A Moscow Boy Goes Back to Visit the Old Friends and Fried Sturgeon

Walking past the National Hotel as a Moscow boy, I wondered what it would be like to see my country as a Western outsider, staying at a fine hotel, being chauffeured around in Volgas, eating sturgeon and caviar, buying chic clothes at the foreign currency store and, after a week or two of pure joy, going back to the West.

When I turned 14, my parents and I emigrated. Last fall, as an American citizen, I returned to Moscow to look up my friends, most of whom had not heard from me in 15 years. I wanted to see the look on their faces as Pavel Goldberg from America appeared at the doorstep unannounced. I also wanted to see my hometown as a foreigner and to demonstrate to my wife, an American, that my stories are deeply rooted in reality.

At the Sheremetyevo Airport we got into a Volga and headed for the National. It is not a posh hotel. The carpet runner lay crooked in the hallway, walls were unevenly spackled, beds were coffin-like, long and narrow. There were two television sets, neither of which worked. Dish towels served as bath towels and the toilet ran. In New York a room like that would go for about $75 a night. In Moscow, $140.

On Gorky Street, stucco was falling off the Stalin-era buildings. Cement was chipping off the movie theater Rossiya. Chunks were falling off the statues that surround the Socialist Realism skyscraper at Krasnaya Presnya. To protect pedestrians, the statues were covered with nets.

At the zoo, the bird house, the aquarium and the terrarium were gone. The bear and tiger “grotto” had overgrown with tall grass. There was no wolf, no panda, no Ussuri tiger. Two woolly Caucasus sheep dogs sat on the far side of the moat looking dignified, as dogs do even in ridiculous situations.

Then we went to see Sasha, a childhood friend.

As children, Sasha and I were fascinated by foreign cars and politics. In 1968, when we were both nine, Sasha told me that Brezhnev had to be a fool and a bully to invade Czechoslovakia. I agreed, noting that a genius wouldn’t become a general secretary. Our political analyses were never impressive; our conclusions were.

Sometimes Sasha and I went to the U.S. Embassy to look at cars. Ford Country Squires captured our imaginations more than any other model. The car seated seven, and if its speedometer was correct, it could do more than 100 miles an hour.

Within five minutes the adult Sasha and I were talking as if I had gone on a month-long vacation, returning with some big-ticket items I didn’t own before. Like a house on Capitol Hill and a bright red 1987 Volkswagen.

“Convertible?” Sasha asked.

“No, a GTI with a sunroof.”

“Oh, a beefed-up Golf.”

“Basically. Just more power.”

My old friends spent hours discussing their fear of narod , the people. In fact, narod now seems to scare them more than the government used to.

There was a prevalent fear of the simple folk taking pitchforks and torches, shouting, “Death to the infidels!”

The Jews said they expected to be the targets. The intelligentsia expected to be targets, too. So did my friends who joined the party.

Still, no one claimed to know much about “the people.” Their impressions of public sentiment seemed based entirely on quotations from local drunks, people standing in queues at the GUM department store or Tatar street sweepers.

My Moscow friends are surgeons, lawyers, economists, diplomats, engineers. One runs a cooperative employing 30 workers; every six months he fires 10 for laziness or incompetence.

Those of my friends who joined the party were apologetic. “I really haven’t changed,” one assured me. “I still do not rule out emigrating.” To prove that he was not “one of them,” he launched into a nicely structured tirade on Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s errors and lack of sincerity.

Everyone had a friend or a relative in the West. A scientist said that he has friends in every state on both coasts of North America.

At one gathering I was asked how much our trip cost. I said that it would be a little over $6,000, but it would be tax-deductible since I am gathering material for my next book. I went on to explain tax deductibility but was told not to bother. Everyone knew.

My Moscow friends are yuppies without Alfas and condos. My businessman friend owns a VCR he purchased for 4,000 rubles, about 20 times the average monthly salary. Another friend already has a VCR, but for the past couple of years he has dreamed about acquiring a Krups coffee maker and a pair of L.A. Gear running shoes. Luckily, our shoe size was the same and the hard-currency store carried Krups.

“That’s what we live for,” one friend explained. “It’s an escape from the rude waiters, long lines and the bastards at work.”

Sasha’s favorite book, and mine, is Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita.” This established, we got into Sasha’s car and headed for the Cafe Margarita, a cooperative by the Patriarch’s Ponds, the place where Bulgakov’s devil descends on Moscow, starting the magnificent story that captures the spirit of the city at the onset of Stalinism.

A chair blocked the entrance. We positioned ourselves at the doorway and spoke English loudly, counting on the Russians’ legendary subservience to foreigners.

Half the tables in the cafe stood vacant. Shady-looking characters lounged at other tables. No one paid attention to us.

“Excuse me,” I said finally in Russian. “Are you open?”

“ Sanitarni chas ,” said a voice from Cafe Margarita--sanitary hour. Sanitary hour is usually devoted to scrubbing floors and killing mice and roaches in the kitchen.

The Peking restaurant on the Mayakovsky Square was closed for dinner; it was dinner time. The Sofia was catering weddings. The Japanese restaurant at the hotel and shopping mall developed by Armand Hammer was closed. The Russian Restaurant at the same place was doing only “special service.” Two other restaurants were closed because the waiters were having dinner. The only place that would have us was Sadko, serving heavily breaded sturgeon, pan-fried, then pan-fried again, with eggs.

We drank some cognac and Sasha told me that at one point he wanted to become an architect, then decided that his country has no use for elegance. He became an engineer. He liked engineering, but hoped to make a movie some day.

“So, Sasha, how come you haven’t sold yourself?” I asked

“It’s the upbringing,” Sasha said. It seemed that in the past 15 years preservation of self-esteem was Sasha’s chief obsession. He had been approached by the party--offered substantial payoffs for little compromises.

He always refused, telling himself that it never stops at one concession. “You say, ‘Glory to the Communist Party!’ at some silly meeting, then you join their glorious Communist Party because it’s good for your career and because you need money, then you feel like a pig because now they own you, then you drink heavily to feel less like a pig, but feel more like one instead.”

The apartment where I was born was being renovated as headquarters for a cooperative that services medical equipment. “PLEASE DON’T HESITATE CALL TO US,” said an advertisement in English.

The courtyard where I played as a child had been dug up. An overflowing dumpster dominated the landscape. Construction rubble and unopened bags of cement lay on both sides. My wife, Kirsten, took some pictures.

“You can’t photograph here, it’s a military installation,” said an old man I couldn’t recognize.

“That’s right, I can see the missiles,” I said.

“That’s right, missiles.” He wanted to know why foreigners were taking pictures.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked.

“About 50 years.”

“Then you might remember me. I am Pavel Goldberg from apartment 40.”

“Where do you live now?”

“In Washington.”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“And the family?”

“They are happy, too.”

“That’s all that matters.”

“Shall I tell them you said hello?” I wanted to know the old man’s name.

“Tell them you saw Ivan Stepanych who used to work for the organs of State Security. Tell them I am still alive.”

A woman in her mid-20s sat by a school, watching her toddler play with a German shepherd. I asked her if she knew what had happened to the mangled street before us.

“It’s gone,” she said. “Even the bread store. There was always something tasty there. Now they’ve dug a hole, brought over a construction trailer, put up a concrete fence and built themselves a sauna.”

We stood looking at the mysterious construction site, watching soldiers go in and out.

“I wish I could leave,” the woman said. “I’d go anywhere.”