tea and cakes. See a JAL lounge set up in a fussy old Stalinist era building. Forty-five minutes later, Arkadi Kurshin and the local transport deputy chief find me there and a half hour later my baggage is recovered and we drive into town. All planes were diverted from Khabarovsk due to fog and Arkadi’s trip was as difficult as mine: his plane was sent on to Vladivostok where they spent 6 hours on the ground. Thank heavens I was row 1 aisle, so my claustrophobia wasn’t too bad.

Hotel Intourist – a standard suite for $120 the night. Here the locals have not arranged anything for us. The hotel overlooks the Amur and the embankment is just nearby, so I go for a 30 minute jog. Splendid autumn weather. Golden leaves falling. The majestic river Amur at the confluence with the Ussuri. The Chinese border is just 30 km away across the river in the hills. Arkadi warns not to go out at night – survivors of Gulag, especially criminals, are active. The town is a typical European Russian river city. Could be the Volga or Dnepr. The city is built on hills, well situated. Striking to realize I’ve come so close to China, so close to where my grandfather tread in his days of the Russo-Japanese War.

After the usual battle to get into the hotel restaurant, which serves only groups and locals who have paid under the table, Arkadi and I take a mediocre Siberian supper consisting of salted mushrooms (gruzdi), salted and marinated fern stems, pelmeni in a ceramic pot (Arkadi), fried salmon (me) and lingonberries in sugar for dessert. Washed down with 100 grams of decent vodka and some sticky sweet bottled soda.

The big surprise is that today a delegation of more than 70 Americans from Alaska have arrived on a charter flight from Anchorage for a People to People program. We had encountered about the same number of my compatriots in Tashkent, including one burley guy wearing a cap with the insignia of the Chicago Police Force. Little do these nice, conservative Americans know that they are visiting a territory populated with Sing Sing escapees? Their tour bus is preceded by a police car, which may be a necessary defensive measure under the circumstances.

Khabarovsk as an outpost in the Wild West. See the influence of proximity to China. Some penetration of Chinese words and a border atmosphere.

At 11.30 pm, after four and a half hours, I get through by phone to Larisa in Leningrad. All went smoothly. She was met by our guys at Pulkovo airport and taken to her father’s apartment. Now she is the guest of honor in a party at Valya’s.

The Khabarovsk river front is mainly in yellow pastel stucco buildings reflecting the Moscow architectural style of the late 19^th century. An admixture of socialist realism – see the park next to the river port with realistic, prudish sculptures of the same vintage (1930s) as the river boat station in Moscow.

Monday, 1 October 1990

A weak start to the day. I am suffering still from dysentery picked up in Central Asia. As I go down to breakfast, look into the open door and discover the Marubeni Corp (Japanese) representative office . I speak to them, interest them in our service and learn of the existence of four more Japanese companies in this hotel.

At talks with our prospective local partners at the Khabarovsk Road Transport group, we discover that there is now a twice weekly flight of Aeroflot between Khabarovsk and Tokyo. Visit to the airport makes clear that this is the best way in and out for shipments to/from the Pacific basin and the Americas. Meanwhile use the Moscow route for Europe-bound cargoes. Logical and cheap.

At lunch we discover that the UPS manager Jim Patterson (Pacific Region manager) is present here as part of the Alaska delegation. Meet with him – prosperous looking guy. He’s here doing ‘public relations work’ – that is to say company paid tourism. Another simple guy from Oregon who has done well at UPS. We meet later in the day at the dinner table and he reveals an astonishing fact: he is the survivor of a heart transplant operation. This youthful guy aged 45 has undergone this most savage operation and lived to talk about it. My Russians are stunned.

Note: Khabarovsk is just near Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region – about 150 km away. Really not a bad place to live, except that it’s very, very remote. Climate is fine. Latitude is about like Ukraine. Hot summers and cold winters. Feel the influence of Soviet Chinese and Korean populations – people who took refuge here after 1947.

2 October 1990 onward to Vladivostok

Khabarovsk: depressing backwardness. A hunter’s playground with hunters/trappers crude sense of humor and jolliness by the quart. Our host, head of road transport group of Khabarovsk, is primitive (though he was moved, ‘transformed’ by a visit to Japan and especially by Kyoto). These are Mafioso types. The Aeroflot ticket office proves to be incompetent and snarling as usual. I get my ticket to Vladivostok only after a big scandal.

The Hotel Intourist staff are gloomy, gloomy. At breakfast the waitresses not only do not smile, but ignore greetings of guests. The foreigner is strictly a sheep to be shorn. Hence the rule that he pay all services in dollars, including my phone call to Leningrad.

It’s never too early for a drink. Rampant alcoholism in the old guard. Yet signs of change. At the entrance to the cemetery there is a new chapel to victims of Stalinist oppression. The town museum has a new section devoted to the Gulag and repressions.

We sign an agency agreement. We give a lecture on UPS to the Khabarovsk auto leadership (all look like alcoholics and degenerates).

After a dismal lunch at the Intourist, which sets back yet again my progress in convalescence, we go out to the airport for the flight to Vladivostok. To our dismay we are flying in the tiny Yak40, which bounces around at take-off and landing due to wind and which takes a half hour longer to cover the 800 km than would a TU154. Nonetheless, it is good flying weather – clear and bright and the trip goes smoothly. The plane looks like a piece of shit – worn out old bus. Flies loiter inside as if it’s a public toilet. From the air, this whole Amur valley looks fertile and much is under cultivation.

When we arrive in Vladivostok, I understand why there was nothing in the ABC book on it. It’s really tiny, mostly offering local flights. A backwater airport. Stunning for me that 8,000 km from Moscow, just opposite Japan and the forest, flora look just like in European Russia. If released blindfolded I couldn’t say where I was. The only tip-off is the high concentration of used Japanese cars on the road.

