Russian Trip

Silver: R. F. Atkinson, B. J. Avison, K. D. Bowler, C. J. Clark, J. R. Drummond, J. Fender, R. A. Heath, C. J. Pickles, N. J. M. Turton, J. D. Willis.

D. B. Hart is to be congratulated on the completion of the Gold Award. He obtained his final residential qualification during a week's walking expedition on the Isle of Skye. D.H.

The road to Samarkand is hot and dusty; so it looked as we dropped rapidly on to the tarmac of the tiny airport after our overnight flight from Moscow, some 2,000 miles and five hours away. Out of the plane and off to the hotel, where we waited for the previous occupants to leave our rooms before a brief rest and a lightning tour of the mosques and minarets. This was characteristic of the rest of the tour. We hardly had time to breathe, and the organisation was immaculately smooth. Buses, planes, sleepers, guides, attendants, the lot, all were where they should be. We were welcomed at the frontier by a charming guide who stayed with us throughout the tour, and the police who confiscated our newspapers. On to Moscow, a grey and drab city enlivened by ghastly skyscrapers of the Stalin era. Red Square impresses by its size, the vulgarity of Lenin's mausoleum, and the endless crowds who have come to worship their hero, the Kremlin walls and the onion domes of St. Basil's, decayed and crumbling, alas, and the famous GUM, whose vast arcades are filled with shoddy goods and more queues. Queues, indeed, seem a feature of Moscovite life, an unwelcome reminder of wartime shortages in Britain, queues for taxis and buses, queues at restaurants and in shops, grey and patient, apathetic and listless. By contrast the display of might and power at the permanent exhibition of Russian achievements in all economic, cultural, military, and scientific fields was impressive, a salutary reminder of the resources and complexity of this huge country. It was pleasant to escape the streets into the magic dreamland of the Bolshoi and enjoy a full performance of Tchaikowsky's "Queen of Spades", to visit the Pushkin Gallery and feast our eyes on a splendid collection of valuable French Impressionists.

The next city on our tour was Samarkand, a marvellous contrast to the shabby cosmopolitan life of the capital, a city teeming with interesting faces, clothes, shanty shops, all the paraphernalia of the East. The Islamic buildings were largely decrepit and abandoned, with few signs of active use in most, but they were being restored before they finally crumbled. Still the busts, effigies and photographs of the ubiquitous Lenin pursued us. But the tomb of Tambourlaine refreshed us with the past and the remains of Uluybek's sextant were a reminder of this city's proud history, the farthest limit of Alexander's conquests. Bukhara and Tashkent we then flew into; the one a holy city of Islam once an outpost of empire, the scene of intrigues with Czarists and wicked British imperialists, a remote Emir and his English wife, savage tortures, executions and brutal repression, a city of fear and suspicion; the other a modern industrial city rapidly recovering within the last decade from an overpowering earthquake.