BEACHES AND 'BADLY' BUILDINGS
Gottfried, Sue Davidson
From Russia, with love Beaches and Badly Buildings' by SUE DAVIDSON GOTTFRIED This is the second of two articles based on the author's journey to Russia as one of 165 U.S. delegates of the...
...Praise to the Great Soviet People ("I'll go along with you, there...
...My face was bleeding in several places, as was Sergei's...
...The police came...
...Could he be a black marketeer...
...Further, we often found strikingly contemporary influences in textile design, as well as in the decorative art, which is going into the new buildings...
...Something worse...
...She was shaken with rosy laughter...
...Obscure penciled announcements were tacked up haphazardly in the dining room we occupied at the Hotel Primorskaya...
...It was a pretty amber stone with a miniature sea-crab mounted inside...
...The yearly count of Russian visitors to Sochi is one and a half million...
...What did you do to your face...
...At the request of some of our touring American artists and art fanciers, a visit was arranged to a remote mountain sanatorium near Sochi, maintained by the U.S.S.R...
...The visitors to Sochi, Russian and foreign, are of two kinds: vacationists bound for "holiday houses"—hotels, motels, camps, and cottages—and patients coming for the course of treatment and recreation at one of the ninety sanatoria and rest homes, serviced by a large corps of "medical assistants" (nurses, internes, physical therapists) and by more than 1000 physicians...
...Ellen tried hard to explain to him that she would receive no bonus for the photographs of the "badly buildings," and that she wanted to show the Americans who read her magazine everything possible about the U.S.S.R.—the good and the beautiful, as well as the sordid...
...but it is also a place where artists can concentrate on their work...
...He was not smiling any more...
...he was withdrawn and brooding...
...But she went on aiming her camera, in spite of the fact that we were being joined by a couple of young men who had been sitting on a pile of old lumber...
...There, he hopped out from behind the wheel, pushed open the gates, re-entered his car, and proceeded to tear around in the Stadium proper...
...They offered us Russian cigarets, for which we returned American ones —a common exchange...
...After that, you may as well give me the remainder of your money...
...Even the GEC group leaders, perspiring and relaxed, usually didn't know the program...
...Pack...
...and we had made an appointment to meet one of our traveling CEC friends, who was going to introduce us to a Russian translator of English fiction...
...It is only one of many such institutions the Union maintains, in each republic, and in many cities and regions in the country...
...I had hurried to the beach the first day, and in no time at all was involved in one of my halting "my-name-is, my-work-is, my-home-is" dialogues with two sunburned Russian women in bikinis...
...His friend Sergei was another matter...
...Most of them are accommodated in sanatoria and "holiday houses" entirely free of charge, or at reductions amounting to as much as eighty per cent of the cost...
...Then Fyodor was free to hail a taxicab...
...Paying more for badly buildings...
...It was unnecessary to apply this caution to Ellen, since her jaw was temporarily dislocated...
...Fyodor promised that he would make Sergei stop behaving like "a hooligan...
...You sell photos of badly buildings to American journals...
...The party was crowded, hot, noisy, and gay...
...When we met our CEC friend, Sid, he told us that Fyodor, the translator, was with a companion, Sergei, who owned an automobile...
...Clearly, he was not worried about being observed in our company—yet was he not an incriminating link between us and Sergei...
...No...
...it was, at the moment, accommodating about 125 persons—artists and craftsmen and their families...
...Looking back over his shoulder, Oleg said, "That was secret police...
...Thus it was that I observed, at about two o'clock in the morning, an incident curious to a contemporary American...
...Not a word of English, please...
...The idea gained general approval...
...I have taught him to say two things in English: T am very sorry,' and T love you'—but I have never told him what they mean...
...he asked Ellen...
...In Sochi, even after the cafes had closed, about one in the morning, small parties of people continued to stroll the streets, the docks, and the parks, or returned to the beaches for swimming, conversation, and song...
...We Americans paused nervously in our singing...
...The orthodontist said that the Russians do especially fine X-ray pictures: Why not take a set home...
...But it was late...
...Some of our more determined art-interested American delegates did locate, visit, and make purchases from painters whose work gave evidence that the artist was in touch with his own century...
...Fyodor mentioned, some time during the evening, that Sergei was suffering the effects of a disastrous love affair...
...Sometimes it was hard to get any sense out of them...
...A law student I had never seen before insisted upon buying me a mountain of ice cream covered with jam...
...No effort was made to detain us further—except Sergei, whom we left in the custody of the traffic police...
...There were cries of "Do Svidanyal" Everyone enjoyed a glowing last moment...
...She babbled along fluently at a breakneck pace about her work (teaching English), her children, her home, and her husband...
...For one thing, his English was so flawless and contemporary that the only feature of his speech which made him seem at all "foreign" was his British accent...
...Children...
...Fyodor had a finger to his lips...
