Russian Diary [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512816723

Table of contents :
Foreword
Illustrations
Thursday, June 26, 1958
Friday, June 27
Saturday, June 28
Sunday, June 29
Monday, June 30
Tuesday, July 1
Wednesday, July 2
Thursday, July 3
Friday, July 4
Saturday, July 5
Sunday, July 6
Monday, July 7
Tuesday, July 8
Wednesday, July 9
Thursday, July 10
Friday, July 11

Citation preview

RUSSIAN DIARY

RUSSIAN DIARY by

Gaylord P. Harnwell President,

University of

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

ig6o by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvan Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-1*706

Printed in the United States of America

Foreword Before I let you read this little book, I think it only fair to put you on your guard. If you are like me, your first formulation of ideas into words is likely to be embarrassed by the censorship of second thought. If you write as you run, the tape recorder is a grand convenience, but it has its drawbacks. It belies the old adage that only written words remain and those spoken flit away; on the tape recorder the spoken words remain, often banal and imprecise, sometimes rude, and with "a plentiful lack of wit." T h e unresponsive machine reels in the words and preserves them with unkind fidelity, so that in fact what is spoken remains, while what is written may be erased or revised. Despite such suspicious forebodings, I confided to a microphone the diary of my recent visit to certain institutions of higher education in the Soviet Union. Upon returning home, I had it transcribed (with no thought of publication) for the sake of fond and indulgent friends who wished to share with me a variety of interesting experiences. We all seem to be Hakluyts at heart, happy to accompany travelers to distant lands. Soon the friends who read it wanted to publish it, and I gave it to one of them, my colleague Kenneth M. Setton, to do such editing as he might think advisable.* T h e adventure began with a phone call in the spring of 1958 from Chancellor Edward Litchfield, of the University of Pittsburgh, an old hand at the State Department. He conveyed to me an exciting invitation to join a few con• [All I have done to the Russian Diary is change a few words and read it with great enjoyment. K.M.S.]

5

genial colleagues in seeing with my own eyes how the Soviets had achieved their current status in higher education. Franklin D. Murphy, Chancellor of the University of Kansas; Herman Β Wells, President of the University of Indiana; Deane W . Malott, President of Cornell University; T . Keith Glennan, President of the Case Institute of Technology; and Harry D. Gideonse, President of Brooklyn College were to be the other professionals in the party. W e were also to be joined by Frank Sparks, the President of the Council for Financial Aid to Education, and by Alan M. Scaife, the convivial and discriminating benefactor of education, who headed the foundation which offered to bear the costs of the expedition. T h i s was a most attractive prospect, and, of course, I accepted with alacrity despite my realization that I should have a small task that evening in convincing my wife that the dislocation of our summer plans was a mere trifle with which she could easily cope in her efficient way. When we set out we were accompanied also by H. Philip Mettger of the Governmental Affairs Institute in Washington, as well as by three wives who had elected to share our experiences. These were Sarah Scaife, Mary Litchfield, and Eleanor Malott. I doff my shlyapa to them for the cheerful humor and the benevolent restraint they showed at all hours of the day and night, in chilly rain and burning heat, coping with quaint toiletries and not infrequently having heroically to subdue the inner woman after brash encounters with foreign flora and fauna at late banquets and at mid-morning collations in the rectors' offices. Our company spent something over two weeks, day and night, in getting information and absorbing atmosphere in the

6

cities where the universities and technical institutes were most outstanding or where they were of such a character as to be of special interest to us. T h e s e were Moscow, Leningrad, T b i l i s i , Samarkand, T a s h k e n t , and Alma-Ata.

At

these, our principal centers for exploration and investigation, we were the guests of the Ministry of Higher Education and admirably cared for on all occasions. As a pilgrimage to communities of scholars and scientists in the eastern hemisphere, it was a journey of stimulation and delight; the superficial unfamiliarity of their customs and traditions only served to emphasize the fundamental nature of education and its institutions the world over. G.P.H.

7

Illustrations The following

illustrations

appear as a group after page 64

T h e author arriving in Moscow Franklin Murphy, Keith Glennan, and the author outside the Kremlin Professor Dr. M. A. Prokoviev explains the program of the Ministry of Higher Education T h e Cathedral of St. Basil the Fortunate, Moscow Medieval tower along the Kremlin wall T h e Lenin Library, Moscow Moscow's Lomonosov University View of Moscow from the top of the University Professor J . S. Galkin, Pro-Rector of the University of Moscow T h e Winter Palace, now the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad Fountains in the Peterhof, Leningrad T h e author in front of St. Isaac's in Leningrad Academician A. D. Alexandrov, Rector of the University of Leningrad Entrance to the University of Tbilisi T h e author arriving in Alma-Ata T h e American delegation at the airfield in Alma-Ata T h e State Theater in Alma-Ata T h e Rector of the University of Kazakhstan conferring with the American delegation Endpaper

map by Dr. James J.

Flannery

RUSSIAN DIARY

Thursday, June 26, 1958 We left Philadelphia early in the morning by car, and my son Robert drove me to the airport at Idlewild. W e reached there in time for lunch and enjoyed our pleasant farewells in the Golden Door Restaurant at the airport. T h i s is a most sumptuous establishment and brought to my mind the shades of Emma Lazarus, who would indeed have been surprised at the thought of a group of college presidents reversing the course of her immigrants and setting off to visit the educational institutions of the eastern hemisphere. T h e Scandinavian Airlines System took me in charge, and I encountered a friendly greeting from the District Sales Manager, Mr. Harry Bakelin, who also provided attractive luggage tags and his best wishes for a profitable and enjoyable journey. We went down to the plane a little early, a fine DC-7 embellished with the S.A.S. insignia, and after a photograph taken by the Airlines for undisclosed purposes, we taxied to the runway just on time at 3:30 P.M. As I am writing this we are approaching our cruising altitude of 19,000 feet and are over Nantucket Island, where we veer a bit more to the north in order to pass over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. I have looked over the passengers in a cursory way, but have not as yet identified Mr. Mettger or Dr. Sparks, who are presumed to be aboard this plane. In typical airline fashion we have been plied with small Swedish sandwiches and scotch and soda, to brighten an already sunny afternoon. And I will now

»3

take some time off to acknowledge the cordial going-away notes from my friends Avhich I received at the airport. We could not have had a pleasanter start or kinder send-offs, and the good \vishes from so many friends have made this a most delightful experience.

H

Friday, June

27

According to my watch, it is 3:05 A.M., but I am having breakfast between Prestwick and Copenhagen at what I believe is a little after eight o'clock local time. We set our wheels down at the Prestwick airport after just ten hours of flying. The trip couldn't have been quieter or more pleasant. We were plied with food and drink almost from take-off, and I rolled into my bed about eight o'clock for some four hours of sleep, which will have to do me as daylight is now here, and my berth, a very commodious lower, is made up. The breakfast is a good one of grapefruit slices, orange juice, omelet, tongue, cheese, and bread, with some welcome hot black coffee. It's all gone now, and we seem to be coming down toward Copenhagen, where I will get squared away to continue later. The Copenhagen airport was full of large S.A.S. planes and many others. Among the S.A.S. planes was one from New York which had left a little later than mine did, but not having stopped at Prestwick, it had reached Copenhagen earlier. On it were the Alan M. Scaifes, the Deane Malotts, and the Edward H. Litchfields. They were all well and full of enthusiasm for the trip. Dr. Frank Sparks, of the Council for Financial Aid to Education, had been on my plane all the while, but I hadn't known him until Ed Litchfield introduced us. Mr. Mettger is to meet us in Stockholm. We all then reboarded my plane, which was Flight 914, and are now en route to Stockholm, a flight of about an

»5

hour and fifteen minutes. We are due there at 1 1 : 3 0 A.M. W e have a close connection at that time with the plane for Moscow. T h e Copenhagen airport, like most others around the world, was being improved, and there were carpenters all over the place; but there were also the usual tax-free counters doing a good business, where one could purchase bottles of "Black and White" for $2.50 apiece. Whisky can't be taken into Sweden because of their prohibition laws, but if you're en route to Moscow you can take as much as you like. We're now sailing over Gotland, which is one of the southern provinces of Sweden, with light fluffy little clouds casting their pretty shadows over the neat landscape of farms and towns and lakes. It is a lovely country indeed, and I am looking forward to seeing more of it later. T h e stewardess produced a glass of orange juice, and I will now sign off to continue later. W e came down in Stockholm almost on time, at half past eleven, and as my bags were checked straight through to Moscow, I simply had the brief ticket-and-passport-control formalities to go through. T h e r e we met the remainder of our party—Harry D. Gideonse, H. Philip Mettger, Herman Β Wells, Franklin D. Murphy, and T . Keith Glennan, who had all come on the day before and had been sight-seeing in Stockholm. T h e y were full of beans and ready for the next stage of the trip. Our plane to Moscow is a DC-6, and I have a front seat by the engines which I hope to swap for a less noisy one in back, after we take off. T h e day is beautiful and sunny and couldn't be better for visibility and flying. We're getting off half an hour late at 1 2 : 3 5 P.M., and it looks like a three-and-a-half-hour flight, though I had not 16

realized it was so far. T h a t would mean we should arrive by 6 P.M. Moscow time, which is seven hours ahead of Philadelphia. T h e flight is by way of Riga, the capital of Latvia, and, after crossing the Baltic Sea, we come to a country quite different from Scandinavia. It is rather more like the United States—wilder, with woodlands and pasture and tilled fields, lacking the intense cultivation of Denmark or Southern Sweden. There are many roads and they seem to be good—most of them long and straight. T h e little towns seem attractive, with a good many houses, well scattered—not much of a town center, and certainly no neon lights. It is low and apparently flat land, somewhat reminiscent of the Georgia coast, with snakelike rivers. T h e little white clouds, which in some places are developing into thunderheads, interfere somewhat with the view, but we can see a good deal of this wild flat country. Unfortunately, we cannot take any photographs as the steward has sequestered our cameras as a routine procedure. Now there are woodlands and lakes below me and almost no cultivated ground, but generally the area we are passing over has been dotted with little groups of houses, doubtless collectives, with some tilled and cleared pasture land around them. We are now about half an hour from Moscow; the country looks rather wilder than Latvia. Our view extends over large stretches of forest with some cultivated land, all apparently rather flat. T h e cloud effects are lovely, but to the casual observer, we might well be flying between Norfolk and Jacksonville. W e descended through rain clouds to Moscow and landed in a thunder shower, thankful for our raincoats. 17

