Autobiographical

It was already 8:50 AM and I had to get there by 9. No zebra crossing and no traffic lights. To cross the road to APN, I had to walk down a number of steps, along a corridor of underground kiosks and then up the other side. As well as the kiosks, you would pass by individuals hawking various goods, from chewing gum to cigarettes, single batteries and even empty bottles. I will turn to their practical value in another entry. They serve as the basis for a short story I hope to publish one day.

Then I rushed through the corridor leading to the building and headed towards the entrance when an armed security guard stepped out of his booth, stopped me and demanded identification. I had my passport and a visa on me that I was duty-bound to present at any time to the police. It is worth noting here that Soviet citizens always needed to keep their internal passports on them in case they were stopped randomly, which contained as a rule a stamp inserted on the page on their housing situation, indicating that they had the necessary propiska (akin to a residency permit) to live in a specific place in the country. As I recall, there were two types: a permanent one indicative of the individual’s habitual place of accommodation and a temporary version in cases where the individual was only staying in the specific city for a defined period of time, for example, as a student.

After showing the documents and explaining who I was, I duly waited for ten minutes at the building entrance while the guard used a red telephone to contact the translation department and prepared a temporary access permit for that day. Then I was met by the head of the translation department Sergey Muzolevsky, who appeared friendly. Well at least he smiled as he shook my hand. 

And then I was introduced to the translators on the floor who were all amicable, including another English guy Ian who had been working there for a while as an editor and translator. His Russian was awesome. I don’t remember for sure, but believe that he had previously served in the military. He would soon move back to the UK with his Russian wife and family and work at BBC Monitoring Service in Caversham, which incidentally closed down in 2018 owing to cuts instituted by the conservative government. Similarly, Jennifer, another foreigner in her mid-20s and hailing from the US, also spoke outstanding Russian. She would duly become a writer in America.

As well as Vadim, who was typing furiously with the window wide open, much to the frustration of the Lithuanian translator Vytautas sitting opposite who seemed to wear the same shirt every day. Hence the need for the open window even when it was minus 20. I remember very well Dima Zaitsev, in his mid-30s with thinning black hair and resembling the 19^th century writer Lermontov, who was a well-known womaniser, the red-haired Alexander Samonin (Sasha) specialising in banking translations who was sartorial even in future years when the dress code was no longer so strict, and Irina Konstantinova who was a lovely lady with a talented young daughter Liudmila Konstantinova. I also remember another Sasha, moustachioed and a frequent smoker, a third Sasha who spoke impeccable English and wrote literary reviews for The Guardian and was to move to New York, as well as two Ilyas who were close friends and akin to Laurel and Hardy in their different proportions.

I had only been there for half an hour when Dima came up to me and asked whether I would be interested in moonlighting, initially posing the question in Russian. However, I hadn’t recognised the verb and looked puzzled. I realised there and then that there would be a long learning curve before I could dare claim to speak Russian. 

This is also when I began to understand how people survived in the system where salaries were so low. They would be topped up by various bonuses introduced in the middle and end of the month. After Dima explained the concept to me in English, I responded that I was more than keen to make extra money on the side. As a result, and only once my Russian had improved slightly, I would subsequently work on various freelance projects while in the office, including the translation of articles for the business daily Kommersant, which is still operational today, albeit a distance removed from the liberal version that existed back then. For the first year the official work consisted primarily of editing translations by the aforementioned group which were primarily extremely good. Unofficially, I would make real money cash in hand when there were too many external translations and I was in the right place. Truth be told, in subsequent years I would only be available for brief periods.

In fact, in virtually every avenue of life, Soviet people would moonlight to make ends meet and have the wherewithal to buy the additional goods that they required (such as a washing machine). In a number of professions, if they had the right position, they would leverage it to barter for other goods. 

For example, butchers in local food stores would hold back any good cuts of meat and exchange them for a ticket in high demand to see a theatre or opera,  obtain some item of clothing from East Germany, enjoy a night at a hotel or obtain other goods in short supply that they needed for a celebration, for example, bottles of premium cognac or champagne from a foreign currency store. 

The absurdities of this endemic corrupt system were described in humorous detail in a number of Soviet films, most notably in Giorgy Danieliya’s tragicomedy Mimino, starring two superb actors from Georgia and Armenia, Vakhtang Kikabidze (also a renowned crooner) and Frunzik Mkrtchyan. 

It goes without saying that the extent of such barter trade was one of the reasons why the employees at food shops, theatres, operas, hotels and other outlets would attribute the empty shelves to supply-chain problems, explain that they had sold out of tickets or had no rooms available, and so on. If something was rumoured to have appeared at a store, people would disappear from their workplaces and a massive queue would form, which was OK if you had a few hours to spare. 

The alternative, that is, if you were making sufficient money on the side, was to make a trip to one of the many local open-air food markets where the prices were far higher, but where you could get anything you needed, check the quality and do all your shopping. I would frequently avail myself of this option at the weekends and actually enjoy the process, although the sellers were often disappointed that I wouldn’t haggle for a lower price. I would naturally watch other customers first and make sure that I was not charged too excessively.  Furthermore, there was another benefit: unlike Soviet shops, you could pay the seller directly and did not have to go through the rigmarole of queuing three times.