A Russian Journal

by John Steinbeck

  When we came down from David’s Church the bells of the cathedral were ringing violently, and we went in. The church was rich and oriental, and its paintings were very black with incense and age. It was crowded with people. The service was being performed by an old man, with white hair and a golden crown, so beautiful that he looked unreal. The old man is called the Catholicus, he is the head of the Church of Georgia, and his robe is of gold thread. There was great majesty in the service, and the music of the large choir was incomparable. Incense rose to the high ceiling of the church, and the sun shone through and lighted it.

  Capa took many pictures. It was amazing to see how he could move about silently and photograph without being noticed. And later he went into the choir loft and took more pictures.

  By now, in this account, I am beginning to eliminate museums, but we saw them, we saw them every place. As Capa has said, the museum is the church of modern Russia, and to refuse to look at a museum is a little like refusing to visit a church. And they are all more or less alike. There is one section which deals with the past of Russia before the Revolution, from the beginning of history to 1918, and at least half the museum has to do with Russia since the Revolution, with all of the gains made, and the people involved, and the giant pictures of the heroes and of the scenes of the Revolution.

  In Tiflis there were two museums. One was the museum of the city, on the ridge over the town, which had very fine miniatures of the ancient houses and plans of the old city. But what was most interesting in this museum was its curator, a man who must have been an actor, for he shouted and postured, he made speeches, he was dramatic, he wept, he laughed loudly. His most successful gesture was a large outward fling of the right hand while he shouted, always in the Georgian language of course, about the glories of the ancient city. He spoke so rapidly that no translation was possible, and it couldn’t have been possible anyway, for Mr. Chmarsky did not speak Georgian. We came out of this museum deafened but happy.

  On the road along the ridge to this museum is probably the largest and most spectacular picture of Stalin in the Soviet Union. It is a giant thing which seems to be hundreds of feet high, and it is outlined in neon, which, although it is broken now, is said, when working, to be visible for twenty-eight miles.

  There were so many things to see, and so little time to see them, that we seemed to rush during the whole visit.

  In the afternoon we went to a soccer game between the teams representing Tiflis and Kiev. They played fine, fast, and furious soccer in the great stadium. At least forty thousand people were there, and the crowd was emotional, for these intersectional games are extremely popular. And although the game was rough and fast, and although the competition was very violent, there were practically no flares of temper. Only one little argument happened during the whole afternoon. The score ended two to two, and as the game finished two pigeons were released. In the old days in Georgia, in contests of all kinds, even in fights, a white pigeon was released for victory and a black one for defeat. And these pigeons carried the news to the other cities of the country of Georgia. And this day, since the score was a tie, both black and white were released, and they flew away over the stadium.

  Soccer is the most popular sport in the Soviet Union, and the intersectional soccer games carry more excitement and more emotion than any other sports event. The only really heated arguments we heard during our stay in Russia concerned soccer.

  We toured the department stores of Tiflis, and they were choked with people. The shelves were fairly well stocked, but prices, particularly of clothing, were very high: cotton shirts, sixty-five roubles; rubber galoshes, three hundred roubles; a portable typewriter, three thousand roubles.

  We spent a whole day going about the city to the public swimming pools and to the parks. And in the workers’ park we saw a children’s train that was charming. It was a real little train, perfect in every detail, and the engineer, the switchman, the station master, the fireman, all were children. They had got their positions in a competition in efficiency, and they ran the train for children or adults. We took a ride on it with a delegation of children from Uzbek, who had come on the invitation of the children of Tiflis, and they were riding the train for the afternoon. The little boy who was engineer was very proud. The station had all the equipment for running a railroad, only on a small scale. And the children were very formal in carrying out their tasks. To be an official on the children’s railway is a great honor to a child in Tiflis, and he works hard for the position.

  Georgian food is famous all over the Soviet Union, but our hotel had not heard much about it. We were a little tired of its menu, which consisted almost entirely of shashlik and sliced tomatoes. That night Chmarsky and Capa and I decided to experiment with another restaurant. We went to the Tiflis Hotel, where the dining-room is as large as the nave of a cathedral. There were marble columns supporting the roof, there was a very bad loud orchestra, and no food at all. Instead of shashlik we got little bits of fried meat—and sliced tomatoes.

  And while we were eating, the waiter came and said, “A lady would like to dance with either one of you gentlemen.”

  Chmarsky translated for us, and he did not look approvingly at the waiter. He said, “It is undoubtedly a public woman.”

  And we said, “But what’s wrong with a public woman? Is she pretty?”

  Chmarsky screwed up his face. He was the only one at the table who could see her. “No,” he said, “she is very ugly.”

  We said, “We think she should be abolished. We think she is a social evil. We think that an ugly public woman is a threat to the whole structure of society, a threat to the home, and security, and mother love, and all things like that.”

  And Chmarsky nodded his head gloomily and agreed with us. It was practically the first time we had agreed on anything.

  And we said, “If, on the other hand, she were pretty, there might be extenuating circumstances. There might be some social injustice involved. If she were pretty, we would advocate investigating her background, to find out what social difficulty has caused her to be a public woman, and to try, perhaps, to induce her to return to private enterprise.”