T h e r e was much gesticulating through the plane windows and a longish wait inside before we got out; but after we were all assembled under one of the wings, we walked through the rain to the terminal building and passed some very fine jet airliners as well as some ordinary propellerdriven planes of Aerflot,

the Russian airline. W e entered

a small, simple, stark building; French-Canadian architecture springs to mind. T h e r e seemed, almost, to be thousands of people inside, much overstuffed furniture, bare walls, simple tables and chairs grouped about, and here again we had long waits for luggage and the other formalities. However, we received excellent care from our Russian hosts. "Disorganization" was the key word, but everyone was most cordial. T h e r e were flowers for the ladies, Sarah Scaife, Mary Litchfield, and Eleanor Malott, peonies and roses, with little white flowers, in somewhat childlike bouquets. W e were met by five persons from the University of Moscow, as well as by three interpreters, two of whom were to be with us during the rest of the trip. O n e of these was Natalie Makaveva, who told us to call her Natash, from the Ministry of Higher Education. T h e second was Antonina, whose ability as an interpreter appeared to be inadequate somewhat later and who disappeared from our ranks after a few days. T h e third interpreter was Oleg Krokhalev, a very nice lad of between twenty and twentyone, a language student, who brightened our trip from beginning to end. T h e representatives from the university were most friendly, gave us a cordial welcome, and accompanied us into Moscow from the airport. After about an hour and a half, we all got into the cars

18

with our luggage—Keith, Franklin, Herman, Natash, and I in a large Zim which looks like a Packard—and we drove along a fine concrete highway the twenty-nine kilometers to Moscow. On our way, we passed an enormous apartment development going up near the huge Woolworth-type architecture of the university building. We also stopped at a prospect of the river, the Moskova, which curves around the large sports stadia in front of the university. T h e n we drove on to our hotel, the Ukraine. It is a new stone-and-marble affair, reminiscent of the university, not too homelike but solid and very utilitarian. My room, No. 618, looks out over the river, and it is still light while I am writing this at 9:30 P.M. In the hotel we had a long wait while the rooms were being assigned, and I used part of the time in an unsuccessful quest for a cable office. Whom should I meet in the lobby, however, but my old friend J o h n Turkevich! He is a professor of chemistry at Princeton and is over here this summer with a delegation of some eighteen or twenty professors and deans from American universities. T h e y are staying longer in Russia than we are, but they are not traveling so widely. T h e y have been here for about four days and have had a most interesting and impressive time. We fell upon each other's necks and recalled the many other times we have met while traveling in strange places. Other professors in the delegation being known to members of our party, we passed the time in conversation while waiting for our room assignments. I am now in my room after a wash, using my own soap, for none is provided by the management in Russian hotels. At ten o'clock we are due to meet for dinner in the

!9

restaurant. My room is pleasant, though small, clean and neat and not over-furnished. There's a picture on the wall of a Russian river with a steep bluff. T h e bathroom is clean. T h e view is good, and the windows, double ones appropriate to the heavy winter climate, open easily. We will shortly try to decide what our program is to be, and I am sure that we shall match the Russians in disorganization. T h e managing of the trip has been left somewhat to chance, though this is in some degree necessary to insure flexibility to fit in with the plans of our Russian hosts. I am sure it will work out well, though at the moment all seems confusion ahead. We gathered in the marble magnificence of the lobby, ready to dine at the long table which had been prepared for us in the restaurant. My seat was between Professor Stephan Polkin of the Institute for Non-Ferrous Metals, our chief guide and the leader of our tour, and Natash, our interpreter. We began supper with a vegetable salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, caviar, smoked salmon, accompanied by vodka, beer, and Georgian wine, as well as charged and plain water. We then had some very good fried chicken, small bits of white meat secured on a wooden spit and flavored with lemon and herbs. We also had peas, shoestring potatoes, and finished off with ice cream and coffee—a very good meal indeed which went on until 11 :go. After a short council in Ed Litchfield's room on our future plans, we retired. We were going to see the Ministry of Higher Education the first thing in the morning.

20

Saturday, June

28

It is early in the morning and a rather gray one at that. T h e time is 6 A.M. W e are so far north, in the latitude of Edmonton, Canada, that it begins to get light about 3 A.M. A f t e r looking out the window of my hotel at the Moscow River, and doing all the odds and ends to prepare my pockets and camera bag for the day ahead, I am getting ready to go down to breakfast. A f t e r spending a night in this room, I have found it really a very simple and tasteful spot. T h e windows are large, the furniture is adequate, and the bed is comfortable. I have a fine heavy blanket which is mostly enclosed in a coverlet exposing only a diamond-shaped woolly area. T h e reading light is small and not too bright, but serves its purpose well enough. T h e hotel is a new one of which the Russians are very proud. It has twenty-eight stories with six push-button elevators, but with operators also, possibly on the beltand-suspender principle. A floor clerk has the keys of our rooms and also an abacus, though I have not yet

figured

out what she does with it. T h e cable office is in the hotel lobby; I have now found it and sent my cable o f f — t h e r e the abacus is used for counting words and costs. In the lobby, which is of marble with bronze hardware, there are faces of all kinds, many Asiatic and African, some European, and lots of stocky Russians—a very interesting crowd at the Hotel Ukraine. By and large they dress like farmers, mechanics, and clerks, which doubtless they are. T h e quality of men's 21

clothes is not very good but quite up to Near Eastern or Eastern European standards. T h e ties are of dull patterns and the clothing has much of a simple plain and lightweight sameness. T h e women seem to have a bit more color about them: Natash has a green sweater and a flowered dress, and Antonina has a blue sweater and a dark blue dress. T h e big apartment development we saw coming in from the airport appears particularly impressive. T h e r e must be room for several hundred thousand persons in it. Not far from our hotel there is a tall pinnacled apartment of the same architecture, which is said to house 500 apartments, and it looks big enough to do so. T h e new apartments, however, are of brick or stone and concrete, many with stores on the ground floor; solid, clean, utilitarian but unimaginative in architecture; vast and squarish, with little noticeable relief of line or form. T h e old Wool worth pinnacle style seems to have gone out of fashion, and the modern apartments which we see being built are of a more conservative and conventional type. An enormous amount of building is going on for the citizens, and it is easy to see what the many Asiatics and Indians who come to see Moscow find to admire and copy here. A thing that puzzles me is the pervasive, acrid odor which seems to go not only with the construction but with ordinary dwellings. I believe it comes from the resin in the pine wood, which is used rather green in their construction. It is a curious odor and one which I have come to associate very intimately with Moscow. A f t e r breakfast, we drove to the Ministry of Higher Education in order to get our plans made for our sub22

sequent visits and also to discuss with them general matters of education in the Soviet Union. T h e minister, Professor Dr. V. P. Yelyutin, was not available that morning, so we talked with his two deputies, Professor Dr. M. A. Prokoviev, Deputy Minister of Education for Universities, and Professor Dr. S. V. Rumjansev, Deputy Minister of Education for the Technical Institutes. Neither of these gentlemen spoke very much English, so that we conversed through interpreters, but these were excellent. We first settled our travel plans and we found the deputy ministers most cordial and also most elastic in their efforts to accommodate us in the things which we said we wanted to see. T h e y expressed some concern lest we should be exhausted at the end of such a strenuous trip, but they undertook to try to get us to Leningrad, Minsk, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Alma-Ata, and back again to Moscow in the time available. T h e i r assistants were set to the task of trying to arrange this itinerary, and then we asked these deputy ministers questions about the educational system. Much of this statistical material is available in their publications, so that I shall record very briefly the information which we received. There are presently some 2.1 million students in Soviet universities and institutes, and 240,000 graduate students. An engineering degree requires five or six years of study beyond the ten-year intermediate school. T h e period is only four years for law; for medicine it is six years. Where the work is part-time, the period required is, of course, longer. About half the students are to be full-time, the other half part-time, evening, or extension; at least this is to be the general policy within the Soviet Union. At present, however, some 70 per cent of the 23

students are full-time. T h e 50 per cent policy is just now going into effect. T h e purpose is to increase the number of students and to help the many who must work in order to live. By having part-time students, more can be accommodated with the same number of institutes and the same size faculty and at the same cost to the government. T h e number of full-time students, which is 1.4 million, will stay the same. T h e number of part-time students will increase to 1.4 million, giving a total of 2.8 million students enrolled in the institutes of higher education next year. About 83 per cent of the full-time students receive stipends for their study. Part-time students do not receive any stipend but they study at no cost; papers and books are provided free and they receive their regular wages from industry. T h e 17 per cent of the full-time students who are not paid find themselves in this category because they do not need the money; they have their own resources or have parents who can look after them, or their marks have not been sufficiently satisfactory to earn a stipend. Examinations are given to determine the qualifications of students. T h e best ones are permitted to enter the universities or the institutes under a quota system. T h e size of a student's stipend is about half what he would get if he were to be employed directly by industry. As a first-year student, he may receive about 250 rubles a month; as he goes on to his four to six years, as the case may be, and if he does well, he can look forward to receiving at least twice that amount toward the end of his university career. Only about one in four or five of the graduates of the ten-year middle school system can go on to the universities. 24

