Don's Diary

Tuesday

It is good to travel mid-week: planes half-empty, no wait in Moscow to go through passport control, ditto at baggage reclaim. In the old days, coming to Moscow was a real adventure. I would always tense up before going through customs. I never had any proscribed items, but just the thought of having to open your bags for customs, after having spent two days trying to cram things in and shut them, was horrifying. Now they do not seem to care what you take in - the customs man waves me through without even stopping to stamp my customs form. I have come to set up an exchange of students between the University of North London and Moscow State University, high on what was the Lenin Hills which have now gone back to their pre-revolutionary name, the Sparrow Hills.

Wednesday

Like everybody else in London and Moscow, the man I have come to see, Misha, the director of the course, has the flu. This does not mean the meeting is off, but instead of going to the university, I will go to his flat. He sends his cousin, Pavel, round to pick me up. Luckily Pavel, although now a sub-dean in one of the university faculties, started his professional life as a bus driver, and skilfully negotiates the pit-holes and anarchy of Moscow traffic. Misha is Armenian, and highly efficient. He does everything, including talking, at top speed. Before I have got my coat off he has put the kettle on and produced a draft contract. It is a good one.

Thursday

Pavel again whisks me off, this time to show me the hostel where our students will stay. A 12-storey building, near a metro station, one stop from the university. The rooms are fine: the students will have their own rooms and share a bathroom with another student, who is unlikely to be Russian: most students in Moscow are Muscovites and live at home. The massive inflation means out-of-town students cannot afford to live here. In a well-furbished buffet on the top floor I take a photograph, and a customer, a man who looks very un-student-like, objects and starts to advance towards me threateningly, one hand outstretched to block the camera. I snap him doing this and explain that I am only taking pictures to show students back home what the facilities are like. Pavel watches horror-struck and confides as we leave the building that the man works for a firm that has rented out university space. Everywhere Russian higher education institutions are letting space, selling courses, anything to make up the deficiency in government subsidies.

Friday

I go to see my friend of 20 years, Lena. She supports, on her wages from four jobs - only two of which she actually gets paid for - a husband, two sons, one mother, one huge dog and a randy cat. She is a Moscow State University graduate, a gifted linguist, but always struggling to make ends meet. Although her life was much easier in the Brezhnev era, she has no wish to go back to the pre-perestroika time. Still, she is worried about the prevalence of drugs now and her teenage son who will not work at school and who stays out all night. She has the peculiarly Russian facility of combining a cynical, perceptive appraisal of Russian politics with a completely unjustified faith in the ultimate goodness of the human race.

Saturday

I go for an evening walk in the park with Lena, her seven-year-old son, Kostya, and their huge dog, Bart. As we stroll, she tells me about the case of a factory worker with two young children who had not been paid for seven months. In the end there is no money or credit left, everybody is in the same boat. In desperation she stole some light bulbs from work to trade for food. She was discovered and sacked from the job that paid her no money.

Sunday

I go to see another friend, Ilona, and her niece, Sveta. Sveta says she is being sexually harassed at the bank where she works by her boss, a Frenchman. When she complained she was told by his boss, an American woman: "I'm afraid you'll just have to work out a modus vivendi with him." Russian workers, especially females, are given little respect by western companies. Sveta has a degree and speaks fluent English but is treated as a second-class citizen by people less qualified than herself. They know, of course, that Sveta is expendable. There would be many other bright young women ready to take her place if she were to go in today's Moscow of high unemployment and low wages.

Monday

My last day. I go to see the vice chancellor of a well-regarded new university. The university is very luxurious compared with Moscow State University, with beautiful art displays. I find out, however, that the staff have not been paid for two months. In the afternoon I catch my plane home. Again it is practically empty. It leaves and arrives on time. Oh, the bliss of not travelling Aeroflot.

PIETA MONKS

Pieta Monks is Russian language co-ordinator at the University of North London