We are given rooms in the state house where Ford was lodged during his meeting with Brezhnev. Looks like Tito’s Villa Bled in Slovenia. Heavy use of marble. Apartment sized suites fitted with Scandinavian toilet fixtures and General Electric air conditioner (window units). Fussy, Victorian style settees and armchairs and machine made oriental carpets on the floors. The temperature outside is 20 degrees C and it is tempting to think of taking a dip in the sea (Gulf of Amur) tomorrow morning after a jog.

Between gastric problems and jet lag (time disorientation of 7 hours) I am not really feeling up to strength.

My suite was used by Raisa Gorbachev, I am told.

We spend a wonderful evening dinner with Martynenko, the local transport boss. Young and very energetic guy. From his words, it’s clear that Khabarovsk will be the regional air transport center for some time to come. However, if the new Nakhodka free trade zone takes off, foreign companies will migrate down here to where the port action is. They have hopes to convert a military landing strip near Nakhodka into a regular civil aviation airport. However, that will require infrastructure and airport investments of 60 million rubles. The Nakhodka free trade zone will allow foreigners to freely import and export capital; to buy land and buildings. A great boom is awaited. Nakhodka presently has consulates from Japan and Korea.

Martynenko has covered all lodging and food costs for our stay here. We are in fact the only guests. And he has bought my ticket back to Moscow Friday for rubles. Our schedule will permit an excursion out into the Gulf on his cutter and a day trip down to Nakhodka, where we will meet the mayor’s office.

Note: officially Vladivostok is still a closed city – mainly submarine bases, off limits to outsiders.

Wednesday, 3 October 1990 – st. Sanitoriya, Vladivostok

All morning we go over features of our service, scheme to win a customer away from Soyuzvneshtrans and so to take over the DHL business. Conclude an agency contract. Then at 1.30 we take lunch, all in the dining room adjacent to my suite. Then we drive into town, over to the harbor, where at 4.00 we take a cutter out for a boat ride that gives us a 45 minutes survey of the broad basin of Vladivostok, from the inlet of the open sea between our starting point in the Golden Horn till the Ostrov Russky, then around in the direction of the Bay. The Golden Horn is aptly named as it resembles the Istanbul basin in the Bosphorus. Also reminiscent in some respects of San Sebastian and Deauville. I’d never guess this is Russia. The hills provide an interesting setting. Buildings, even recent housing complexes, are mainly in brick and from a distance at least look very respectable. The generosity and drama of nature seems more like New World than Europe. No wonder my father in law Vladimir Illarionovich loved it out here. Next time I must come via Japan and must see the geysers on Kamchatka. Larisa is right. Just think – we are 5 and a half hours from Anchorage and 8 hours from Moscow.

Wednesday, October 3 – Vladivostok

Dinner at our pier restaurant just near our resort. For openers cold fish including salmon roe, cod liver, scallops, salted keta salmon; a main course of elk stew. Our hosts have tried very hard to treat us to original and quality experiences. If it weren’t for my upset intestines I’d be having a great time.

Note: their perspective: there can be no turning back from perestroika and market forces. “We have been to China and seen the results of economic liberalization. We must proceed down this road.” China has had a very strong, positive effect on their thinking. See the hard work and its achievements. At the same time, recognize that labor intensive Chinese ways are not directly applicable in Russia. Yet great respect for Chinese cuisine, furniture, etc. Feelings less warm towards Japanese. Yet do respect their economic achievement.

10.30 pm – I use the ‘red phone ‘ Communist Party elite intercity system via an operator and get through to Vladimir Illarionovich who assures me that Larisa has her ticket to Moscow on Friday and is all set to go. I give greetings from ‘his’ Vladivostok. A very strange feeling.

Thursday, October 4

In the morning I sleep, then at lunch I am joined by our Siberian friend, Yuri Vasilievich Shemetev from Primoravtotrans, deputy to Martynenko. He proposes that we take a walk together on the Gulf and meet with a couple of guys who are here from Krasnoyarsk. I feast on my chicken soup and chicken with rice, then gladly go with Yuri. The fellow is a strapping 1meter85cm tall, wide set and heavy (100kg), but carries the weight well and looks energetic. A craggy face that is handsome, framed by curly light brown hair. A perfect Siberian, born in the Irkutsk area and living for 21 years in the Vladivostok – Maritime area. He’s younger than me by one year, born in ’46. His grandfather, like mine, fought in the Russo-Japanese war, though he was a sailor and mine in the army, in Manchuria. Curious coincidence that grandchildren should meet here 85 years later. He’s an optimist – still remains in the Party, hopes for change from within.

We drive ten minutes over to Sovetskii Zaliv, where there is a broad sandy beach. The water is calm, just a slight surf, as on the Great Lakes. Forest all around reminds of America – New York or Lake Michigan. Leafy trees, mostly maple or oak. Hills about like Ramapo mountains – Suffern of Rockland County, New York. Here they call them Manchurian ‘sopki’. The water is so tempting that I suggest we take a dip. Shemetev eagerly agrees; one of the Krasnoyarsk team also, reluctantly joins. We skinny dip – go out a 100 yards. The water is beautiful. Perhaps 16 degrees and there is a slight roll of waves. The shore is shallow, just like the Gulf of Finland. The water is moderately salty. What a great experience to act on impulse and take one of the last dips of 1990 in the Pacific!! Only with people as temperamental and nutty as Russians. I think it over: do I really want to cut ties with this unforgettable country at the time of its second great revolution of this century, during its return to normalcy in order to go sell pots and pans in Hungary for SEB-Calor? Not really. Better to come to terms with UPS or DHL on a more favorable basis for myself and the family.

Shemetov is such a positive hero in the Russian sense. Physically imposing and avidly energetic. Love for nature. Openness to other cultures yet love for his own. Disciplined, yet also impulsive. Contrast to the Vladimir Illarionovich look-alike in Khabarovsk, Vladimir Lozganov or the drunken general director there, Vasily Ermalov, also very Russian in their primitive vulgarity and alcoholic fog. Jokes centered on impotence.

