Selected text
This subject was a progressive direction and at the conference of geodesy and physics in Germany I was elected chairman of our working group. At that time it was necessary to obtain permission of the Central Committee of the Party to become chairman of an international committee. I couldn’t tell them that I needed this permission and pretended that it wasn’t quite what I wanted. What else could I do, when respectful people wanted me to become their chairman? Our interpreter was a KGB [29] informer, and she wrote in her report that I refused indistinctly, when they wanted to elect me and our organs closed the issue of my traveling abroad for six or seven years.
There was a special procedure of traveling abroad at that time. There was a special commission in a Party district committee which checked the reliability, looked closely into people’s biographies and asked idiotic questions related to the course of scientific communism. We had interviews. Now these interviews seem crazy. They instructed us: ‘You can only walk in groups of three or more’ fearing that the agents of the world imperialism were on guard and would not miss a chance to drag to their side or kill the star of Soviet science.
They also gave other instructions like: ‘do not make soup in a sink’: our actors brought boilers with them and since they didn’t have plates or mugs they plugged the sinks to boil soup or pasta to save money to buy clothes and gifts for their families. They also asked us whether we knew the words of the anthem by heart. There were old Bolsheviks in those commissions who were even crazier. So, after the report of this interpreter I wasn’t allowed to go on trips for six years. I could only communicate with my American colleagues, when they visited me.
My former supervisor, Grigoriy Ovsyuk, helped me a lot. He was working in the presidium of the Academy of Sciences and was well respected there. He was also chairman of the housing commission of the Academy. This was an important position at that time considering the deficit of dwellings. He was the one to decide whether to give an apartment to someone or not: to academicians, not common employees! He pressed on our foreign department to have their KGB representatives make the necessary arrangements for me with the relevant KGB office, and they allowed me to travel again.
There was a special procedure of traveling abroad at that time. There was a special commission in a Party district committee which checked the reliability, looked closely into people’s biographies and asked idiotic questions related to the course of scientific communism. We had interviews. Now these interviews seem crazy. They instructed us: ‘You can only walk in groups of three or more’ fearing that the agents of the world imperialism were on guard and would not miss a chance to drag to their side or kill the star of Soviet science.
They also gave other instructions like: ‘do not make soup in a sink’: our actors brought boilers with them and since they didn’t have plates or mugs they plugged the sinks to boil soup or pasta to save money to buy clothes and gifts for their families. They also asked us whether we knew the words of the anthem by heart. There were old Bolsheviks in those commissions who were even crazier. So, after the report of this interpreter I wasn’t allowed to go on trips for six years. I could only communicate with my American colleagues, when they visited me.
My former supervisor, Grigoriy Ovsyuk, helped me a lot. He was working in the presidium of the Academy of Sciences and was well respected there. He was also chairman of the housing commission of the Academy. This was an important position at that time considering the deficit of dwellings. He was the one to decide whether to give an apartment to someone or not: to academicians, not common employees! He pressed on our foreign department to have their KGB representatives make the necessary arrangements for me with the relevant KGB office, and they allowed me to travel again.
Period
Interview
Alexander Grin