T h i s , of course, presents a major hurdle in the life of a young man or woman, and when we inquired whether this might not be rather hard upon deserving and enterprising young people, we were told that the State calculated very carefully the number of trained persons which it needed, and admitted only that number to the doors of higher education, on the grounds that it would be better not to have any problem of unemployment among the well-educated. One can easily perceive certain social and political implications in this policy. T h e ministry also intends to require two years of work in construction or industry on the part of an applicant to a university. A t present, some 20 per cent of the persons entering universities have not had this work experience. T h e other 80 per cent have had it. In the future, decided preference will be given to all who have done such work. A n exception is to be made in the case of students of mathematics and theoretical physics, who appear to mature particularly early, and what benefits two years of work would have are more than offset by the loss of time which the student would incur. Reasons adduced for the two-year work period relate to the better motivation on the part of a student; if he has persisted in his desire to go to the university after two years of work without any particular intellectual contacts, he is presumably a better bet for the expenditure of the State's money. Also, students' records during this period can be taken into account in selecting candidates for admission, and it is believed that better choices can be made on this basis. At the conclusion of our visit to the ministry, and while our travel plans were being worked out, we went, at ten 25

o'clock, to see our ambassador, Mr. Llewellyn Thompson, and had a brief and pleasant visit with him on the ninth floor of an old and rickety building which was erected in 1954; it is very jerry-built and houses the smallest and shakiest elevator that I have ever ridden in. T h e r e is a total staff of eighty-seven at the embassy, all of whom seem to be very busy and able men. W e then returned and lunched at the hotel at about 2 : 3 0 P.M., with the word that we were to leave at three o'clock for the Kremlin. All the photographers in our party were agog, as a storm was threatening and we hoped to get there while the sun was still out. What with one delay and another, however, the rain came, and we barely got away from the hotel in time for our five o'clock appointment with an English-speaking guide who was to take us to the museum. T h e time at the hotel was spent in good conversation, in part with the second delegation of professors of which my friend Turkevich was a member. T h e interval was further enlivened by rumors of changes in plans, for Minsk, if a chartered plane were not available, could not be kept on our itinerary. We shouldn't know definitely until the day before we were to leave. It is all most confusing and uncertain and will doubtless remain so until we are actually aboard our transportation. T h e Russians are helpful and kindly people, and they seem to be putting themselves out to a great extent, but the final firm decision is a very difficult thing to reach. W e all went off to the Kremlin at 4:50 P.M. in six big black cars, speeding to make up time; we got there just at five, but no guide was in sight. Finally, after we had gone in the museum and loitered about a bit, one did show 26

up; a nice girl in a blue dress, but she couldn't speak English; she spoke only Russian. At this point, Turkevich, who had come along with us, stepped into the breach and translated for her during the two-hour tour. He did a fine job and got a loud cheer at the end. T h e Kremlin Museum is a marvelous place. It was started by Peter the Great in 1720, and all the czars who followed him made contributions to it. Immediately to the left, as one enters, is a remarkable stand of masked mannequins in armor, giving a fine impression of the Teutonic knights. We saw Boris Godunov's chain mail of interlocking rings, each ring bearing the inscription: "If God is with us, we cannot f a i l " ; he is alleged to have worn this when he conquered Siberia for the Russians at the end of the sixteenth century. T h e r e were elegant gifts from the ambassadors of all the nations of the world to the czar. A good many of these are rather ugly table decorations of silver, but there are also many fine and beautiful devices of precious metal and enamel. One hall in the museum is filled with ecclesiastical robes and hats embellished with pearls, diamonds, and emeralds. T h e furry crown of the czars, mink and gold, is in a display case, and in a corner the boots of Peter the Great which he made for himself. He was 7 feet, 6 inches tall and wore boots in proportion. T h e r e is a beautiful set of china given by Napoleon to the Czar Alexander when they signed their treaty. T h e museum possesses gilded carriages and sleighs and the most beautiful collection of saddles and harnesses for ceremonial occasions that I have seen anywhere in the world. T h e y are half oriental and half Byzantine, with a flavor of the Orthodox Church even about the quilts of the horses. As 27

the visitor walks through the K r e m l i n Museum the historical connection of imperial Russia with old Byzantium and Greek

orthodoxy

is almost everywhere

impressed

u p o n him. It was particularly interesting to have " T u r k " with us on this occasion, for his father is at present the head of the Greek O r t h o d o x C h u r c h in the United States, and many years ago he officiated in the basilicas of Moscow. T u r k waxed lyrical about ecclesiastical vestments. A f t e r seeing the museum, w h i c h was a fascinating experience indeed, we strolled through the rest of the Kremlin. It is an incredible fortress, built upon a hill above the bend in the river, surrounded punctuated

around

by a crenelated

its

pointed late-medieval

periphery

by

towers. W i t h i n

red-brick irregular

its one

wall, heavy

hundred

acres or so is a clashing architectural mélange of unrelated buildings. T h e Cathedral of the Archangel Michael and that of the A n n u n c i a t i o n are here, as well as the Cathedral of

the Assumption,

the holy of

holies, where

Turk's

father officiated several times many years ago. T h e s e have gold d o m e s — t h e balance of the b u i l d i n g being either white or somewhat off-white. Between two of these basilicas is a little nest of

twelve

golden

domes, called

"The

T w e l v e Apostles." T h e interiors of the basilicas are dark, or rather they have a " d i m , religious light," and are primarily made u p of vertical lines, with many frescoes and icons. G o l d and jewels are still to be found on many of them. It is an impressive and, to a westerner, perhaps barbaric exhibition; a reverent atmosphere still obtains in these buildings although they have all been secularized. T h e tourists w h o m we saw going through them were of 28

all ages. W e were not surprised that the older ones adopted a reverent mien, but it was somewhat surprising to find that the y o u n g m e n took off their hats. O n e of the impressive landmarks is the bell tower of Ivan, and at its foot is the great bell w h i c h fell from a trestle w h e n Moscow was being burned before N a p o l e o n occupied it in 1812. A large chip came out of the side; it has never been repaired or put in place. Contrasted with these buildings are the massive nineteenth-century

European

buildings of the

government,

stern in architecture and businesslike in a typical Russian way. It puts one in m i n d of the Vatican as a center of both secular and religious government, but the secularism is very different in nature, and religion is all of the past. T h e light had become somewhat weak for any picturetaking by this time, so we wandered about and

finally

left the Kremlin for the R e d Square, where we saw the great squat tomb of L e n i n and Stalin and the incredibly grotesque stick-candy-like church of St. Basil the Fortunate. Again we waited interminably for the gathering together of our party, and then rode back in cavalcade to the Hotel Ukraine. A f t e r a bath, and washing a few clothes, some of the hearty souls, including myself, set out on a river steamer to tour the city. W e ordered dinner for 11 P.M., optimistically expecting to be back by that time, but events proved that we had no chance of getting back so early. T h e boats we took were sturdy white steamers, powered by diesel engines. T h e y taxi along as on the Seine in Paris, but the river is a bigger one'and the journey m u c h longer; when we saw that we shouldn't be back until after mid29

night at the rate we were going, we got off at one oí the stops near the Kremlin and returned to the hotel by way of their metro. It is quite as impressive as we had been led to believe: the interior is glittering white, with great glass chandeliers. T h e trains are clean, the escalators good and rapid, and the whole system has an air of businesslike efficiency. It was most un-Russian in this regard. If it had not been for the inevitable confusion at the beginning and end, our venture would have been an unalloyed good mark for the Soviets. We got back to the hotel about 1 1 : 3 o p.m.—half of us went to bed, as we had eaten enough already for one day—the rest of the group, I understand, went downstairs and tucked away another meal, showing a remarkably quick adaptation to the Russian way of life. . . . I am in bed, and Keith and Frank and I are to arise at 7:30 tomorrow morning. After a cup of coffee we are to get a taxi to the Kremlin, if we can, and take some pictures, on the assumption that the light will be good. Later at ten or eleven—one never knows just when—we are to pay our first visit to a university. T h e streets we saw this evening were decorated by red banners marking a youth festival which is to take place tomorrow. W e inquired whether this would include dancing in the streets, but were told that it would be a very refined ceremony, and probably we would only see trucks being driven around with a few celebrators inside them.

S«

Sunday,

June

29

I was called at 7:30 A.M. after a good night, and met Frank, Keith, and our y o u n g guide, Oleg, for some coffee and bread at the little breakfast counter on our floor of the Hotel Ukraine. T h e n we took a taxi to the

Gum

Department Store, which is a series of colonnades with counters along each side as in a bazaar, two stories high and a maze of people and goods. T h e people were not too badly dressed and there seemed to be good things to buy. Frank got a fur hat, a kind of a ducal cap, soft seal on top with a band of longer b r o w n hair around the side. It certainly looks warm enough for any Kansas winter. T h e n we went to a counter of typical Russian painted things, where I got a lacquer box for cigarettes for $20, or 200 rubles. T h e store is very large; although only two or three stories high, it extends over more than a city block. A f t e r our shopping, we went out to the R e d Square just a block away, and watched people bringing great

floral

wreaths and other forms to p u t on the mausoleum. A l l were very solemn as for a religious ceremony, marching in slowly, then out the other side of the K r e m l i n wall. A f t e r watching for a while and taking pictures, we went to the end of the Square where St. Basil's is and across into the Kremlin for pictures we hadn't taken the day before. A f t e r photographing for some time, we returned to the hotel somewhat late, having had some fascinating conversations with various people through our guide O l e g . 3»

I n c o n s e q u e n c e , w h a t w i t h c h a n g i n g m y c a m e r a film and w a s h i n g m y h a n d s a n d so f o r t h , I was late, a n d the party h a d g o n e off to the i n d u s t r i a l e x h i b i t i o n w i t h o u t me. A f t e r a b i t of s t a n d i n g a b o u t to m a k e sure, I t a c k l e d the y o u n g I n t o u r i s t lady i n the h o t e l , a n d she p r o v i d e d m e w i t h a p r i v a t e car i n w h i c h I a m n o w d r i v i n g a l o n g , h o p i n g t o foregather with my companions before too long. Well, I never did

find

m y c o m p a n i o n s , b u t I had a

s p l e n d i d a f t e r n o o n at t h e e x p o s i t i o n . It is a p e r m a n e n t f a i r of t h e W o r l d ' s F a i r v a r i e t y , m i n u s t h e h o n k y - t o n k , b u t it is r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of

the U . S . S . R . a n d all its re-

p u b l i c s , r a t h e r than of t h e w o r l d at large. It was a

fine

s u n n y a f t e r n o o n f o r p i c t u r e s , a n d t h e c o s t u m e s a n d faces of the p e o p l e w h o s t r e a m e d t h r o u g h the gates w e r e wond e r f u l l y interesting. T h e y w e r e g o i n g in at the rate of about

five

h u n d r e d a m i n u t e , b o t h w h e n I w e n t in at

ι P.M. a n d w h e n I c a m e o u t a b o u t 3:30 P.M. I

would

estimate the a t t e n d a n c e at b e t w e e n t w o a n d f o u r h u n d r e d t h o u s a n d that a f t e r n o o n . A l l k i n d s of p e o p l e w e r e

out

f o r this S u n d a y ; the a d m i s s i o n w a s o n l y a b o u t thirty cents; t h e concourses of the fair w e r e c o l o r f u l w i t h flags a n d fine b u i l d i n g s characteristic of all the separate r e p u b l i c s . T h e t h r e e little E s t o n i a n , L a t v i a n , a n d L i t h u a n i a n w e r e h u d d l e d t o g e t h e r n e a r t h e center. T h e

buildings machinery

e x h i b i t was v e r y g o o d , c o n t a i n i n g autos a n d t r u c k s a n d all sorts of f a r m e q u i p m e n t . T h e r e was an a t o m i c energy e x h i b i t w i t h a r e a c t o r in o p e r a t i o n , a n d g r e a t c r o w d s w e r e g a t h e r e d a r o u n d the r a t h e r s i m p l e e x h i b i t of the

sputniks.