Dinner with Martynenko, who turns out to be deeply skeptical of possibilities for improvement. Why? Because the Maritime Region is only a producer of raw materials – lead, zinc, wolframite, gold, etc, as well as coal and fish. They are all sent to European Russia or abroad for processing. Out of total revenues only 30% remain with the locality, of which half must be spent to procure consumer goods, another part must go to maintain existing infrastructure, so that in the end only 3% is left for industrial/economic growth. There is no light industry to speak of. Sixty-five percent of clothing worn in the region is imported – from Austria, Yugoslavia, Germany. Even the fish catch is sold after only very rudimentary processing. Unlike Shemetev, Martynenko seems demoralized, paralyzed. Does not see better days ahead and is not working for them.

Note: yesterday’s Voice of America program, which I receive splendidly on a short wave radio set in the suite, reported on the October 3 reunification of Germany celebrations in Berlin. End to the 4-power command. A turning point in world history that is scarcely felt here.

From 8 – 12 midnight we celebrate the Russian banya ceremony. Fantastic. First time I experience the full rite, including flogging with oak twigs. Very pleasant – aroma of wet tea leaves. Open pores. Very cleansing and great to be alive. Sit and chat – hunters’ stories of bear, tiger, boar, deer in tundra. Fantastic and enthusiastic story telling.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-seven

Travel notes – Romania, Wednesday, 15 August – Friday, 17 August 1990

Strange to think that only last December we sat before our television in our Waikiki apartment and followed the amazing news of the revolution in Bucharest to the point of the execution of the hated Ceaucescu.

This was the country which was at the bottom of my priority list, next to Albania. A revolution left unfinished, with installation in power of ex-Communist, newly baptized “Socialists.” Iliescu, the transition figure who refuses to back away from power. A starved country which offended the US and EEC by the pogroms of university and opposition leaders just several months ago.

The country where the US government recently issued an advisory against travel due to sporadic outbreaks of violence.

Now, following repeated, insistent invitations from Romtrans and their acceptance by telex of the tough terms I set as a precondition, I take Nigel for a day visit. We are both nervous flying in – will this be pure business and will it be successful?

Arrival is dismal. The airport windows haven’t been washed in months; one is broken. The bus transfer is ramshackle. It’s hot, over 36 degrees C and our hosts are not there to meet us. We bargain and get a taxi into town, to our hotel Intercontinental. The hotel itself is slightly run down but functioning. Looks like Athens, very Balkans. But, thank heavens, the air conditioning works and the pool on the 22^nd floor is cool when I take a dip Thursday evening. We dine in the hotel – unexciting but safe and then dare to take a stroll outside. There are some student demonstrations across the street at the university walk (renamed, in giant graffiti: TienAnMin Square). The mood is like Barcelona, Las Ramblas. Many are out strolling. Sabena and other airline offices are just nearby, as is the American Embassy.

Thursday norming at 9 our hosts get through by phone and at 10 we are picked up by Ionescu, a skinny energetic guy with wavy hair, Arab/Semitic features. His English is fluent, ditto French. He spent several years in Iraq in the early 80s. The way to their office is via a block of new apartment houses just being finished and leading to Ceaucescu’s notorious palace. However, up close the architecture is really excellent. Neo-classical, using stone colors and motifs that are indigenous. Very successful. As pleasing as the best parts of Madrid. The fountains and carvings on facades show some oriental influence – at first it even seems like Mexican. However, later as we walk through the town the peculiar serpentines are found on 16^th-17^th century church porticos, reflecting Turkish influence. So the motifs and beige colored stone are authentic and indigenous.

The main boulevards are broad. The buildings of this Ceaucescu complex are grand but not really pompous. Building materials are blond travertine and concrete, so they are good but not lavish. Even the palace itself, a sort of truncated Stalin type Palace of Culture, is in proportion with the boulevard and not so very oversized. This all compares favorably to the jumble of broken down and ugly buildings which constitutes the Bucharest side streets. Yes, there are fine old boulevards and districts with very good villas. But the basic downtown side streets are very homely and poor, and their disappearance in C’s urban renewal is not really regrettable.

Our meeting takes place in the ‘protocol’ room of the Romtrans headquarters, which is a shabby 1930s building with cracked plaster and worn out cheap furniture. The heat builds up and becomes nearly unbearable. We are offered periodically cups of coffee and soda as the meeting goes on for four and a half hours without break for lunch. We are introduced to Gabi Constantinescu, courier employee; Mihailescu, deputy general manager of Romtrans; and Eugen Bar, the general manager. Mihailescu, a chubby guy in his 40s with round Greek face and features, comes from the river boat side of transportation. He does most of the negotiating. Ionescu does the translating. Bar comes in for protocol reasons, to put his stamp of approval on the talks. Mihailescu walks in and out and shows he is in overall control. Ionescu goes over all the tough questions with us. These guys show energy, knowledge of the business and confidence.

The main impression is that our timing has been very lucky. Had we come six months ago, Romtrans would have been imperious and dictated unacceptable terms. Then they were still the only game in town and they were locked together with DHL to whom they gave all Romanian exports (receiving for the favor one-half of the revenues from export). However, in May DHL cancelled the contract from one day to the next, after having cut a deal with the courier manager from Romtrans on a visit to DHL headquarters. That ostensibly had as its goal the creation of a DHL – Romtrans joint venture.

As a result the 6 key courier employees left Romtrans to set up a DHL office and took most of the clientele with them. Romtrans were furious but could do nothing. They made a gentlemen’s agreement with RGW to assume imports and with Jet Service International (Frankfurt) for exports. But they urgently needed a major international partner to recover credibility before their clientele and go after DHL. We provide just that. Evidently neither TNT nor Fedex were yet interested in the market.

Total Romanian market today is perhaps 65 imports and 25 exports daily. We now have an excellent chance to get the lion’s share.