...Somebody in our CEC delegation had decided that it would be fun to have our own farewell-to-Sochi party, with as many of the performing artists as would come...
...We could not figure out what his game was, and we wanted to find out...
...He was a young man...
...Triumph of Communism ("More than one opinion is possible on this forecast...
...I believe that, toward the end, she was getting through to him...
...I suggested we had better find a cab back to our hotel...
...He was dead serious...
...They were parked out of the traffic, a few blocks away...
...We caught up with them just as they made a stop at a roadside refreshment stand...
...When we saw Fyodor again, for tea at the Europa Hotel, he told us that Sergei's driving license had been revoked for a year, and that the damages against him amounted to 500 rubles...
...She pressed something into my hand...
...Now we must have our lunch...
...There were some exchanges between him and the young people, broken by another song...
...the temperatures, in the nineties, were not conducive to scholarly effort...
...He didn't: she had taught him, "I am charmed to make your acquaintance," along the way...
...The artists responded in large numbers, from the poised and gracious female conductor of the ballet symphony orchestra, to opera sword-carriers and wide-eyed wisps from the corps de ballet...
...If we often failed to overcome our American prejudices on a study tour designed to promote international understanding, we nevertheless tried to fulfill our obligations to learning...
...We parted on a bridge over the Neva, where we gave Oleg some little gifts—a felt-pen, a Kennedy souvenir half-dollar—for which he thanked us politely...
...The man then went his way...
...This is to remember me by...
...Gifts, addresses, photographs, embraces were exchanged...
...At a speed which increased the moment we reached the outskirts of the city to what must have been well above eighty miles an hour, he took us to the gates of the immense, deserted Kirov Stadium...
...I told him, it's free country, isn't it...
...In between, my roommate, Ellen, and I, and a Russian-speaking CEC companion, made our own tour of crowded Nev-sky Prospekt and its environs, wandering in and out of bookshops, stuffing ourselves with the wares hawked on the street—the beautiful ice creams, the good, greasy, meat pies—and reacting to the incredible Soviet billboard messages: Fly Aeroflot ("There's something else to fly...
...We found ourselves abroad in Sochi late at night, in contrast to our habits in Moscow, where the life of the city peters out at about eleven...
...English, I adore English...
...it said Make Love, Not War...
...money for champagne and sandwiches was hastily collected...
...Meanwhile, we noticed that Sergei had been putting down a quantity of wine...
...He indicated that he understood that she wanted to photograph the miserable courtyard...
...If this behavior is unwarranted in the particular case, it is nevertheless all too believable that the ordinary Soviet citizen's private life may become the subject of elaborate official scrutiny and investigation, and that his ruin may hinge upon the briefest, most innocent of associations...
...Where you're going, you won't be needing it...
...Abstract art, predictably, was dismissed on the grounds that "it has nothing to offer the people...
...Still, we did not take our battered faces to a hospital...
...It had gone too far, for me...
...Each guest-artist is provided with a studio, as well as whatever materials he may require...
...I show you badly buildings...
...At last, as the second song ended, he spoke...
...It is not unusual for the 14,000-member Union to pay as much as forty per cent of a Union member's costs at a sanatorium...
...Sue Davidson Gottfried, a free lance writer who has contributed to The Nation and The Commonweal, is a former vice president of the Seattle Peace Information Center...
...Exactly," she said, "only you missed one thing...
...At Sochi, a team of three craftsmen was just completing, on the grounds of a new hotel, a wall decoration of semi-abstract design, making use of stones from the Black Sea...
...he had not even begun to shave the silky beard on his lip...
...We got into Sergei's car—Sid, Ellen, and I in back—and Sergei drove down the street and piled into a parked car...
...But we did not act upon these suggestions...
...what he showed us, mostly, were machine-wrecked old buildings probably being cleared away for high-rise apartments...
...Oh, my poor friend," she said, "for this offense, the penalty is unfortunately Siberia...
...He says what am I doing with Americans with camera...
...It was in one of these, again, that he identified a man who suddenly appeared as "secret police...
...None of them paid the least attention to the policeman...
...Each concert selection was preceded by a ten or fifteen-minute explanation of the work, delivered with great feeling by a dulcet-voiced, attractive young woman in a black cocktail dress...
...Next day, in Leningrad, it was back-to-business, with a morning seminar on Soviet music and an afternoon grand tour of the city...
...He did not speak English...
...Oleg shook his head...
...We had to remain in the automobile until the proper police—those dealing with traffic—had arrived...
...Commenting on "new trends" in Soviet art, one of their spokesmen averred that "the movement is in a socialist direction—art speaking to everyone, exhibitions which can be understood by all the people"—which scarcely represents an innovation in Soviet thinking about the arts...
...You want photographs of badly buildings...
...My face smashed with great force against the front seat...