C h e m i c a l g o o d s w e r e o n display, as w e l l as fine e x h i b i t s of livestock a n d grains, a n d m a n y v e g e t a b l e s g r o w n in g a r d e n s outside. T h e r e w e r e flowers a n d f o u n t a i n s and l i t t l e wag-

32

ons for taking you up and down the broad esplanades. Women sold ice cream, sausages, beans, and other simple food. There were also attractive-looking restaurants, but I didn't take time to eat any lunch. T h e loud-speaker that was on all the time carried dramatic readings or music or announcements. T h e selections were of good quality but the noise extremely obtrusive, and I could have dispensed with it all after the first hour. It somewhat took the place of barkers along our entertainment areas at fairs. In passing, I saw also a zoo and a playground and a theater as well, but after two and a half hours my feet were so tired I was glad to hobble back to the car, which was waiting for me by the entrance, and so I returned to the hotel for a brief rest before getting ready to go to the American embassy for tea. I met the rest of our party in the lobby at a little after five and like me they had had a fine visit to the exposition. Keith was particularly struck with the atomic energy exhibit and the sputniks, the others by other things. We got in our cars and drove to the embassy, where we met a group of our own people and others from neighboring embassies. A number of correspondents were also on hand. Captain Lynch, the naval attache, knew some friends of mine in the navy of his same name. We talked about them, but the rest of the conversation was largely persiflage. I gathered that the younger members of the embassy staff were not enjoying their assignment very much. In their circles there is little good feeling or getting together in any sincerity with their Russian counterparts. They cleave closely to the American party line and the Russians cleave to theirs. There are few children and they are lonely. 33

T h e ambassador's residence is a fine old building but I would guess uncomfortable to live in. Its great stone columns and dead white plaster arches are somewhat reminiscent of the Metro. I leaned on one of the outer arches and in brushing off my coat, my glasses fell out unnoticed; so I delayed the procession by returning to the embassy after we had got back to the hotel. T h i s caused little real loss, however, for the next item on our agenda was the circus, which didn't start for another half hour. W e went directly to the circus. It was really a splendid exhibition. Keith, Herman, Frank, Harry, Oleg, and I went; the rest, primarily the married contingent, went to the ballet. T h e Moscow circus occupies a rather small permanent octagonal building. T h e audience was responsive and the clowns very good. One of the latter, who goes under the name of Karandash, is a diminutive green mimic, lots of fun, taking off the acts which preceded him. T h e r e were acrobats and jugglers, and a horse painted white, that held poses on a rotating platform; there were bareback riders, Tatar tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, and an act of yaks and trained dogs. It was all quite remarkable. W e are now back at about 10:30 P.M.; Frank and Keith and I have had bread and cheese and beer at our little sixth-floor buffet, and are now retiring. Moscow is an interesting city, with wider streets than ours and excellently paved; women sweep them with besoms, though indeed there are big mechanical street sweepers as well. It is a great sprawling city like Los Angeles, but not so flat, for there are gentle hills and a variation of vista as you drive about. Everyone appears kind and 34

anxious to speak to us; they make an effort to understand halting words in their own language. It has been a most interesting experience and I have certainly enjoyed it. I must be up tomorrow at 8 A.M. and off to the University of Moscow by half past nine.

35

Monday,

June

30

T h i s morning we went to the Lomonosov University, which is the University of Moscow. T h e Rector, Mr. Petrovich, was ill, so that we were welcomed by the ProRector, Professor J . S. Galkin. He told us that their faculties were made up of six in science and seven in the humane subjects. T h e details of this will be brought out later. There are 15,000 full-time students; half of these live on the campus in the building itself. Half of the parttime students study by correspondence in all parts of the country; the other half live in Moscow and take evening classes. Forty-two countries are represented and fifty areas within the U.S.S.R. When studying in a given faculty, say that of physics or chemistry, one spends about 40 per cent of his time on the particular subject. T h e balance of the time is spent on the general subjects which are requisite in all faculties. Any citizen of the Soviet Union from seventeen to thirty-one years of age can apply for entrance to the university after securing the elementary or ten-year certificate. Special consideration is given to those who have worked for a year or two, as I have already noted. Examinations are given in all the subjects taken in the latter part of the ten-year curriculum, and those persons are admitted who do best in these examinations and come with the best recommendations. About one person in five is successful in gaining entrance. T h e Russian and foreignlanguage examinations are common to all faculties, and for admission one foreign language, English, French,

36

German, or Spanish, is required, but only one. In a province where the natural native language is not Russian, two languages are used in instruction, but the same foreign language requirement is enforced. It is somewhat easier to get into an outlying university than into the university in Moscow, because of the greater prestige of the university in the capital. At present, the six scientific faculties are located in the big university building; the other seven humane faculties are in old buildings in the center of Moscow. T h e y will eventually all be housed in buildings out near the present new university building. T h e r e are 6,000 rooms in the present building which are occupied by students. T h e other students reside elsewhere in the city. N o courses are given in political economics or in civics, and there is no specific training for public life given in their universities. T h i s subject is given some attention in the ten-year schools and, of course, there are party schools which are run for the particular purpose of upgrading persons who have elected a political career. Continuing with the matter of language, all students at the university must study a foreign language for three years. During the first three years the curriculum is rather general and very much alike in all faculties. T h e last two or three years have more highly specialized curricula which relate primarily to the subject of the faculty itself. About the same teaching load is carried by their young teachers as by ours: twelve hours is considered ordinary and reasonable. T h e older men carry about six hours of lectures. Classes are large during the first three years, 100 to 150 in lectures. In the two or three later years the 37

classes are smaller, with about twenty or thirty students, and in the advanced seminars during these later years only five to eight students participate. In the Moscow university there are 2,100 teachers, plus 800 additional members of the faculty who are concerned with examinations and with the correcting of the correspondence papers. Forty high-ranking professors are also full members of the Academy of Sciences and there are seventy-eight corresponding members of the Academy. Four hundred persons on the faculty have doctor's degjees. T h e doctorate represents by and large some fifteen years of study after the ten-year schooling. T h e rest of the members of the faculty are docents, who are working for their doctor's, degrees, and candidates who have obtained only the first degree, corresponding somewhat to our master's. Before a student, after finishing his work at the university, can go on with graduate work, he must put i n some time in the practice of his specialty, generally at least two years. This is in addition to the two-year stint which is put in after the ten-year or middle school in some industrial job. T h e administrative setup is headed by the rector, who is advised by a scientific board and supported by pro-rectors, one for the exact sciences, one for the other areas, and one for the business activities of the university. T h e administrative structure is under the direction of the Ministry of Education. T h e pattern is uniform among the thirty-three universities of the Soviet Union. T h e rector receives a salary of 6,000 rubles a month, the deputy or pro-rector receives salaries of 5,500 a month, department heads receive 5,000, and professors 4,500 rubles a month. A docent is hired at about 2,800. 38

rubles a month and after about ten years' experience can expect to receive 3,200 to 3,500 rubles a month. T h e professors in all the different areas are paid the same amount; the salary scale has only recently been made uniform throughout the Soviet Union—until a short while ago an additional percentage was paid to persons teaching in distant universities. This increment was in proportion to the distance from Moscow. Thus in Tbilisi the professor received 10 per cent more than this rate scale, in Tashkent 20 per cent more, in Alma-Ata 30 per cent more, and out in distant Yakutsk, which we didn't visit, 40 per cent more. T h e stipends which students receive are about onetenth of the professorial salaries. Also faculty members receive special consideration in housing; the ordinary Soviet citizen gets nine square meters per capita for his family, but the professor gets three times this, or twentyseven square meters per capita to house his family. In the University of Moscow the professors have suites of rooms in the university building; there are 200 such suites of 5 or 6 rooms. There are also additional perquisites. T h e professors get paid for the books and articles they write, and prizes are awarded for distinction in teaching, research, or invention. T h e local University of Moscow also gives two prizes a year to professors who have been outstanding— one in the exact sciences and one in the humanities. T h e rector is appointed by the Minister of Higher Education. T h e professors are elected by the university's Scientific Board, which is selected from among the professors who are also doctors. About sixty-five are appointed to this board by the rector and the ministry from 39

among the 400 members of the faculty who possess the doctorate. There is a representative of the trade unions, as well as a student representative, on the board; but the student cannot vote on the election of a professor. There are also thirteen other boards, one for each faculty, which are advisory to the faculty and the dean. These boards elect the docents, who are the junior teachers in their university. T h e theses both at the master's and doctor's levels are very public documents; the defense of them is advertised two weeks in advance, and many members of the faculty participate in their examination. T h e first degree of the aspiring teacher is that of "candidate." This corresponds somewhat to our master's degree but is more advanced in general. After this, a person can be appointed a docent at the university by one of the sub-boards. These openings for docents are advertised in newspapers, and candidates may apply from any other university as well. A candidate works for a year or two in this position before he receives the title of docent, again by vote of the board of the faculty. T o go on to a doctor's degree involves much more work and research by the docent and again the defense of a thesis, only this time a much more significant contribution is required for the doctor's degree. T h e U.S.S.R. as a state, through the Minister of Higher Education, actually awards the degree on the nomination by the university professors. The doctor, in general, then works at the university or at one of the scientific institutes for a time before he gets an appointment as a professor. It generally takes about ten years for the doctor to get his degree after receiving his degree of "candidate." 40