By my estimate, DHL screwed themselves. They applied the same solution in Romania as in Yugoslavia and Poland, but without reckoning the difference in local circumstances. Unlike those countries, all economic life in Romania remains in the hands of monopoly companies and that will not change quickly. DHL cannot gain or retain business by bribing secretaries. The decision on which courier service to use will be made by management and management will play ball with Mihailescu not with ex-DHL kids.

Romtrans agree to our financial terms on delivery costs and revenue sharing for export.

Thursday evening our hosts take us to dinner. Ionescu and a young newly minted deputy general manager named Doskalov. He is literally the fair-haired boy. Born in Moscow of Russian mother, now living in Bucharest as an English (!) language professor, he is a polyglot who is happy to switch into Russian with me and talk about his vacation, discovery near Mamaia on the Romanian Black Sea coast.

We dine in a splendid villa that is ten minute walk from our hotel. Splendid in terms of exclusiveness and decoration – mediocre in terms of food preparation. We share jokes; conversation turns to the Gulf stand-off between the US and Iraq. Poor Romanians have had to earn their living in the Middle East. Our interlocutors explain that Romania supplied the whole Iraqi army with boots and uniforms, plus heavy transport vehicles and construction projects. Also many Romanian technicians were working in the oil industry there.

Friday we spend the whole day in the Protocol room at Romtrans putting together exhibits to the master UPS contract. Finally all is finished and signed by 3 pm when, exhausted by the mounting heat and having taken no lunch at all, we are driven out to the airport. So far so good. Nigel and I are very satisfied with ourselves for having taken the risks and come out here.

I am exhilarated. It’s experiences like this, creative excitement, which make it worthwhile to put up with all the little wounds to my vanity at UPS, where I am often the white crow, as well as all the uncertainty over how long we can stay in our European heaven…

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-six

Diary notes – Moscow-Odessa 23 July – 27 July 1990

First trip back to the USSR after vacation in France. Not so warm in Moscow – perhaps 20 – 22C, but very high humidity. The purpose of this trip is to further extend the UPS network, to add Odessa.

JV General Manager Arkady Kurshin is in fine spirits. He has given numerous interviews following the Tashkent contract signing and is basking in the publicity. This time all reservations have been made well in advance and I am comfortably installed in the Ukraina hotel. Shabby, oversized but freshly redecorated 12^th floor is cozy. 14^th floor Italian owned snack bar is reopened and I have a very pleasant supper after which I stroll across the river to the World Trade Center complex. Clusters of American business groups – lawyers looking very proper in their white shirts and ties. Young guys doing the legwork for their company negotiations. As I’ve said before, when American corporate culture moves in , it takes the landscape with it.

Tuesday afternoon flight to Odessa with Kurshin – smooth, one and a half hour flight. So far, so good. We arrive in Odessa shortly after a rain and it is steamy though the temperature is still only 25 degrees C. Our hosts take us straight to the hotel. Krasnaya [the Bristol] built in 1889 and considered the best in town. At $120 per night I expect something special and so it is. Vintage about the same as the Metropole in Moscow, in high baroque style with all of the pastel excesses that Russians loved.

It is across the street from what was the Stock Exchange until party bosses decided that a Philharmonic hall was more relevant (zero acoustics, but that’s life). The room is a suite with 4 meter high ceilings. Nice proportions. Oak floors. Good oak chairs and marquetry chests and table. Beds in a sleeping alcove. Restored, shabby and cockroach infested. A neat microcosm of the entire city, whose architectural heritage is on a high level – fine boulevards in Italianate architecture, stucco and pastel colors. Reminiscent of Petersburg, though on a smaller scale. Beautiful plantain trees. Feeling of Naples, of Seville. Picturesque in its advanced decay and poverty. Courtyards, well proportioned squares. . Facelifts here and there but not enough to allay the overwhelming feeling of decline, ruins of past glory.

We take a drive through the city, look over the passenger port at the famous ‘Potemkin staircase.’ City has an undeniable charm coming from its situation overlooking the sea at an elevation of 30 – 40 meters. We go down to the tourist area and then leave the city proper for the ’16^th station area,’ where we take a swim in doubtful quality slimy water at a closed beach – closed because of human waste and industrial pollution.

Arkadi is overjoyed to be in the sea. I would rather forget the pleasure. The ‘16^th Station’ is reference to old tram line stops, from that very line whose shares (Odessa Tram Company) I have seen on sale at the Sablon Square in Brussels. Probably there was some tie-in with the developers of the coastal railway in Belgium at the end of the last century. This line is now electrified and still functioning. The whole impression of the beaches is depressing. It’s the poverty of physical plant, the filth of the water and the obesity and physical deformity of so many of the bathers. No place to invite the international jet set. Most of the bathers are bussed in from not far – Moldavians coming from 150 to 200 km away. It’s a cheap and dirty vacation. Food may be sufficient, but transport is not. Everywhere along the road people have their hands out hoping to catch a ride.

Our hosts have a lovely dinner set at a dacha to which Arkadi and I plus two other visiting Muscovites from the trucking business are invited. Homely, very homely. The ‘path’ of access is muddy and rutted. Viktor Mikhailovich doesn’t want it paved, however, so as to keep out outsiders. His plot is an ample 5 ares and is richly planted in apricots, walnuts and table grapes which form a luxuriant canopy. The house itself is new, an oversized bungalow but of decent materials and equipped with electricity, water, room air conditioner and color television which we all watch as the conversation peters out. Typically we watch a session of the Ukrainian parliament which is voting on members of the government. I’m surprised that some speakers use Ukrainian, others Russian. Our own conversation runs from criticism of Raisa for seeking too much of the limelight to the anti-business position of the republican government. Kurshin regales our hosts with tales from his years attached to the Soviet embassy in France.