  Chmarsky began to regard us with a suspicious, inquisitive eye. He did not trust us very much.

  Our backs were to the public woman, but eventually we stole a look, and he was right, she was not pretty, and we don’t know whether they abolished her or not.

  The summer nights were wonderful in Tiflis; the air soft, and light, and dry. Young men and girls walked aimlessly in the streets, enjoying themselves. And the costumes of the young men were rather nice: tunics, sometimes of heavy white silk, belted at the waist, and long narrow trousers, and soft black boots. They are a very handsome breed, the Georgian men.

  From the high balconies of the old houses we could hear in the night soft singing of strange music, accompanied by a picked instrument that sounded like a mandolin, and occasionally a flute played in a dark street.

  The people of Georgia seemed to us more relaxed than any we had seen so far, relaxed, and fierce, and full of joy. And perhaps this is why the Russians admire them so. Perhaps this is the way they would like to be.

  There was a huge moon over the western mountains, and it made the city seem even more mysterious and old, and the great black castle on the ridge stood out in front of the moon. And if there are ghosts anyplace in the world, they must be here, and if there is a ghost of Queen Tamara, she must have been walking the ridge in the moonlight that night.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE TIFLIS WRITERS’ UNION had asked us to come to a little reception. And it must be admitted that we were frightened, for these meetings have a habit of becoming extremely literary, and we are not very literary people. Besides, we knew by now that the Georgians take their literature very seriously: poetry and music are their great contributions to world culture, and their poetry is very ancient. Their poetry is not read by a few people; it is read by everyone. In their burial places on the hill we had
seen that their poets were buried on an equal footing with their kings, and in many cases a poet has been remembered where a king has been forgotten. And one ancient poet, Rust’hveli, who wrote a long epic poem called The Knight in the Tiger Skin, is honored almost as a national hero in Georgia, and his verses are read and are memorized even by children, and his picture is everywhere.

  We were afraid that the meeting of the writers might be a little rugged for us, but we went. About twenty men and three women received us. And we sat in chairs around a large room and regarded one another. There was a speech of welcome to us, and without transition our welcomer said, “And now Mr. So-and-so will read a short summary of Georgian literature.”

  A man on my right opened a sheaf of papers, and I could see that it was typewritten and single-spaced. He began to read, and I waited for the translation. A paragraph later I suddenly realized that he was reading in English. I became fascinated, because I could only understand about one word in ten. His pronunciation was so curious that although the words were English all right, they did not sound remotely like English when he said them. And he read twenty typewritten pages.

  I got the manuscript later and read it, and it was a concise, compact history of literature in Georgia, from earliest times to the present.

  Since most of the people in the room did not speak English at all, they sat and smiled benignly, for to them he was reading in perfect English. When he had finished, the man who had first spoken said, “Have you any questions now?”

  And since I had understood very little of what had gone on, I had to admit that I had no questions.

  It was quite hot in the room, and both Capa and I had developed a little trouble in the stomach, so that we were not comfortable.

  Now a lady stood up, and she too had a sheaf of papers, and she said, “I will now read some translations into English of Georgian poetry.”

  Her English was good, but because I had a bad cramp in the stomach, I had to protest. I told her, which is true, that I much prefer to read poetry to myself, that I get more out of it that way, and I begged her to let me have the poetry to read when I was alone, so that I could appreciate it more. I think it hurt her feelings, but I hope not. It was true and I was miserable. She was a trifle curt. She said that this was the only copy in existence, that she did not dare let it out of her hands.

  Again, as before, there came the questions about American writing. And, as usual, we felt terribly unprepared. If we had known we were going to be asked questions like this before we left America, we might have studied a little bit. We were asked about new writers emerging, and we mumbled a little about John Hersey, and John Horne Burns, who wrote The Gallery, and Bill Mauldin, who draws like a novelist. We were dreadfully inadequate at this sort of thing, but the truth of the matter is we had not read very much of modern fiction lately. Then one of the men asked us what Georgians were well known in America. And the only ones we could remember, outside of the choreographer George Balanchine, were the three brothers who collectively had married many million dollars’ worth of American women. The name Mdvani did not seem to bring out great enthusiasm among the present-day Georgian writers.

  They are very stern and devoted, these Georgian writers, and it is very hard to tell them that although Stalin may say that the writer is the architect of the soul, in America the writer is not considered the architect of anything, and is only barely tolerated at all after he is dead and carefully put away for about twenty-five years.

  In nothing is the difference between the Americans and the Soviets so marked as in the attitude, not only toward writers, but of writers toward their system. For in the Soviet Union the writer’s job is to encourage, to celebrate, to explain, and in every way to carry forward the Soviet system. Whereas in America, and in England, a good writer is the watch-dog of society. His job is to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices, to stigmatize its faults. And this is the reason that in America neither society nor government is very fond of writers. The two are completely opposite approaches toward literature. And it must be said that in the time of the great Russian writers, of Tolstoy, of Dostoevski, of Turgenev, of Chekhov, and of the early Gorki, the same was true of the Russians. And only time can tell whether the architect of the soul approach to writing can produce as great a literature as the watch-dog of society approach. So far, it must be admitted, the architect school has not produced a great piece of writing.