Many of the doctors work in industry or in the bureaucracy of the ministry. Those who do work in industry receive about one thousand rubles a month less than those who teach in universities or conduct research in institutes. T h e age at which a pension can be drawn is sixty, and the pension at that age is 40 per cent of salary. A person, however, need not retire at all, but may keep right on teaching. Each teacher is given a perfunctory examination every five years, to see whether he is discharging his duty satisfactorily. A professor is almost never lowered in grade or told that he has to leave the university on the occasion of this five-year review; so that in practice tenure is really conferred by the university, but should the professor be obviously incapable of carrying out his work, the fiveyear review serves as an opportunity to remove him from the faculty. T h e average day of the student, about which we inquired, is something as follows: he arises at seven, has physical exercises, has his breakfast at about eight, and classes begin at nine; after classes, he takes two hours for lunch in the dining room of the university, more classes in the afternoon, and finally physical exercise and dinner. There are about thirty-six hours of class or laboratory per week; this goes on for six days a week in the first three years. In the last three years, only four or five days a week are given to classes. Emphasis is increasingly placed upon the student's directing the use of his own time as he advances through his years at the university. In addition to the formal hours of instruction, a student puts in many hours studying: the best estimate which was made for us was that a student would probably spend between fifty

41

and sixty hours a week upon the work which he is doing at the university. The shrinkage in the student body is very small—of the 15,000 students about 250 might leave in any one year. There is compulsory physical education during the first few years, and in the more advanced years some 40 per cent of the students continue to participate in physical exercise through sports clubs, tennis, soccer, basketball, and so forth. T h e above are the highlights of what we learned at our conference in the rector's chambers. After these conversations, we were taken down to the faculty lunchroom, a small white-walled restaurant with hard straight wooden chairs and white napery. We were served fine red beets, cucumber salad, and cold meats. There was also a cold vegetable soup which was not very much to my taste, but the lunch as a whole was very satisfactory. We then had a tour of the building with a girl guide, starting at the assembly hall, which holds 1,500 persons. There degrees are awarded and ceremonial occasions are held. It is a large square white-walled room with stone columns, lovely glass chandeliers, and a large painting of Lenin at the end. Next, we went to the student assembly room, the theater, the gymnasium, the swimming pool, a dance hall, and other public rooms. There are large bronze statues and marble busts of scientists and other learned worthies, all about amongst the stone pillars. T h e floors are wooden parquetry, the walls of white plaster. Then we went to the students' living quarters and the common rooms, which are simple but adequate, with a Slavic starkness plus the usual overstuffed furniture and 42

the pervading acrid smell. As a whole, however, they seemed to me very satisfactory quarters. W e visited the geology museum and the geology library —each faculty has a separate library—and it is reported that there are some five million volumes in the university building. W e went to a geology laboratory and then up to the top of the building and on to a balcony which runs around the roof, from which a marvelous view of Moscow and all its area can be had. T h e weather was fine and we took a number of pictures. O n returning we stopped again in some of the students' rooms, finding both the students and their rooms in as great dishabille as we should find in our own universities. T h e students seemed to be earnest, but they also laughed and joked a good deal, and were as reluctant to let us see their rooms (because they said they were a mess) as our own students would be. A t length we went back to the hotel for a brief rest, for about 7 P.M. we were due in the lobby to go to the ballet, which this evening was to be Swan Lake. After minor repairs, we came down for a six-o'clock supper all together in the main dining room. It was a jolly affair, for all were now on a first-name basis. T h e ladies had had a good time touring the university separately from the gentlemen this morning, and had thereafter gone off to see the cemetery where Stalin's wife is interred, a rather macabre experience. T h e dinner was a simple one, of fresh vegetables, salad, as always, with beer and wine and vodka, small rolls and bread, also some steak tips and pie; and then it was time to be off, we to the ballet and the married contingent to the circus that 43

we saw last night. T h e ballet was a marvelous experience; my spine tingled from half past seven to half past eleven. T h e dancing was exquisite and swanlike; the court scene as gloriously oriental as Kublai Khan's court itself; and the final scene, where all are inundated with water and the magician disappears, with his great horrid wings, in a clap of thunder, was terrific. T h e house applauded vigorously and cheered, and we all came away exhausted. I am packed for a series of one-night stands beginning tomorrow. T h e plans are for us to be up at 7:30 A.M., breakfast at eight, go to the university for more photographs at nine, and to the Academy of Sciences at ten, back to lunch and an institute, then the puppets at night; and the Red Arrow for Leningrad at midnight.

44

Tuesday,

July

/

Again a bright sunny day. We went first to the Academy of Sciences, which occupies a fine large building behind a little park in the center of the city. We were told that the Academy considers us to be their guests as well as the guests of the Ministry of Higher Education. T h e Academy is the center of scientific research, particularly in fundamental science, the like of which is not to be found in any other country. It is an operating body with large activities all over Russia, conducting work of high scientific caliber, and enjoying great prestige among all the citizens. T h e Academy is concerned not only with the physical sciences but with the biological sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. There are divisions in mathematics, chemistry, geology, geography, biology, technology or engineering, history, philology, philosophy, law, and economics, as well as a department of Siberian studies. T h e separate republics have separate academies and in general there is no overlapping of membership, though there are a few persons who are members of more than one academy. T h e Academy is independent of the ministry and is not subject to the Council of Ministers; members of the Academy may teach in universities or they may not. T h e Academy has about five hundred members, who are divided into three classes—voting members, the academicians, and the corresponding members. T h e r e are sixtytwo foreign members. Special commissions are often set up by the Academy for various purposes. Standing com45

missions nominate new members, who are then elected by secret ballot. T h e Academy and its institutes are concerned with basic research; applied research in general is to be found in the technical institutes operated by the ministries and sometimes in universities. T h e Academy has, for instance, an institute of metallurgy, which does fundamental work, the most scientific of the activities in metallurgy in the Soviet Union. T h e other institutes are concerned largely with the applications of metallurgy. T h e Academy carries on a very large business; its budget is ten or twenty times as great as that of the University of Moscow. It employs some two thousand university graduates for research in its institutes. T h e medical sciences are carried on by a separate academy—the Medical Academy of Science. T h e r e is likewise an Academy of the Agricultural Sciences. In the other republics there is only one academy, which concerns itself with all activities, and unlike the Republic of Russia they do not have academies for medicine or agriculture. For being an academician, one receives 5,000 rubles a month, an income which is received for life. A corresponding member receives 2,500 rubles. T h i s is quite separate from anything which may be earned by an academician. T h e Academy enjoys great independence. T h e presidium of the Academy, the standing committee made up of the heads of the various departments, conducts its business directly with the Council of Ministers, and the president of the Academy appears before the council in presenting his budget. More money is asked for every year and is granted; but in general the budget is not quite as large as the president of the Academy requests. It is not a line 46

budget, for autonomy is given to the Academy in spending the money which is allocated to it. T h e fiscal responsibility resides in the presidium of the Academy. Of the 500 academicians, 70 per cent are in the natural sciences and 30 per cent in the humane sciences. T h e few persons, who are members of an academy of one of the other republics as well as of the Academy of the U.S.S.R., receive the honorarium associated with the U.S.S.R. Academy, because it is the larger. T h e republic or provincial academies pay their members only 3,000 rubles a month instead of 5,000. Every academician also has a country house given him by the government, and a car and driver as well. Most of the academicians are rather elderly, and require the driver. T h e r e is no connection between being an academician and a member of the Party. I have already indicated the manner in which vacancies in the Academy are filled; corresponding members are upgraded to regular academicians, and new persons are brought in as corresponding members. We were welcomed at the Academy by the Deputy President, Academician Savocoyan. T h e Academy receives all foreign journals, translates many of these, and publishes a remarkable series of abstracts. We looked at a number of these abstracts and they are outstanding jobs; there are some twenty areas which are abstracted every month. T h e monthly size of each of these abstracts is very considerable, but they are subsidized by the state. Thousands of articles appear every month in each of the volumes. After returning to the hotel for lunch and writing a few cards, we were off to the Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals 47

where Professor Polkin, who is in charge of our party, conducts his work. T h e Intourist organization really does a splendid job; it seems unplanned to some extent, but this provides flexibility and latitude for accommodating individual wishes, and the Slavs are individualistic from the word go. T h e cars and guides and interpreters are always on hand, courteous and understanding. T h e Institute of Non-ferrous Metals is a great rambling city building of yellow stucco outside—it is a laboratory building—and when we entered, we were welcomed by the deputy director in his office. We were joined later by the director, who is an academician. H e has an ample table, covered with maroon baize, at which we had water and very good conversation. T h e institute contains five faculties: geology, metallurgy, brass, mining, and economics. T h e r e are about forty laboratories and the same number of professors, one for each; two of these are academicians and five of them are corresponding members of the Academy. One hundred docents teach in the institute; the rest are diplomates and aspirants, persons who are working for advanced degrees, some three hundred of them. T h e r e are 2,700 students, about 350 being admitted every year for five years. This, of course, implies that the Institute is getting smaller, as indeed it is, for other institutes of non-ferrous metals are arising in other parts of the country, thus reducing the teaching load which has been borne heretofore by the Moscow Institute. T h i s does not mean that the faculty will also be reduced, but more time will be available for research. T h i s year about one-third of the students who are ad48

mitted have had a two-year work period after their ten-year schooling; next year, such students will reach the 80 per cent figure, which has been decreed for all universities and institutes. W e toured three of the forty laboratories. T h e first one has to do with ore-dressing, general smelting, and slag work; the second, with lead, copper, and the various alloys going under the name of brass; the third, with the physics of metals, and here the apparatus is very good and appears to be more advanced than in some of the other laboratories. T h e r e was a neat optical bench for measuring the surface tension of a drop of water on a metal or ore surface. T h e apparatus is rather crowded together, some of it actually pushed out into the hall, and has the appearance of being well-used. A number of rooms were being conditioned for particular private experimental setups. T h e atmosphere was very good; there seemed to be many persons working; many interesting questions were under study; and the conversation on the subject with our guides was most informing to us. At the conclusion of the afternoon, we went back to the hotel. Here I encountered our dumpy little chambermaid, to whom I made a friendly gesture by giving her a rain hat, some Life-Savers, and a package of gum. She seemed to like these, and thanked me, but apparently considered I was under no obligation to give her anything. We had a light supper, not much to eat but several glasses of beer, wine, vodka, brandy, a bit of soup, some chicken, and ice cream. T h e n we went off to the puppet show in a parklike area, similar to T i v o l i in Copenhagen. T h e puppet stage was high and large, and the puppets were worked from below. T h e y were about half life-size

49

or less. It was a very good performance, mimicking a variety show. There were singers and dancers, a magician who did things with chickens and hats and glasses of wine, a girl with a collection of little puppet dogs, and finally a lion-taming act. Everyone enjoyed it very much. When it was over, we strolled back through the park to our cars and drove to the railway station, reaching there at about 12:20 A.M. Our train pulled out directly, carrying our party in the comfortable berths over the smooth roadbed to Leningrad. T h e rolling stock is good, the road bed is smooth, and it looks as if we were in for a good night.