Thursday we have formal signing of agency agreement before local television cameras , then in the afternoon per my request I am taken out to the Hippodrome for 20 minutes of trot on a fine harness racer. For the evening we have opera tickets. The program, Gounod’s Faust, is changed at the last minute and instead we see Verdi’s La Traviata. The opera house itself is magnificent – renovated about a decade ago following recedence and cracking to structural supports. It is today fresh and gilded rococo. Splendid foyer, which for some reason is not used, or rather is closed off. The performance is remarkably good. Violetta is a talented Armenian – young, rich voice and good stage presence. Alfredo is also young, though less impressive. Other leading roles hold up. The chorus is the weakest part. The conductor is attentive to his singers and the balance is successful. The conception is pedestrian but acceptable. Decoration is cheap, but I have no complaint since it is sufficient. I had assumed we would just sit through the first act, but the performance is good enough to hold me to the end, at which I must hold back tears. Now that is a testimonial: the artistic integrity even as the piece is sung in Russian is higher than anything I have seen on the Teatr Wielki in Poland or in Zagreb. A most pleasant surprise. The audience is mostly local, though all the foreign tourists – English, Germans, etc. – are well represented in the parterre and boxes.

Further notes on our UPS service partner – Viktor Mikhailovich Chernoivanenko

Claims to have German ancestry – a grandfather named Zimmerman. Peculiar interest in clarifying Jews. When we are alone, he asks me whether it’s true that Kurshin is Jewish. Further, when I describe the Russian camp in France – he asks ‘and are there many Jews there?’ At the same time, he shows kindness and generosity. See his love and attention to his youngest son, a boy of about 8, who is stricken by cerebral palsy: he has arranged as therapy rides on the harness track each weekend – hence his arrangements for my promenade via these contacts at the track.

Also note: this ‘simple’ guy engaged in transport has a reasonable income and growing experience of foreign travel. His base salary of 350 rubles rises to 750 a month with premiums. His wife has about 400 rubles with premium included. He has visited Japan, also Turkey. And thanks to the US-Soviet ‘fraternal cities’ program, he will visit Baltimore, Maryland this autumn.

Note how important this program is for letting middle managers see the world. Tashkent was linked to Seattle, WA and these guys to Baltimore.

On Gorbachev, Viktor and his pals are cool. Where are the benefits? They see none as yet. And in their work, they are still bound hand and foot to the bureaucracy. Cars and fuel are available only on allocation basis. If they declare independence they lose all. As Viktor sums up: where there is no way to avoid rape, you might as well relax and try to enjoy it.

Further notes on Odessa visit – July 1990

We see loads of Americans in town. A group of about 20 from a company distributing Stolichnaya in the USA. On the road to Moscow, Leningrad and Odessa. Jaded.

At the barbecue held at the dacha of Chernoivanenko, the discussion turned hot. Kurshin becomes a patriot: if we don’t have self-respect, no one will respect us. Meanwhile, Chernoivanenko himself says that he thinks that the Kurile Islands should be given back to Japan and the Japanese should be given extensive concessions in Siberia so that the area can be properly developed. On his trip to Japan he was greatly impressed how disused was the Soviet territory compared to the Japanese lands just across the sea. We are like the dog on the haystack, he says: the dog cannot eat it himself but doesn’t allow other animals to eat.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2020

[Memoirs of Russianist, Volume I: From the Ground Up is now in print and available on all national websites of Amazon.com, as well as from other leading online retailers including Barnes & Noble, and http://www.bol.com]

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-five

Travel notes, accompanying a Soviet delegation to UPS in the USA, February 1990

The week in the States with a Soviet delegation – Sunday, 4 February to Friday afternoon, 9 February is tiring though our interpreter Valeri Shchukin takes the heat and I largely go along for the ride. First days are especially easy – we spend 3 nights in the Plaza Hotel. Under Trump’s ownership for the past few years it has been thoroughly renovated and is splendid – showy rich. The Palm Court is again the place to be seen – schmaltzy violin and piano for afternoon teas, meals all day long from breakfast onward.

I love the hotel’s location, just across from Central Park and on at least two days I do get to do jogging. However, my exercise program is stripped away by exhaustion from the long days. We gather at 8am and part at midnight, so there is too little time to do anything besides sleep.

Wednesday we spend the night in Louisville in a hotel dating from the same period as New York’s Plaza – 1907 – and with similar pretensions to opulence. It would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that we go to bed at 3am and rise at 7.

Don Layden, V.P. International. Why does he spend the whole week with us? I must keep my mouth shut for nearly all the trip. Why is he scheduling his trip to Vienna, East Germany, Budapest in March? Why does he agree to go to Leningrad and Moscow in April? It looks as if the USSR is just too popular and we must all ride the tiger. But it does complicate my life – distracts from my work plans to have to stop and set up all for these guys.

Minister Yuri Sukhin shows himself to be as energetic, intelligent as previously seemed to be the case on our first two meetings. In addition, he is a good diplomat and excellent politician: he speaks well to our employees – saying that he sees in them his own drivers and recalls his early career as a driver and railroad car unloader. Loves to talk to the workers. His aim in coming is to seek tips on making the transition from chief of a state corporation, an operation of 300k vehicles, 1.5 million employees, etc. to becoming a regulator of the transport industry in a free or market guided economy. To his dismay, our Department of Transportation assistant secretary and chairman of the Congressional surface transport committee say that the US is fast reducing the regulators, doing away with them, see the ICC, FAS.

Sovtransavto boss Tatishvili turns out to be warm, friendly and independent minded – openly glad to be getting out from under the ministry which bred him – a sort of super Arkadi Kurshin, our JV general manager.

At the dinner Tuesday in the State Suite of The Plaza we are joined by UPS chairman Oz Nelson. There are on the UPS side in addition to myself only a couple of middle managers plus Donald Layden and Oz. The Russian guests number four: Sergei Bujanov, Gendais Kuznetsov, Yuri Sukhin and Tenghiz Tatishvili. In Louisville and rest of the trip, I am in this narrow circle of key UPS players.

