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We saw the Novagrodsky Convent Museum and the brilliant, saucy |
golden onion steeples that shock me back from the feeling this is |
Manhattan. We went to see the University and of course many |
plaques for many heroes, but I never saw one that moved me as |
much as the tough old lady coming in on Aeroflot. And the Bolshoi |
Ballet Theatre. It was rainy and grey and overcast — a New York |
December day — and very imposing in the way the Grand |
Concourse at 161st Street in the Bronx can be imposing in the |
middle of December, or Columbus Circle. The golden onion steeples |
on some older buildings are beautiful and they glisten all the time, |
even in this weather, which makes them look like joyful promises on |
the landscape, or fairy palaces, and the lovely colors of greens, |
whites, yellows and oranges decorating and outlining windows |
make a wonderfully colorful accent in the greyness. I hope that I get |
a chance to see the Pushkin Museum. |
I was interviewed by a sweetly astute, motherly woman who was |
one of the members of the Union of Soviet Writers. She was doing a |
study of “Negro policy,” as she said, and of course she was very |
interested in women in the States. We talked for a good two hours |
and one of the things I told her was about the old woman on the |
plane with the medals, and I asked her if she had any idea what |
they were. She said the woman was probably an older farm worker |
who had been awarded and named a “Hero of the Republic.” Those |
were mostly given to people who worked very hard, she said. It was |
interesting because earlier, at lunch, I had seen a side of Helen, my |
interpreter, that surprised me. She was quite out of sorts with one of |
the waitresses who did not wait on her quickly enough, and it does |
take a long time to get waited on. Helen made a remark that the |
workers rule the country, and her manner and response to that |
seemed to be one of disgust, or at least rather put-off. I think Helen |
felt that she was being discriminated against, or that she was at a |
disadvantage, because she was an “intellectual,” a translator as well |
as an interpreter. Which struck me as an odd kind of snobbishness |
because Helen worked at least as hard, if not harder, than any |
waitress, running after me and living my life as well as hers. |
Because always, she stuck to me like white on rice. |
We were at the University and our guide was talking to us, in |
English, about the buildings, which had been built during Stalin’s |
time. Material had been brought down from the Ukraine to sink into |
the earth to build such buildings because Moscow, unlike New York, |
is not built upon bedrock. This strikes me as strange, that this city of |
oversize, imposing stone buildings should not be grounded on |
bedrock. It’s like it remains standing on human will. While we were |
standing in front of the reflecting pool having this discussion, a little |
tow-headed boy sidled up to me with a completely international air, |
all of ten years old, stood in front of me and with a furtive sideways |
gesture, flipped his hand open. In the center of his little palm was a |
button-pin of a red star with a soldier in the middle of it. I was |
completely taken aback because I did not know what the kid wanted |
and I asked Helen who brushed the child off and shooed him away |
so quickly I didn’t have a chance to stop her. Then she told me that |
he wanted to trade for American buttons. That little kid had stood |
off to the side and watched all of these strange Black people, and he |
had managed to peg me as an American because, of course, |
Americans are the only ones who go around wearing lots and lots of |
buttons, and he had wanted to trade his red star button. I was |
touched by the child, and also because I couldn’t help but think that |
it was Sunday and he was probably hitting all the tourist spots. I’m |
sure his parents did not know where he was, and I really wondered |
what his mother would do if she knew. |
The woman from the Writers’ Union who was doing her book on |
Negro policy was, I’d say, a little older than I was, probably in her |
early fifties, and her husband had been killed in the war. She had no |
children. She offered these facts about herself as soon as we sat |
down, talking openly about her life, as everybody seemingly does |
here. I say seemingly because it only goes so far. And she, like my |
guide and most women here, both young and old, seem to mourn |
the lack of men. At the same time they appear to have shaken off |
many of the traditional role-playing devices vis-a-vis men. Almost |
everyone I’ve met has lost someone in what they call the “Great |
Patriotic War,” which is our Second World War. |
I was interviewed by Oleg this evening, one of the officials of the |
Union of Soviet Writers, the people who had invited me to Russia |
and who were footing the bill. In my interview with him I learned |
the hotel that we’re staying in was originally a youth hostel and |
Oleg apologized because it was not as “civilized,” so he said, as |
other Moscow hotels. I came across this term civilized before, and I |
wondered whether it was a term used around Americans or whether |
it meant up to American standards. Increasingly I get a feeling that |
American standards are sort of an unspoken norm, and that whether |
one resists them, or whether one adopts them, they are there to be |
reckoned with. This is rather disappointing. But coming back to the |
hotel, I notice that the fixtures here are a little shabby, but they do |
work, and the studio beds are a bit adolescent in size, but they are |
comfortable. For a youth hostel it’s better than I would ever hope |
for. Of course, I can’t help but wonder why the African-Asian |
Conference people should be housed in a youth hostel, particularly |
an “uncivilized” one, but I don’t imagine that I’ll ever get an answer |
to that. All hotel rooms cost the same in the Soviet Union. Utilities, |
from my conversation with Helen while we were riding the Metro |
down to send a cable, utilities are very inexpensive. The gas to cook |
with costs sixteen kopecs a month which is less than one ruble |
(about $3.00) and the most electricity Helen says that she uses, |
when she’s translating all day long in winter, costs three rubles a |
month. That is very expensive, she says. The two-room apartment |
which she and her mother share costs eight rubles a month. |
Oleg does not speak English, or does not converse in English. Like |