δ»

Wednesday,

July 2

W e had a good night aboard the train and were greeted by a fine glass of hot tea brought in by the pleasantlysmiling girl porter. T h e lavatory facilities are adequate but not impressive, so I will wait until I get to the hotel before shaving.

We

have

taken some pictures of

the

Russian villages from the train, but it is pretty bouncy, and I don't think they will turn o u t to be very good. W e were met at the station in L e n i n g r a d by some friendly hosts from the university and driven through this impressive city, down the Nevsky prospect to the Hotel Astoria. T h e city radiates in fine wide streets from the gold spire of the navy building, and there are palaces of grand dukes and libraries on every hand. T h e

squares

are spacious, very clean, and attractive; the people seem a bit more brightly dressed than those in Moscow. T h e r e are large canals passing under bridges as in Amsterdam, and this m o r n i n g a few barges are m o v i n g along them. T h e town has an air and we are all brightened by it. W e are having a good breakfast—omelet, tea, bread, a n d something called lemonade, w h i c h is very good. T h i s m o r n i n g we are going to the Hermitage M u s e u m , which is in the old W i n t e r Palace of the czars; it was started by Catherine really, b u t contributions have been made by many other nobles. It is quite comparable to the L o u v r e in size and in the quality of contents, the art ranging from primitive to modern. T h e r e are primitives from Italy, and some fine examples of modern French art

5»

— G a u g u i n , Cézanne, Degas, Renoir, Manet, and so forth. T h e r e are also Russian objets d'art, marvelous malachite, gold vases and tables, a throne made by Peter the Great, and extensive collections assembled by his successors. T h e museum is full of students and tourists, and is excelled, to my knowledge, only by the Prado and the Vatican. A f t e r lunch we went to a large electrical manufacturing company called Electrosila, where large motors and generators are made. These are of enormous size, being the ones used in the dams which the Russians are now constructing. It is an old company which was started about one hundred years ago in the business of electrical communication as an offshoot of the German company of Siemens-Halske. T h e company made motors to German specifications and conducted a thriving business until 1914. During the war it fell on evil days, and there was very little production until 1920. Early in the twenties, however, Lenin decreed electrification, and in 1924 this plant started producing hydroelectric turbines and also small motors. T h e first machines were very small ones, only 500 kilowatts, but the size grew, and eventually go.ooo-kilowatt generators were built. Now they are building several of 100,000 kilowatts and some even up to 300,000 kilowatts. During the Second World W a r the plant was expanded, though its site was only five kilometers from the front. Its whole production was switched to meet military needs. In 1943, under a defense committee, the plant was restored, and from 1944 its capacity has grown until now it is probably the leading producer of electrical machinery in the U.S.S.R. It employs about ten thousand persons, some seven thousand workers, two thousand engineers,

52

and about a thousand administrative and technical personnel. We asked how the management was trained, and were told that there is an Economic Institute for the education of the persons who are concerned with the company. It is maintained next door and operated by the Ministry of Higher Education. Most of the administrators of this company have risen to the top from the ranks of the workers. T h e institute offers technical and economic courses to all employees, and upgrades these persons within the company. Engineers and management take the courses, which are concerned not only with electrical engineering but with economic and industrial control, bookkeeping, economics, and so forth. T h e director's office was a small one. We gathered together around the green-baize table with cut-glass goblets and bottled water. A large picture of Lenin was on the wall, which was covered with heavy brown embossed wallpaper. T h e room had double windows of the kind common in these cold countries. We first asked the director about the institute next door, and we were told that there were about three hundred technical personnel in attendance and more than four hundred others who were simply workers—about a thousand persons in all concerned with the electrical trade in the institute. T h i s is about 20 per cent of those actually employed in the company. Most of the employees have finished the ten-year school and eventually, of course, all will have finished this stage of education, and the institute's curriculum will be built upon it as a foundation. A considerable number of higher degrees are achieved in this institute, the company contributing the paid time of its employees who study in the 53

institute because the upgrading which goes on is greatly to the benefit of the technical prosperity of the company. We inquired also about absenteeism and were simply told that there is very little. Prizes and rewards are given for particularly efficient production in the company. These may amount to about a month's wages. If the company as a whole does very well, a distribution of this order is made to all employees. T h e workers put in forty-six hours a week for an average wage of about 1,000 rubles a month. There are many highly qualified workers, and those who excel in particularly responsible technical positions receive as much as 2,500 rubles a month. An engineer who is fresh from an institute comes to the company at a salary of 900 rubles a month while unskilled workers fresh out of the middle-school receive 400 rubles a month. After many expressions of mutual esteem and much hand shaking, and some questioning by the factory manager, we toured the factory and saw some large generators being made. T h e processes, of course, are much the same as in the United States. It is a heavy-machinery factory; the equipment is handled somewhat the way we do it, though probably their handling of the lighter equipment is less efficient than our methods; also it did not seem to me that the safety precautions were as extensive in this factory as in similar factories in our country. There is one thing, however, that strikes one in such a plant, and this is the fondness of the employees for flowers and potted plants in their windows. Almost all windows have such plants and flowers, which make the factory appear particularly gay, and since we are all mercurial enough to be affected by our environment, the practice is a very good one. 54

A f t e r seeing this factory, our cavalcade of three cars went out to the Peterhoff, about twelve miles outside of Leningrad along the Neva to the northeast. T h i s is the summer palace which was built by Peter about 1 7 1 5 . He started St. Petersburg in about 1703, the summer palace being undertaken somewhat later. It was gutted inside by the Germans; nothing there but rubble, though plans have been made for rebuilding the interior. T h e outside of the building, however, all its façades and roofs, are in excellent shape. T h e y have been restored and painted, and they sparkle with gold leaf in the sun. T h e fountains and the parks and the walks are particularly lovely. T h e water courses lead down to the Gulf of Finland and are as lovely as any which I have seen at Versailles or T i v o l i . A f t e r strolling for an hour or two the entourage reassembled, and after a bit of washing we returned in our cars to the hotel in Leningrad.

55

Thursday,

July

j

This morning we went to the Institute of Mining, which was founded 180 years ago. It is one of the largest of its kind in the Soviet Union. T h e r e are eight faculties of mining, geology, petroleum prospecting, economics, metallurgy, mine construction, and certain others which I did not note. There are some forty-five professorial chairs concerned with the theory and techniques of mining. About 120 post-graduate students are at the institute; the total number of the students is 5,000. There is an excellent mining and metallurgical museum. One gets a beautiful view from the banks of the Neva, looking back at the center of the city. T h e Ministry of Higher Education has this institute as one of its responsibilities, but in the matter of the curriculum, the staff of the institute say that they have quite a free hand. T h e director of the institute, a huge specimen of humanity, has a small office with a maroon, baizecovered table and lots of gadgets on his desk, the usual picture of Lenin, as well as, in this case, a picture of Khrushchev on the wall. There is much in common between the curriculum of this institute and the university; there is somewhat more practical work going on, and a general research atmosphere. T h e y are now working on twenty problems from the mining industry which have been referred to them by the Ministry of Higher Education. T h e director of the institute, like the director of the factory, appears to be a very able man who grasps ques-

56

tions easily and answers them simply and to the point. T h e people who work on special industrial projects in the institute are paid by industry; the equipment is bought by industry, but it reverts to the institute at the end of the project. Salaries are sometimes split between the industry and the institute. A man working on an industrial problem may spend 50 per cent or more of his time upon this problem and the balance on teaching, and the time spent on research is generally paid in full by the industry. T h e industries themselves have research centers, but to the greatest possible extent overlapping is avoided by the coordinating of programs. T h i s is done by periodic conferences of all the persons involved and appears to be quite satisfactory to the directors. T h e research done here is integrated in the local program in the institute, so that there is no feeling of disjunction or separateness among the members of the faculty. All instruction is done by members of the staff of the institute. T h e r e are chairs of foreign languages, for instance, in English, French, German, and so forth. T h e r e are faculties of mathematics, physics, and chemistry, all completely staffed by members of the institute. Five years are required to obtain a degree in mining. Universities teach geology, but a man who is going to be a miner or a mining engineer comes to this institute or one like it elsewhere. T h e faculty consists of about 400 persons altogether, 42 professors, 130 docents, and the rest subdocents or candidates; in common with the other institutes of this type, they work ten months a year, and the other two months are holiday for the regular staff. During this time attention is given to persons taking correspondence 57

work who attend the institute; there is no specifically planned or set research during the two-month summer period. Foreign languages are taken for four of the five years. T h e r e is no history taught here, nor any fine arts, but there is a club for fine arts, in which the students apparently take considerable interest. For two years they are eligible to be members of this club and spend four hours a week in attendance at it. A similar amount of time is required for physical education, and as at the university, there are clubs for swimming, football, and so on. T h e r e are seven institutes similar to this Institute of Mining in the Soviet Union. W e went next door to the museum of this institute, which has undoubtedly the best crystallographic models that I have ever seen. T h e periodic table of the elements is portrayed against the wall by a very large chart, with models showing the nature of the crystallization of the various elements. Mendelyeev long ago was a member of this institute. T h e museum is excellently equipped with minerals of all sorts, arranged in a way which I should think would be extremely stimulating to the student and very informative to the casual observer, as well as the man who would spend many hours within it. After leaving the Institute of Mining, we went to the University of Leningrad, the rector of which is Academician A. D. Alexandrov. He is a mathematician and speaks English excellently. He received us in his large room, again at the head of the now-familiar green-baize table wellequipped with bottles of various sorts and glasses. He proved to be a man of considerable humor and set out to be as helpful as possible to us. He told us that Moscow 58