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-four

Travel notes on visit to New York for a business symposium on Perestroika and International Business Perspectives

Sunday, 3 December 1989

It’s a rushed morning. At 11.45 Larisa drives me out to the airport for my flight to New York. Upgrading goes through and I fly first class to JFK – eating the whole way. Arrive in blustery cold New York – but to our good fortune, dry and light. By 6.00pm, I am at the New York Hilton. Run-down, almost tacky room in the sort of over-sized hotel that I detest. Primitive bathroom.

Monday, 4 December 1989

An early start to the day at 5am. But at least I did get 6 hours sleep – more than I had expected. I phone London – but no news there for me.

At 8.00, I go over to the McGraw Hill Building four blocks away to register for the symposium on Perestroika and International Business Perspectives that has brought me to New York. Day’s sessions are mixed. Opening address by Donald Kendall is surprisingly good. He argues for Americans not to apply pressure to be allowed to teach the Russians how to create a mixed economy out of their state centrally planned economy, to be more modest and to focus on removing those obstacles which we have created to Soviet progress, namely to strike down the Jackson-Vanik amendment and to curtail the COCOM list. William Norris of Control Data speaks next – but this is thoroughly boring. Visionary, while at the same time he’s bypassed by events.

Interesting to hear from panelist Dennis Sokol, head of the US Medical Consortium. He’s the guy who recruited Fedex. That is clear. And he has promoted their talks with Vzlet – talks which he recently helped convene in Brussels.

During the break, Sokol comes up to me and asks if it’s true that I formerly worked for Fedex. Says he’d heard that from Fedex chairman Fred Smith. (So I have gained notoriety after all). At least they know now who’s screwing them.

At lunch I spot publisher and consultant Leo Welt and go up to say hello. He’s warm and touched by the recognition. We’ll meet and talk Tuesday at breakfast. Leo is generous in his description of me to another guy at the table. He is also discreet.

More important, at lunch I sit next to a bald-headed banker from Citibank who turns out to be an old buddy from Columbia. Now it slowly comes back to me. Steve was one of those leftists – student radicals, a guy who was easily comfortable with bullshit analysis. Absolutely wonderful that he should have moved so easily into banking. It was he, not the likes of me, who got to do 5 years of teaching in Vermont. There’s a guy whom my professor Haimson could back. And even this Steve was stymied by the collapsing university teaching market and the gender factor (women’s lib claimed all the available jobs). And so the guy slipped into banking – though he never took proper banking courses or training. Slipped in the back door as a consultant, as assistant to some senior VP. And now he has been given a post in the corporate banking group responsible for East Europe. Is there justice? Perhaps, if you accept that he can cause little trouble where he is. But what views does he hold? I suspect there has been no systematic re-evaluation of his old radical beliefs, only a cynical acceptance that banking is what you do to pay for your kid in Princeton. It pays.

Soviet speakers fall short of the plans of the organizers – due perhaps to the weekend summit in Malta. At least this explains the absence of USSR AmbassadorYuri Dubinin. Nonetheless, there are some interesting souls.

Among the old faces, I make contact with on the U.S. side are Hicks of Arthur Anderson and John Chambers of SATRA. Both have changed little in 10 years.

The place is thick with consultants – most very young. See slick and aggressive Gordon Feller of Integrated Strategies who had phoned me in London a couple of months ago. See Fuchs of “Bloc” magazine: he may prove an interesting contact – agrees on my speaking at a Symposium his magazine is organizing together with Columbia University on a panel dedicated to Transportation in Eastern Europe, where fellow panelists are Dizelic from Pan Am and someone from Finnair. Could be a good opportunity to build volume.

One last remark concerning the NY Symposium of Business Week: On day 2, I attend the luncheon at which Hedrick Smith is the keynote speaker. Smith was the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times during the 1970s, then returned to Washington where he became bureau chief to ’87, when he retired. His book The Russians was a best-selling account of Soviet society and expose of the nomenklatura in the 1979-80 period. Smith has been traveling throughout the USSR for the past 6 months in preparation of a book on the USSR under Gorbachev: glasnost and perestroika. He is an accomplished speaker who charms his audience with jokes for the first 10 minutes before launching into a serious and perceptive set of travel observations.

His thesis is that Gorbachev represents a whole stratum of Soviet society that was of university age when Stalin died, that experienced the exhilaration of Khrushchev’s speech to the 20^th party congress, then the stultification of the Brezhnev years. Therefore what is happening now is not the work of one man alone but has support of thousands of like-minded people throughout the USSR.

Smith shows the depth of change in mentality in the USSR, even if at a superficial level all looks just as it did 15 years ago – as poor and shabby. The genie can’t go back into the bottle. A demonstration in the ‘70s meant 5 dissidents, 7 Western journalists and dozens of security men who bundled up the demonstrators into prison wagons marked “Bread” in a few seconds, even before they had managed to unfurl their protest banners. Now it is hundreds of thousands of people. Now the Soviet public is treated to the spectacle of live TV broadcasts from the parliament – where they watch Gorbachev spend hours chairing sessions and responding directly to all kinds of questions about his own personal privileges and programs.

Can Gorbachev be overturned? If there were an attempted military coup, Smith can imagine Gorbachev going on TV and appealing to the populace to resist. Smith sees great importance in Gorbachev’s making the government and not the party his seat of power. Finally, Smith maintains that you cannot beat Gorbachev without a credible alternative leader: ‘it takes a horse to beat a horse.’ No one else on the scene can be a match for G – not Yeltsin, not Ligachev.

Smith acknowledges G’s brilliance as a politician. So far so good. But the last point contradicts all the foregoing. The real question comes back to relationship between leaders and history, between determinism and voluntarism. Without appropriate preconditions, one man can do very little. At the right moment, one man is all-decisive. G. is appropriate to this historic moment. He has the intellectual and political skills to bring about a change of momentous proportions. He is the great toreador who holds out the red banner which the bull charges past and he is unhurt. Yes, he manoeuvers between right and left but through glasnost he has allowed both poles to emerge so that he can use their great force creatively.