...As for me, I did not even find out where the morning seminars were being held until the last day of our five-day stay...
...You must meet my husband," she said, springing to her feet...
...Erika gave me a sticky, orange-pop kiss...
...Goodbye, goodbye," she said, giving me a final hearty hug...
...I know," he said, "it's business...
...the daily scheduled seminars with Soviet experts in all fields, the Intourist-guided tours of Russian showplaces, had been faithfully attended during our nine days in Moscow...
...If one could judge by the paintings hanging on the walls and the pottery displayed on the shelves of the sanatorium's common rooms, this considerable support of Union artists is not achieving phenomenal results—from the point of view, that is, of a Western observer...
...Accommodations for foreign guests at the sanatoria and hotels are reasonable, and Sochi is increasingly patronized by non-Russian visitors...
...What might happen to unhappy Sergei...
...I couldn't get it all—but the general drift wasn't very flattering...
...She said that she was going to be an obstetrician, so I offered her a U. S.-manufactured pin I thought professionally suitable...
...pinning it over her heart, she assured me that she would always wear it...
...Or was he one of the youthful "alienated...
...He stopped now, on a corner, and looked down at us...
...While their English was not good, we managed to learn that they were students...
...While Ellen and I discussed what we should do, we took stock of Oleg...
...We decided to go with him...
...Everything looked dated, even though it was the work of sanatoria guests of the late 1950's and early 1960's...
...The Editors T^he 164 delegates of the Citizen Exchange Corps with whom I traveled for three weeks in the Soviet Union were generally a serious lot...
...If so, why didn't he come to the point...
...The novelty which most struck those of us who sampled these various events was the provision made, at the performances of the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra, for insuring that "the people" understand music, just as the Union artists wish to insure understanding of the visual arts...
...but we were not allowed to leave, although Fyodor remonstrated angrily with them...
...I was home...
...While our luggage was being loaded, we visited back and forth at the tables of the hotel's sidewalk cafe...
...It was in the midst of a Ukranian song that the noise and the glaring headlights of a police motorcycle bore down upon us...
...I could see the signs, "No More Hiroshimas," and a moment later I began to recognize the faces of my friends who were holding them—who had been holding them last year, and the year before, and almost all the years in the life of my daughter, who now held a sign herself...
...He seemed uninterested in us...
...a public room was engaged at our hotel...
...I was in a little auto accident, in Leningrad...
...A moment later, Oleg said, "Come, let's walk...
...There were one or two behind-the-buildings areas as wretched as the one in which we had found him...
...She ran away, and returned with her husband, a tall chap with an imposing black moustache...
...Mother," she said, "you look awful...
...The beaches were fabulous...
...He took us on a tour of the most miserable locations he knew...
...Like the other Sochi sanatoria, it is a rest home where the guests can, if necessary, receive treatment for mild disorders...
...It was clear that one of them—Oleg—was amused by Ellen's sudden pretense that she was photographing a cascade of golden flowers tumbling out of a window-box, high up...
...When we stopped to stretch our legs on a windy plateau overlooking the Gulf of Finland, I told Fyodor as much...
...The evening hours in Sochi offered additional opportunities for observing Soviet ways, at the formal performances in drama, symphonic music, ballet, and opera—which were crowded nightly...
...Bad buildings," Ellen corrected him...
...Nor did any of the three of us divulge the circumstances of the accident to CEC members, despite their curiosity...
...he was extremely dignified, and I could not conceive of his pronouncing "I love you" to three strange, half-nude females...
...Your beautiful parks...
...Union of Artists...
...I asked one of our Russian-speaking delegates...
...The paintings were representational and dull...
...She was a little nervous...
...We never did find out what he was up to...
...When I sat up, a crowd was gathering around the automobile...
...But the Soviet students finished their song, and then immediately began another...
...The ready friendliness we had been shown by Soviet citizens reached a kind of zenith at Sochi, perhaps because most of the people we encountered there were on holiday...
...Our caution, therefore, seemed disproportionate...
...The courtyard was extremely slum-like, and she was somewhat embarrassed to be seen photographing it...
...The remarks of House artists were no more arresting than the work we saw...
...With three CEC delegates, I had joined on the beach a group of Russian and Ukranian students, who were singing to the accompaniment of guitars...
...and he seemed nervous...
...A few moments later, he racketed off...
...No English...
...I had the opportunity to chat with this same young woman our last evening in Sochi...
...He was neat, well-dressed, and well-mannered...
...and in the evening we approached the directors at the various halls and theatres, explained who we were, and asked them to extend, for us, invitations to their companies...
...It required about fifteen seconds to feel at home with Fyodor...
...If we went to a hospital, there might be awkward questions—and suppose two and two should be put together, from police and hospital records...
...Buy a fur hat—the climate...
...It wasn't easy to find out what the program was, even when you put your mind to it...