University, which occupies a tall building, is said to stand up, whereas the other universities in the Soviet Union, like Leningrad, lie down. T h i s is particularly true, it seemed to us, of the University of Leningrad, which had interminable corridors going off in various directions. When asked about his faculties, he said there were twelve and a half—there were six scientific faculties: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and geography; and six humane faculties: oriental studies, history, economics, philosophy, law, and philology. T h e half faculty is that of foreign languages, which came from the absorption of a secondary-school institute for languages. T h e faculty of oriental languages is 102 years old, the oldest in the Soviet Union, and Leningrad is the center of oriental studies in the country. Each faculty in science has essentially a research institute of its own as a part of it. T h e director of such a research institute is a vice-dean of the faculty and manages the post-graduate students in the faculty. Indeed, in mathematics there are two institutes, one having to do with mathematics and the other with mechanics and astronomy. T h e institute is co-extensive with the faculty and the same members are in each; some members do little research and much teaching, and some do the reverse. In mathematics, for example, there is an academician and a correspondent, who are professors in the institute. T h e r e is close collaboration between the Academy and the institute of the university in research. T h e University of Leningrad started in 1 8 1 9 , which is old for Russia. It now has 14,000 students, 9,500 in the basic departments, 2,000 in the evening departments, 2,000 in the correspondence department; and there are 400

59

post-graduate students. T h e two largest faculties are in physics and philology; each has about 1,500 students. T h e smallest are philosophy and economy or economics. Some special work in mathematical economics is to be started next year. Each of these departments has about 150 students. T h e r e are no pedagogic faculties at the University of Leningrad, but there is an institute of pedagogy in Leningrad. T h e universities train teachers as well as do these pedagogic institutes. Most of the language students, for instance, who graduate from the university, go into secondary-school language teaching. T h e teaching certificate comes with the university diploma. T h e rector said there was at present a hot discussion as to whether teachers should be graduates of pedagogic institutes or of universities. T h r e e prominent academicians had recently written a letter to Pravda saying that all teachers should come from universities. T h e i r view is disputed by others. In the pedagogic institutes, there is more emphasis on method. T h e university students who go beyond the diploma do not go into middle-school teaching; for them there are better opportunities in research institutes and in universities. T h e rector said that there was a trend to bring legal training back to the universities. There are institutes of law, some of which have recently been absorbed by universities around the Soviet Union, and this in particular has happened in Leningrad. There seems to be no similar trend in other professional areas, to the best of his information. In Leningrad there are separate medical institutes, a number of them, and the rector believes that there are very few universities where there are any medical faculties. Indeed we saw none in the universities we 60

visited in the Soviet Union. T h e r e are, however, apparently quite intimate relations between the professors in the universities and the professors in the various institutes, particularly in Leningrad. T h e r e is a military academy of medicine in Leningrad, and professors in this academy are also professors of biochemistry in the University. T h e r e are also joint research projects carried on between the University and this academy of medicine. T h e professor of psychology at the university is also a director of the Institute of Psychiatry; and the Institute of Medicine, as in the case of the Institute of Mining, has on its faculty professors of the humanities at the university. T h e law graduate gets both his diploma and a certificate which entitles him to practice, at the same time. T h e University of Leningrad, probably in common with the other universities, has two terms; the first starts in September and extends for four months; the second starts in January and continues for four months. Examinations are held during periods at the end of the term, very much as with us. Instruction at the University of Leningrad, as at the University of Moscow, goes on for six days a week for six hours a day for the first two or three years, gradually decreasing in formal content as the student progresses through his curriculum, and greater emphasis is placed on his individual initiative in smaller classes in the more advanced years. T h e rector feels, however, that there is still too much class work and too little independent work; it is too easy for the bright student, and too hard for the dull one; and it is difficult to differentiate between students with so much class work. T h e r e is, however, a conflict here, as he sees it, in all universities between the 61

conservatives who are the older professors and the younger ones who wish to bring about innovations enabling students to proceed at a more rapid pace if they are able to do so. T h i s discussion at the University of Leningrad is particularly active at the moment. In his own department of mathematics he says the students are required to be present at lectures, but good students are allowed more latitude than poor students, and some professors would go so far as to permit optional attendance; but the government will not go this far with them. In mathematics and mathematical physics, half of the entering class comes directly from the middle-school, and probably even a larger proportion will do so in the future. In law and other humane areas, however, he agreed that it is important that the two-year work period be tried as an opportunity for verifying the maturity of the student and the intensity of his desire to secure an education. At Leningrad there are three or four applicants for each opportunity to enter the University. T h e screening is good, particularly good, he believes, in the mathematical area. Almost all these students, at least 90 per cent of those who are admitted, finish satisfactorily. New specialties can be started in the university. For instance, a faculty of anthropology may soon be started in Leningrad University. T h e r e is a general conference now being held on cybernetics, and the possibility of introducing it as a faculty is under consideration. T h e r e is some question about the expansion of psychology and the studies having to do with society and sociology. T h e rector was very amusing on this subject, inquiring whether these might not be topics which had souls but no bodies. 62

H e r e again, the administrative setup is much as in Moscow. T h e rector has four pro-rectors, or deputy rectors, one concerned with teaching, one with research, one with the correspondence and evening classes, and one with the administration. T h e rector teaches mathematics and the pro-rectors teach their subjects as well. T h e rector was particularly vehement on the advantages of having, the administrators of the university actively engaged in classroom instruction. T h e pro-rectors have helpers, and there is a learned council of seventy-one members consisting of deans and directors of institutes, special faculty members, a m e m b e r of the party, and a member of the trade union, who advise the rector and the administration. T h i s council is advisory, b u t its advice is taken as a matter of principle, in order to build u p a sense of collective responsibility. How reminiscent this is of academic administration in the United States! T h e administrative structure was proposed and implemented by the University of Leningrad after conversations with the ministry. It was not dictated by the ministry, b u t approved by them. Academician A. D. Alexandrov was a most refreshing individual, very humorous and apparently an able administrator despite having had no previous experience in this field, being taken f r o m the department of mathematics to conduct the affairs of the university. After leaving the university offices, we walked down a very long corridor, with pictures of worthies alternating with windows on one side, and classes, libraries, and laboratories on the other. T h e r e were some students about, the floors were picturesque red-wooden ones, a n d 63

there was an air of bustle and business. For lunch we went to a scholars' club, or a "university" club, on the banks of the Neva. On the way to the lunch, we stopped at the Museum of Religion and Atheism, established in a large fine old Orthodox church which has been secularized. T h e exhibits provide a good topical and pictorial history of the Roman, Greek, Catholic, and Protestant churches. T h e art is good, the objects are interesting, and there are many visitors, though it is not crowded. T h e subjects are not particularly slanted one way or the other. T h e exhibit of atheism is limited to a certain amount of printed material, some pictures, and captions. A f t e r lunch we drove out to the Polytechnical Institute, which is some distance from the center of the city. It was founded in 1902 in a very large old building with high ceilings. T h e conference table in this institute was covered with a furry blue cloth. T h e director was an interesting man, and he was flanked by various members of his faculty who joined him in the presentation. When founded, back in 1902, it was intended as an institute for foreign trade and for the bringing in of foreigners and their ideas. T h e r e were originally 1,800 students, 600 economic engineers, and 200 engineers practicing various specialties. From the very earliest days, both technical engineering and economics were emphasized. Some of the greatest names in Russian science were associated with the institute, Mendelyeev among them. Before the revolution, some 2,000 students had graduated with distinction from the institute, and since the revolution they have prepared nearly 30,000 engineers. T h e total number of students there now is 11,000; the teaching staff is 1,000 64

Franklin

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T h e courtyard of the famous W i n t e r Palace of the czars in Leningrad which is now the Hermitage Museum. ( P h o t o by Keith (,Ιαιηαη

Fountains of the summer home of the c/ars tailed the Peterhof. built by Peter the Great along the Neva to the west of his capital, now Leningrad.

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h o s t s w e r e g i v e n u s as w e left

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T h e R e c t o r of t h e r n i v e r s i t v of k a / a k h s t a n in A l m a - A t a c o n f e r s w i t h o u r d e l e g a t i o n a n d p r o v i d e s us w i t h e p e r g n e s of local f r u i t a n d b o t t l e s of soft d r i n k s . T h e f r u i t was g r o w n at t h e I ' n i v e r s i t y ' s experiment station.

with îoo professors, and there are also about 500 additional persons who provide help in the correcting of papers and the setting of examinations. T h e r e are nine faculties in this institute: mechanics and mathematics, electrical mechanics, metallurgy, economics, engineering, machine making, physics, mechanics, radio technology. Evening faculties exist in all these specialties as well. T h e term of a student is five and a half years in this institute; again there is a preference given to those who have worked in industry before coming. Of the entering class of about 1,500 students, about half have had this work experience, but in the future, of course, 80 per cent will have had it. T h e institute is trying to avoid undue specialty among its graduates and to enable its graduates to enter industry in any technical position. T h i s , they believe, is in keeping with the needs of the country and makes the planning for and the utilization of engineers easier. T h e r e are many physicists and mathematicians in the institute, and 90 per cent of the students are on stipend. T h e problems of handling these stipends are in the hands of a stipend committee which contains deans and other officers, also representatives of students and some representatives of labor and industry. T h e best students get stipends whether they need them or not; others, only in case need can be shown. In addition to teaching, a great deal of research is done in this institute. In 1957, three hundred large research projects were completed. Industry initiated many of these and sponsored many others. A budget of 22,000,000 rubles, coming from industry, was applied to this research. T h e total research budget, including that supported by the