Politicians by definition gravitate to the center. The task was to allow political thinking to emerge and be articulated so that a constructive middle ground could be found. This is the sign of a consummate statesman, who goes beyond politics to change the world.

Why is this not seen? Because journalists and commentators are vain and grudging in their admiration and because the Russian public is very shortsighted – as should be expected. After all, politics is about local issues and bread and butter issues. And it is these economic achievements which are so very difficult to bring about overnight. Some historical perspective is called for and that is hard to find anywhere.

Hedrick Smith is one of the very few journalists looking at these questions who sees beyond yesterday and even he mostly misses what I consider essential.

Tuesday afternoon I drop out of the symposia and do window shopping. Two hours go by in a flash and at 5 pm I take a taxi out to JFK. Crossing the Triboro with Manhattan behind me, I think over an old prejudice of mine against these chicken coop apartments in which New Yorkers live their cramped lives. It has dignity only at the very top. Even over-populated, noisy and polluted London has more human scale, lower density and none of the tower canyons that are so intimidating.

Fine flight back to London. After changing and showering at 10am I am back in the office catching up with the news, gossip and preparing for next morning’s departure to Moscow.

Provocative U.S. air and sea maneuvers at Russia’s borders: shift from reconnaissance to mock cruise missile attacks

This past weekend, Russian state television on two major channels devoted substantial news segments of their week in review programs to the ongoing game of chicken that the U.S. is carrying on in the air and on the seas at Russia’s borders: on the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Barents and Okhotsk seas in the Far East. From the North, from the South, from the East and West U.S. war planes are simultaneously being directed against Russian defenses to probe their effectiveness and score political points.

In the words of Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, quoted on one of these channels, Vesti, aside from intelligence gathering, one clear intent of these maneuvers is to demonstrate U.S. raw power, to impress on the Russians that there is one boss of the world who calls all the shots, to reinforce the notion of a unipolar world. Says Shoigu, Washington does not at all like the emergence of bipolar strategic balance being pursued by Russia thanks to its new strategic weapons systems and is responding with these provocations which, as explained by chief of operations of the Russian high command Sergei Rudskoi on Friday, also shown on the program, have moved from purely reconnaissance aircraft and ships, to battle ready aircraft and cutters. B-52s and ships equipped with precision munitions and cruise missiles activate their missiles as they approach Russian frontiers to as close as 15 km to simulate attacks on the Southern Military District and the Russian installations in Crimea.

The Russian Defense Minister emphasizes that the bomber flights up to Russian borders may be American led but on the way over include fighter jets from Sweden, Germany, Ukraine and even Italy. The point of this involvement of the allies is to impress the Old Continent with American capabilities and to persuade the countries of NATO to host American rockets. And to those in Europe who may express concern about Russian attack should they agree to serve as launchers for the Americans, Washington responds that it has a monopoly of actionable military intelligence.

The programs on Russian television gave a different version of the relative effectiveness of reconnaissance there and in the West, stressing that Moscow is tracking all the B52s from the America’s North Dakota air arm that are now based in the U.K. from the moment they go aloft, following them across Europe, where they are accompanied by various European fighter planes and do so without the Americans’ being aware they are in the crosshairs at any point until Russian jet fighters scramble to intercept them on their approach to Russian borders.

The host of the News of the Week program on channel Vesti, Dmitry Kiselyov, warned that the Russians are considering using their electronic warfare devices to blind the incoming enemy aircraft. For the present they merely fly up to intercept them at top speed, approach closely and tend to unnerve the NATO pilots, leading to protests from Brussels. Should e-warfare be invoked, things could get quite rough.

According to the statistics released by General Rudskoi on Friday and shown on the Sunday news wrap-ups, the U.S. is now staging some 33 to 40 flight approaches to the Russian borders a week that are met by Russian fighters and sent on their way. On September 4^th, there were 5 reconnaissance aircraft approaching the Crimea at the same time. Major incidents of mock attacks came on 28 August and 14 September.

The Russian Armed Forces television station Zvezda (‘the Star’) noted meanwhile with satisfaction that although none of the NATO countries recognizes the Russian annexation of Crimea, they have all been very careful to stay clear of the Russian borders on the peninsula. Said Shoigu, we have never allowed any of them to cross our border and we will never allow it.

It is regrettable that none of these activities, none of these possibilities for tragic accidents and recriminations between US-led NATO forces and Russia are being reported in Western media. If and when there is some clash, some downed plane, it will be reported like a thunder clap in blue skies.

The following links are in Russian original, but the visuals speak for themselves.

Vesti nedeli, Dmitry Kiselyov, 20.09.20 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG8wXAE99uw

From minute 18:44

Zvezda, Glavnoe s Olgoi Belovoi : from minute 27

[If you found value in this article, you should be interested to read my latest collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, published in November 2019 and available in e-book, paperback and hardbound formats from amazon, barnes & noble, bol.com, fnac]

From the personal archive of a Russianist, installment twenty-three

Travel notes, Thursday, 16 – Tuesday, 21 November 1989 – the visit of UPS team headed by VP, International Don Layden for completion of JV with Sovtransavto in Moscow and opening of service in Yugoslavia

Remarkably compressed, kaleidoscopic trip. Dog tired. Succession of near sleepless nights, insomnia coming from the tension of too many things and people to coordinate.

Arrival in Moscow Thursday evening, with no rooms reserved – need to talk our way into the Hotel Ukraina. I am with Dieter, our German Region I.E. manager whom I am installing for the next two weeks – into start-up and who will remain available for 6 months. Dieter was last here 8 years ago – speaks rusty Russian which he learned doing intelligence work in the German army. He came to UPS about 6 years ago – started as a driver and gradually worked his way up to Industrial Engineering supervisor for his district. Slow and steady, reliable, conservative guy. Hard-working – puts in a 60 hour week when at home. We take very elegant dinner at the National – excellent beef steaks.