  The room was very hot by the time our meeting with the writers was over, and we shook hands all around, wiping our palms on our trousers between handshakes, for we were perspiring very freely.

  There had been one question they had asked that we wanted to think about further. It had been, “Do Americans like poetry?”

  And we had had to reply that the only check we have on the liking or disliking of any form of literature in America is whether the people buy it, and certainly the people do not buy very much poetry. So we had been forced to say that perhaps Americans do not like poetry.

  And then they had asked, “Is it that American poets are not very close to the people?”

  And this was not true either, because American poets are just as close to the people as American novelists are. Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg are certainly not very far from the people, but the people just do not read very much poetry. We do not think it makes very much difference whether Americans like poetry or not. But to the Georgians, whose love for poetry is traditional, the lack of love for poetry is almost a crime.

  Old as Tiflis is, it is the new capital. Fifteen hundred years ago the seat of power was about thirty kilometers to the north, and in the afternoon we got in the jeep and our cavalry driver drove us out there. It was a good macadam road, and it was crowded with little wagons pulled by donkeys, and by army trucks, and by soldiers on German motorcycles with side-cars. On the hills on either side were castles and ancient churches, almost inaccessible of approach. And the feeling of ancientness was in these passes which had been guarded against invasions for three thousand years. The road followed the river, and there were two hydroelectric dams, but when Capa wanted to photograph them, the refusal was instant. And just above the dams we came to a bridge that was built by Pompey when the Romans came through this pass, and one of the central supports is still standing in the river.

  The name of the ancient capital is Mtskhet, and I cannot pronounce it yet. There is a fifth-century church high up on the peak above the city, half ruinous and very impressive. And to get to it you must climb a goat trail. In the town itself there was a beautiful church, inside high walls. And the walls were castellated and built for defense.

  The huge courtyard inside the walls was grass-grown and the walls themselves were stepped, so that in the old days the fighting men could guard the church. The door of the church was of iron, and it was locked with a gigantic padlock. And inside the porch there were many little candles, stuck against the stone of the wall. The method seems to be to light the wrong end of the candle, and when it is burning to press it against the stone so that it sticks, and then to light the other end, so that the burning candle adheres to the stone of the church itself.

  A dry hot wind howled through the pass in which the old town stands, and cried against the corners of the church. Off in one corner of the churchyard there was a curious parody. A long, lean, stringy man, dressed in rags, was dancing about. He was of the breed we used to call “touched.” In his bony right hand he held a big feather, and with it he gestured while he made a loud speech to three goats who stood watching him and chewing rapidly. He waved his feather, stopped in his speech, and charged at the goats, and they disdainfully stepped aside, like boxers, and then stood and watched again while he spoke to them.

  Eventually the caretaker of the church arrived—a dark woman, with a strong aquiline face. She was dressed in a black costume, with a black headcloth that wrapped around her throat, so that only her face showed. Her eyes were dark and brooding. She seemed to be some kind of secular nun. She carried a bi
g key for the padlock. She opened the church, and we went inside the dusky ancient place.

  The wall paintings were stiff, and old, and primitive, and their colors were faded. The more recent icons were dark in their gold frames and under their gold filigree. The stern woman began to tell us about the origin of the church.

  Now there developed what we were later to call the Tinker to Evers to Chmarsky translation. Chmarsky did not understand the Georgian language. The words had to be spoken to a Georgian, who translated into Russian, and Chmarsky translated the Russian to us. This took a lot longer than normal conversation.

  The dark woman told us that this church had been finished in the fifth century, but it had been started long before. And she told us a curious story about its founding, one of the incredible eastern stories one hears so often.

  There were two brothers and a sister. And they had heard from the sky, or from the winds, that Jesus Christ had been born and had grown to manhood. There were portents and dreams that told them about him. Finally the two brothers started for Jerusalem, leaving their sister at home in this place. And they arrived on the day of the crucifixion, so they only saw him dead. And these two brothers from this pass in the Georgian mountains were heartbroken, and they begged a piece of the body-cloth of Jesus, and they brought it home to their sister. She was grief-stricken by the crucifixion, and she clutched the cloth, and fell sick and died of sorrow, and her dead hand held the cloth against her heart. Then the brothers tried to release the cloth, but her hand held firm and they could not get it away from her. And so she was buried with the cloth still held in her hand. She was buried right in this place where the church now stands. And almost immediately a plant grew out of the grave and became a giant tree. After a number of years it was desired to build a church in this place to commemorate the event. And woodsmen came and tried to cut the tree, but their axes flew to pieces against its trunk. Everyone tried to cut the tree, and they couldn’t make a dent in it. Finally two angels came and cut the tree, and the church was built over the spot. The dark woman pointed to a curious tent-like structure of clay inside the church, and this is where the grave was, she said, and this is where the tree stood. And under the clay tent undoubtedly was the body of the holy woman, still clutching the piece of the cloth that had been worn by Jesus.