They began to look more sheepish than ever.Then someone found amongst my papers a card of admission to the May Day Parade on the Red Square and having succeeded in spelling out the word
propusk
(pass) jumped to the conclusion that it was a special pass to the frontier zone into which I had apparently unwittingly wandered. This increased their dismay. Following up my advantage I said that, as I was apparently the only person present who could read Russian, perhaps the best way out of the difficulty in which we found ourselves would be for me to read them what was written on my pass. Somewhat guilelessly, they consented and I proceeded to read out with considerable expression, and such improvements as occurred to me, what my pass said about the treatment to be accorded to the representatives of friendly Powers and in particular the inadvisability of arresting them. ‘Signed,’ I concluded, ‘Maxim Litvinov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,’ and looked up to see what effect this had had on my captors.
There could be no doubt that it had made a considerable impression. As if by magic, they abandoned the aggressive attitude which they had adopted hitherto and became apologetic and amiable. They begged me to overlook their most regrettable mistake. In particular they hoped that, when I got back to Moscow, I would not mention this unfortunate incident to Comrade Litvinov. I would understand that they had to be careful so near the frontier; some high officers of the Red Army had left hurriedly and illegally by that route a short time ago. I said I quite realized the need for care and after shaking hands with a roomful of Tartar militiamen returned to the inn.
I had not been back long when a messenger arrived from the Chief of Police to say that a steamer had ‘arrived unexpectedly’ and would leave next evening for Baku. This information caused great rejoicing among all those who like myself had been marooned in Lenkoran and we celebrated the occasion with a card and supper party which lasted late into the night. Next afternoon five or six of us, including the girl from the collective farm and her baby, an N.C.O. in the Chemical Section of the Red Army, and a large, frowsy man who described himself as a Red Economist and whose life seemed to be bound up with the Third Five Year Plan, settled into a four-berthed cabin on a very small paddle steamer bearing the date 1856. Food had run out in the saloonand some tinned Yarmouth bloaters and a bottle of whisky greatly enhanced my prestige. The atmosphere soon became highly convivial and remained so for so long that in the end I was glad once more to find a vacant space amongst the Tartar horde on deck where I spent the remainder of the night.
From Baku, where we arrived next morning, I took the train northwards to Tiflis, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia. My plan was to spend a few days there, cross the Caucasus by road, and then return to Moscow. My visit to Lenkoran must, I felt, have attracted so much attention that any attempt I might now make to reach Central Asia would be doomed to failure in advance.
I reached Tiflis after a night in the train spent in the company of a voluble gentleman of oriental appearance who introduced himself as ‘a prominent Armenian composer’. Immediately the town took my fancy. It had a graceful quality, a southern charm, an air of leisure, which I had so far found nowhere else in the Soviet Union. In the old city the houses, crazy structures with jutting verandas, hang like swallows’ nests from the side of a hill. Beneath them a mountain stream tumbles its rushing waters and more houses cluster on the far side. Where the valley opens out a broad avenue leads to the newer part of the town, built by the Russians after the conquest of Georgia a century ago.
Here I found a room in the Grand Hotel d’Orient, a long low stone building where my grandfather had stayed
propusk
(pass) jumped to the conclusion that it was a special pass to the frontier zone into which I had apparently unwittingly wandered. This increased their dismay. Following up my advantage I said that, as I was apparently the only person present who could read Russian, perhaps the best way out of the difficulty in which we found ourselves would be for me to read them what was written on my pass. Somewhat guilelessly, they consented and I proceeded to read out with considerable expression, and such improvements as occurred to me, what my pass said about the treatment to be accorded to the representatives of friendly Powers and in particular the inadvisability of arresting them. ‘Signed,’ I concluded, ‘Maxim Litvinov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,’ and looked up to see what effect this had had on my captors.
There could be no doubt that it had made a considerable impression. As if by magic, they abandoned the aggressive attitude which they had adopted hitherto and became apologetic and amiable. They begged me to overlook their most regrettable mistake. In particular they hoped that, when I got back to Moscow, I would not mention this unfortunate incident to Comrade Litvinov. I would understand that they had to be careful so near the frontier; some high officers of the Red Army had left hurriedly and illegally by that route a short time ago. I said I quite realized the need for care and after shaking hands with a roomful of Tartar militiamen returned to the inn.
I had not been back long when a messenger arrived from the Chief of Police to say that a steamer had ‘arrived unexpectedly’ and would leave next evening for Baku. This information caused great rejoicing among all those who like myself had been marooned in Lenkoran and we celebrated the occasion with a card and supper party which lasted late into the night. Next afternoon five or six of us, including the girl from the collective farm and her baby, an N.C.O. in the Chemical Section of the Red Army, and a large, frowsy man who described himself as a Red Economist and whose life seemed to be bound up with the Third Five Year Plan, settled into a four-berthed cabin on a very small paddle steamer bearing the date 1856. Food had run out in the saloonand some tinned Yarmouth bloaters and a bottle of whisky greatly enhanced my prestige. The atmosphere soon became highly convivial and remained so for so long that in the end I was glad once more to find a vacant space amongst the Tartar horde on deck where I spent the remainder of the night.
From Baku, where we arrived next morning, I took the train northwards to Tiflis, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia. My plan was to spend a few days there, cross the Caucasus by road, and then return to Moscow. My visit to Lenkoran must, I felt, have attracted so much attention that any attempt I might now make to reach Central Asia would be doomed to failure in advance.
I reached Tiflis after a night in the train spent in the company of a voluble gentleman of oriental appearance who introduced himself as ‘a prominent Armenian composer’. Immediately the town took my fancy. It had a graceful quality, a southern charm, an air of leisure, which I had so far found nowhere else in the Soviet Union. In the old city the houses, crazy structures with jutting verandas, hang like swallows’ nests from the side of a hill. Beneath them a mountain stream tumbles its rushing waters and more houses cluster on the far side. Where the valley opens out a broad avenue leads to the newer part of the town, built by the Russians after the conquest of Georgia a century ago.
Here I found a room in the Grand Hotel d’Orient, a long low stone building where my grandfather had stayed
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