Friday the madness begins in earnest. Morning at Sovtransato with deputy director Yevgeny Sudakov and JV management nominees Arkady Kurshin, Yuri Kulakov, etc. going over plans for the start of service. Word is that our JV will be registered and final on Wednesday, November 22; that the TNT JV with Aeroflot has never been consummated despite all publicity. That DHL still pursuing a JV with Soyuzvneshtran

Saturday morning meet with Yuri and get back our materials for the symposium. In the afternoon I go out to the airport to meet Long, Smith, Skoda, Roth. Their plane is delayed, then they clear customs very slowly. Finally we are back at the Ukaine about 7 pm. We are joined by Larry Walsh, an Irish contractor of UPS who is in town for the first time after 20 years – having hopes to build on his past deliveries for Air Rianta /Aeroflot JV duty free. We take a very elegant dinner at the Savoy – bliny with caviar followed by snow grouse, with French Mouton Cadet Bordeaux. A bit glitzy but well done nonetheless and presentation of the food is excellent, about as in Finland. The boys look pleased.

Larry Long, UPS Vice President for Europe, Africa and Middle East repeatedly speaks of ‘a great job.’

Sunday morning I join Mark Skoda for a trip by limousine out to the airport where VIP reception has been laid on for VP International Donald Layden. Only it doesn’t quite work out. While Sovtransavto boss Tatishvili, Sudakov and we drink our coffee in the VIP lounge, the greeter leaves for the plane, but Layden slips by and falls into the general processing. Moreover, Kurshin forgot to get a letter for Customs so Don loses an hour waiting for his bags and then goes through same line as everyone else on the Pan Am jumbo.

We take dinner at the National Banquet Room #6 at 7 pm – my favorite and the boys don’t let me down. Food and drink, all excellent and the room is as elegant as you could ever hope for. My Finns don’t show at all. Ditto Vialikov of the Trade Council and US Ambassador Matlock. Top guy is Road Minister Sukhin, and US Commercial Counsellor Jim May. I move off to one side – let our paid interpreter Nina Arkhiptseva do the work of keeping conversation alive between the Minister and Layden/Long. My chatter is divided between May, who has a sickly grin, and Fedorets. I probe May on what it’s like to work under Matlock –whether he acts as his own advisor. I don’t learn much.

Meanwhile Layden seems to enjoy being the big boss. Later I flatter his vanity well by pointing out how he’ll be invited to dine with Gorbachev via the US Trade Council. He goes for it and asks me how many UPS people will be taking part in the Council’s annual session. I say 2 – 3, of whom 1 will go to dinner with Gorby.

For me the key thing here is to learn to direct, to orchestrate from the side – to allow others to be shown off, so that top bosses are reassured that a team is being put in place and that they are not wholly in the hands of one person. That’s why Layden chose to understand our fast pace of setting JV’s in terms of events rushing us. Quite untrue – we were driven by own considerations. As Mark says “go for it.” A guy like Layden plays down his own power, though it could be considerable if used aggressively.

The most important aspect of the Friday dinner was that it gave our candidate operations guy Yuri Kulakov a chance to be seen and judged by Long and others. They were greatly impressed and reassured. By letting others work while you sit back, you magnify rather than diminish your own strength. Kulakov also is maturing – he plays the role well. I let him be tour guide for Long, Roth, Smith on Sunday morning. Note – Layden obediently accepts the speech I composed for him.

Monday – very, very hectic – pressure rises to critical level.

We check out at 8.30, six of us drive over to Ochakovo while Roth and Nigel and Yuri set up the symposium room. Layden decides Ochakovo is worth no investment, or a bare minimum. He under-appreciates the telecoms and location. But that could be expected.

By 10 am we are all together at the Trade Council making final preparations. I compose and type up invitation letters for Minister Sukhin to come to the USA second half of January. Deputy Minister Sokolov accepts this in a side meeting with Layden and Long at which I am the interpreter. Here I do show off a bit (like Sunday night doing a simultaneous translation of the Layden toast, which I had written – stunning Jim May with this linguistic fireworks). Happily the Symposium attendance is acceptable – about 25 companies, prospective future clients of our service, are here and three-quarters of the seats are filled. So we have no embarrassment. I am very pleased we have sequential translation to fill the time and that the Russian text was prepared in London, so that there is no mistranslation.

At the close of the symposium, I take Long and Skoda into a side meeting withTatishvili and Sudakov to do a little memorandum covering our relations in the brief time till the JV is registered and becomes operational. Here again I get a chance to show off but in very business-like way and to good effect. Larry is sold on what we’ve done and Layden also. Layden incidentally declines to take part in the negotiation – sits in the reception area looking tired and bored.

I’m abrupt with Kurshin today, tell him to shut up about what car he gets with the job (Saturday he drove us nuts while we’re waiting at the airport). Inadvertently I close the proposal before he can make his prepared acceptance speech. He whines about it.

We take off for the airport in our flying black tank. Yugo flights to Belgrade and Zagreb are on time and ok. The only hitch is near loss of Layden’s luggage as he checks it only to Belgrade. Walsh joins us all the way. In Zagreb Zulian and Tanya from Intereuropa are waiting for us. We take a leisurely dinner at the Esplanade. The big news is from Dave Guernsy, who is just returning from Belgrade, where Jerinic and the branch office have fully broken with TNT and are working with us. News of DHL’s bizarre split with Transjug is the other gossip of the day.

Tuesday we spend in a brief visit to the airport facility and then take a banquet in the Old Town. We are joined by Michael Einik, the US Consul General, who is pleasant as ever and by Mayor of Zagreb, Mikic who makes a never-ending speech on the history of Zagreb. The palace is really splendid and all are vastly impressed. However at $1800 it sets us back $90 / person.