Warsaw, 5/21/1989Few Things Liked

(WARSAW, POLAND, May 21, 1989)

by Bob Van Leer

Our Polish airliner arrived in Warsaw just before midnight after a one-hour flight from Leningrad.

The day began with a two-hour tour of the world-famous Hermitage Museum in downtown Leningrad. The museum was built next to the Czar’s Winter Palace in 1764 to house an art collection for Empress Catherine. The museum has since spread to the Winter Palace and both buildings front on the Neva River. The palace itself would be a museum if there were nothing in it, but it houses one of the greatest art collections of the world.

The Hermitage features Western European art. Russian art is in still another museum. The museum is mind boggling because of its immensity. There are 400 rooms open to the public. Our guide said a walk through each room would take you 15 miles. We have the short tour of only three miles. Our Intourist guide, Alla, said it has been calculated that if you spent one minute looking at every exhibit it would take you 11 years to see them all.

In painters, the museum has hundreds of old masters, any one of which would make a person wealthy. There is a room full of Van Dykes. Forty-three paintings by Rubens are on display. Another room features Rembrandts. Paintings are on exhibit by Rafael, Goya, the list goes on indefinitely.

For lunch we were taken to the Hotel Pribaltiskya, on the Gulf of Finland, north of the Neva. This is a better hotel than our Hotel Moskva, but it is located far out of town and would be inconvenient. The food, however, is no better.

Eating in Leningrad is not a good experience. The food we have been served has generally been tasteless and greasy. There are a few things we have liked. The bread is good and served in plentiful quantities. The ice cream was good and some of the soups were quite good. We were told not to drink the water and the mineral water we were served, while medically safe to drink, tasted awful. One drink served with most meals was beer. One woman in our party said, on the quality of the beer, “It’s better than no beer.”

After lunch we went shopping in a couple of stores whose terms are “foreign currency only”. Here there is merchandise not normally available at most stores. Even at that, there is little here westerners would want, and the prices are high.

Two of our party, Harold and Jane Hudson from Texas, had been to Russia 15 years ago. They said that the society is more open now. Then there was suspicion of Americans, even resentment that they were in Russia. However, two more of our party took an early morning walk and reported that they had given a cheery greeting to 15 persons they met on the street and only three responded favorably.

Random thoughts about Leningrad:

Lots of gilt is used around the city, both inside and out. The numerous golden domes and spires add a lot to the city.

The center core is unique with its old restored buildings, but is dingy. The outskirts of town look more western and have a lot of greenery and are pleasant.

Russia has obligatory military training for all youths at age 18. They serve for two years.

Stop lights flash yellow before turning green.

Old women are around most public buildings and hotels sweeping with twig brooms.

Women clean the men’s restrooms while they are in use.

There is a lack of flexibility shown a lot. Our tour leader bought a print which was covered with glass and in a frame. She was perfectly willing to pay for the frame but wanted the print taken out and the frame left with the store – no deal. She had to buy the frame and she had to take it with her.

Some of the young women outside the hotel seem to be selling more than souvenirs.

Our tour of Leningrad is now ended and we are taken to the Pulkovii Airport just south of the city of our one-hour flight to Warsaw. We had heard dread stories about Russian customs examinations, looking for black market goods, and most of us had some of these. We went through without searches and waited for the plane, a Russian-built TU-154, about the size of a Boeing 727. There was no assigned seating and there was a crush to get out of the terminal, and another scramble to find a seat on boarding the plane. The flight was about an hour late and we took off over downtown Leningrad at about midnight. There was enough light to make out the city.

It was an uneventful flight to Warsaw and our Polish tour guide, who spoke a little English, gave me a short lesson on Polish. She also gave a little history of the country, including the German occupation in World War II. Because of the destruction and suffering the countries went through, World War II and what the Germans did is still a lively topic of conversation in this corner of the world.

Our day begins tomorrow with a breakfast with the Associated Press bureau chief and then a briefing at the U.S. Embassy.