...I rather believed that he was dramatizing...
...he laughed and bubbled away at us...
...Although the physician and the orthodontist in our CEC party who examined Ellen and me that night said that they could detect jno facial fractures, they suggested that we visit a Leningrad hospital next day for appropriate clinical tests...
...Please pardon the interruption, but I must take this chance to hear English...
...What did, obviously, interest Sergei was driving his automobile...
...Not only the design, they told us, but the use of the natural materials represent rather recent Soviet departure...
...But when we got to Sochi, a subtropical resort and health spa on the Black Sea, in the Republic of Georgia, the delegation went native...
...The pretty symphony-interpreter turned out to be not an actress, as I had imagined, but a pianist...
...The party mood persisted the next day, as we completed our Sochi farewells...
...But when Ellen lingered, trying to coax an old woman on a stoop to pose for a picture, he clutched my arm with what seemed to be genuine terror and whispered fiercely, "Please, we must go...
...A congenial anarchy had taken over...
...The pay is the same for all kinds of pictures," Ellen insisted...
...I want pictures of all kinds of things...
...Our CEC group of Americans had developed a rather nice custom, on our flights in the Soviet Union, of applauding the Aeroflot hostesses on each trip...
...most of the latter are specialists in the diseases typically treated at the spa, which is famous for its sulphuric waters...
...We began to teach one another popular and folk songs...
...For another, he had a puppy-dog sort of friendliness, even though he was a great bean-pole of a man, with a cadaverous face...
...In a little while, we walked onto the grassy edge of the Peace Park...
...and our broad smiles and gestures, our clumsy pidgin-Russian attempts, failed to evoke a response...
...But if it should get back to his superiors that the circumstances of the accident had included partying with three Americans—Fyodor darkly shook his head...
...The "House of Creation" which we visited has room for 200 guests...
...I did not return immediately to my home in Seattle, but met my husband at the home of friends in Vancouver, B. C. The next day we overtook their children and our daughter, who were walking with a group of youngsters from Vancouver to the International Peace Arch Park, on the border, to join the Canadian-American Hiroshima Day demonstration there...
...They sang a special song for him, about policemen...
...His manner in discussing these matters with us was hushed and conspiratorial, but he offered no details to justify this...
...As we neared Brussels on our homeward journey, and the pink-cheeked, simply-dressed girls began to collect our bottles of "limonade" and crusts of caviar-on-rye, the whole planeload burst into loud applause...
...And what did you say...
...At that moment, an older man approached the students and there was what appeared to be an angry exchange...
...I asked...
...Did he tell them to go home, and did they tell him to go fly a kite...
...At the height of it, one of our Intourist guides stood on a chair and made an impassioned speech, the general burden of which was that if people of our two nations could laugh and sing and dance together, as we were, then surely everything necessary for complete amity must follow...
...he entreated...
...Loss of his position...
...I talked, through an interpreter, with a red-haired young woman in her final year of medical training...
...and we drove back sedately enough to Fyodor's apartment in Leningrad, where we nibbled cucumber sandwiches and listened to selections from Fyodor's large collection of American jazz records...
...Beautiful things, too...
...Cathedrals...
...Oleg shrugged and laughed...
...The Intourist guides knew, but they didn't seem to care any more whether or not we became properly educated about the wonders of the Soviet Union...
...Suddenly a third woman whirled herself down beside me, and gave me a great hug...
...the pottery was conventional...
...Did he wish to be paid for guiding us...
...Finally, at this writing, several months later, I have gone to the trouble—feeling slightly foolish—of disguising to some degree the identities and relationships of the principal actors in the little drama...
...One of her companions quipped, "Hey, you mean they got automobiles in Russia...
...On Your Way Out Make Sure Your Electrical Appliances Are Turned Off ("And the NKVD and CIA bugging devices too...
...Eat Ice Cream ("What brand do you recommend, comrade...
...The CEC, a private non-profit foundation, sponsored the educational tour as part of its program of fostering better understanding between American and Russian citizens...
...I returned to the Nevsky Prospekt neighborhood the following afternoon, with Ellen, to do some shopping and to tag along while she took innumerable photographs, when we met a young man whom I shall call Oleg...
...But Fyodor assured us that he would make Sergei drive very slowly...
...He picked up our packages and led us quickly out to the street...
...It's O.K.," I said...
...She sadly removed her sunglasses...
...I asked Irena, our chief guide, if she could help my roommate and me with a small problem: we had lost the receipts for our ballet tickets...
...I was incredulous...
...delegates of the Citizen Exchange Corps...
...In the taxicab, Fyodor explained that Sergei was already "in trouble" on his job—a high-paying, technical one —for various kinds of "hooliganism," and that this new disgrace would make things very bad for him...
...We just had time to shake hands abruptly with the other student...
Vol. 31 • July 1967 • No. 7