65

Ministry, was 40,000,000 rubles. A n example is that members of the faculty of electro-mechanics are working on power transmission lines, trying to get these up to 400,000 volts, and even up to 600,000 volts. T h e r e is, at present, a great problem in unifying the eastern and western power systems in their country; there is also much research going on in the general principles of hydroelectric machines. T h e y do not actually design dams, but they design all the machinery that goes with them. Some of these research problems are generated locally by their own faculty, others come to them from the Ministry of Higher Education, and some come from industry directly. T h e institute does not find it difficult to accommodate itself to the needs of these various parties. T h e institute is located in a goo-acre park and has fifty buildings with 100,000 square meters of floor space. T h e r e are 100 laboratories and the total investment in equipment is about one-half billion rubles. T h e r e are also other interesting statistics which the director gave us in a rather sly way. T h e r e are seven square meters of useful space per student. Last year the institute received equipment valued at about 16,000,000 rubles—this is exclusive of the free equipment which came from industry. T h e students live mostly in hostels in the neighborhood of the institute; 6,000 students live in these houses, 30 per cent of them women, and 70 per cent of them men. T h i s represents the free choice of the students and the greater interest of men in this type of work. Nearby there is a medical institute with about the same proportion of men and women as in the electrical institute. W e visited their fine large library that subscribes to 600 66

foreign technical journals, 100 of them American, and 500 Soviet journals. T h e r e are lots of books in this library, and they are readily available to all. T h e librarian said that he had not been getting about twenty of our technical journals, including General Electric and Westinghouse reviews; he presumed that this was because of lack of exchange funds for them. T h e library has a million and a half volumes. W e then walked through the pretty beech forest surrounding the institute, past several of the small laboratory buildings, to the " H o u s e of Science," a sort of c o m m o n building, where a very fine dinner was laid for about twenty or twenty-five of us. T h e r e were vodka, brandy, Georgian wine, and water, beer and fruit juices, both black and red caviar, salads of raw fruits, and vegetables, cheese, sausages, sturgeon, salmon, black and white bread, as a first course; next we had chicken and rice and more vegetables; toasts were drunk to beauty and friendship, to the ladies, to the city, and we all made speeches on every k n o w n topic. T h e s e were translated when necessary. T h e rector of the university also turned up as co-host with the director of the institute. T h e party went on, getting more and more friendly,

finally

singing native

songs; among those which we contributed were "I've Been W o r k i n g on the Railroad." A t about half past nine we moved off in o u r caravan with much fond embracing and leave-taking and hopes to meet again. Some went directly to the hotel, but my car of hearty souls went to the last two acts of the opera Sadko,

by

Rimski-Korsakov, which was on at the opera house. It was a marvelous oriental pageant with good strong tuneful music; an excellent performance, and we enjoyed every 67

minute of it. A t 11:30 P.M. we returned to the hotel, and, after more than the usual amount of delay and confusion, we got off and made the Red Arrow to Moscow with fifteen minutes to spare. W e are now jogging along back to Moscow, and I shall shortly turn in to be ready for the morrow and the atomic energy ministry.

68

Friday, July 4 T h e trip to Moscow was a very easy one; Harry Gideonse and I again occupied an apartment, upper and lower, with a comfortable private washroom shared with the Scaifes in the next compartment. T h e r e was an ingenious double-latch arrangement to insure privacy. T h e train was a diesel train and adhered very strictly to schedule; it is very much like ours as to locomotive and cars, a little more of the continental flavor, somewhat heavier and more permanent. Everything was clean and neat. Again, in the morning hot tea was brought to us in glasses with little metal

holders

by friendly attendants,

both

men

and

women. It is particularly noticeable that men and women participate almost equally in every kind of occupation, be it hard or easy, heavy or light. W e had a very good sleep indeed aboard this train, and at 8:15 A.M. we were met on the platform by the ministry people. A f t e r the usual confusion over the luggage, we went to our old hotel, where we washed, shaved, changed clothes, and got a new room for the night. Keith unluckily left his glasses aboard the train; this was sad, but they may be recovered -later, and he fortunately had another pair. W e found some mail at the embassy, and I brought it around to all the members of our party who had been remembered by their correspondents. Letters from home were most welcome. Keith and I were to start off to the High Energy Physics Institute at Dubna, and we tried to get an early start; but we have joined forces here again with T u r k e v i c h and his

69

professors, and the conversation that ensued inevitably involved coffee and toast and delayed us considerably in getting off. However, we are now on our way out of the city, Keith, our guide, our interpreter, and myself, going along a wide macadam road with lots of truck traffic and a good many buses. There is plenty of heavy earth-moving machinery about, and thousands and thousands of trucks. T h e country about us is mostly flat but slightly contoured; there are birches and other deciduous trees, some open farming country with old wooden houses. T h e telephone poles along each side carry thirty-two wires on each one. There are herds of cows and the houses in the village are very interesting and picturesque. They tend to be of the log cabin type, often with fancy blue-and-green carved window frames set into them. There are a few horsedrawn carts with the old high yoke over the horses' shoulders between the shafts. Even the country policemen wear white coats, red epaulets, and blue caps, and look well-turned-out. We are driving beside a large canal that runs between the Moscow and the Volga rivers. There are long canal boats on it and fine large locks and levelcontrol equipment. There are also occasional excursion boats, and paralleling the road and the canal is a railroad which is electrified in this neighborhood. Dubna is 140 kilometers from Moscow; it took us two and a half hours, a very lovely drive through the country. T h e director of Dubna, Professor Blochnitsev, an academician, happened to be in Geneva at the moment, so that we were greeted and entertained by his deputy, Professor Mitscherakov, who made a great hit with me by telling me that he had learned his physics from textbooks 70

I had written. T h e nuclear institute known as J I N R , J o i n t Institute for Nuclear Research, belongs, he says, to twelve countries and is organized like the institute in Switzerland, or somewhat like Brookhaven with us. Some 40 per cent of the persons there are Russian, 20 per cent are Chinese, and the rest come from the various other republics of the Soviet Union and foreign countries. Large accelerator research is expensive, and hence, this cooperation is essential. T h e Soviet Union has given the institute two large accelerators; together they cost about half a billion rubles. There is a six-meter diameter synchrocyclotron that generates particles with 680 million electron volts energy, and there is a ten-billion-volt accelerator for protons which has been under construction for the past five years and is just now in action. A l l the investigations here are open and clear; the doors are open to all scientists; Americans such as Panofsky, Marshall, Weisskopf, Alvarez, and so forth have all been here. T h e synchrocyclotron was started in 1947 and finished in 1949—two years and eight months. It achieves a wide utilization of atomic beams and simultaneous instrumentation. T h e r e are fifteen different beams and forty different experimental setups in action. T h e deputy director took us through this installation and showed it to us in detail. T h e equipment is very impressive indeed. T h e day that we were there was a day in which the equipment was down in order that visitors could come there, so that we saw few students. However, we did see a considerable group leaving a seminar after having listened to a guest lecturer. T h e ten-billion-electron-volt machine consists of a 3Ö,ooo-ton magnet and an external beam is 71

planned for all strange particles. T h e first work on this machine will be reported in Geneva in the autumn. T h e r e is a close connection between this institute and all the universities. Incoming young scientists enjoy here the opportunity of hearing lecturers and conducting research under the direction of their professors, as well as under that of the professional staff of the institute. It is much like the Brookhaven Laboratory, because it is endeavoring to solve very much the same educational problem. Physical sciences only are pursued at this institute; there is no biological or medical work in hand. A committee at the ministerial level determines the finances and the general nature of the scientific problems to be undertaken; the local director, however, conducts the scientific work. T h e actual program and priorities are worked out as at Brookhaven, with a large turnover of personnel, to avoid ossification. T h e r e are plans for installing a Teactor later, but only for physical science purposes. T h e r e are many visiting theoreticians—they are more mobile than experimentalists — b u t they are now being tied down to such institutes as Dubna by the calculating machines which are here available. After looking at the equipment and talking with the members of the staff who wçre available, we went to the local restaurant for a very good midday meal with all the ruffles and flourishes. We also talked with the persons who were members of our host party until four in the afternoon. T h e n , after visiting a few more laboratories, where we saw girls scanning and measuring emulsions, we left to drive back to town and attend a reception at the embassy. W e got to the ambassadorial residence, and for 7*

blocks on either side there were cars which had been bringing people to the Fourth of July party. Keith and I went in and wandered about, seeing quite a few familiar faces of local folks, embassy personnel and others, but no surprises. T h e tables of food looked as if flocks of locusts had swept over them. T h e r e were a few stems and twigs left, but most of the food was gone. We were a little late— there had been plenty of food to begin with. T h e r e was still plenty to drink while we were there, and Harry Barnes and Cole Blasier, our two young embassy friends, took good care of us. We were told that one or the other of these would be with us in Tbilisi and on the rest of our trip, but illness in the party of professors changed these plans later. T h e crowd at the embassy was an interesting one; there were people from the other embassies, arriving in large cars that looked very impressive at a distance but failed to bear close scrutiny; the English looked very proper, the rest very human. T h e r e were plenty of photographers about, and our pictures were taken, in addition to those of persons of considerably greater local prominence.

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Saturday,

July

5

Keith and I walked home from the ambassador's Fourth of J u l y party, discussing the philosophy of the diplomats and the great difficulty in trying to maintain international relations by such very tenuous means. We also talked atomic-bomb problems from the point of view of control, and when I reached the hotel I was ready to retire to my new room and do my housekeeping. My tweed coat needed some repairs and I also had some work on my shirts and socks. In addition to this, there was the usual replenishment of the tobacco pouch, and the photographic equipment required attention. A f t e r a bath and packing, I went to bed and finished Lermontov's Hero of Our Time, which I did not enjoy particularly. It has, of course, an arresting nineteenth-century flavor and is undoubtedly good, but the picaresque genre doesn't seem to appeal to me at the moment. For no particular reason, this reminds me that strawberries are very good in Russia now. We had a dish of them at the Institute of High Energy Physics, the best flavor of any that I have tasted in years. T h i s morning we got up and breakfasted together in the little sixth-floor buffet, and at 9 A.M. the passport office opened and we got our essential documents. We strolled through a new apartment house which is being erected across the street from our hotel. T h e construction is very different from ours. Pre cast concrete slabs are widely used, and solid brick walls eighteen inches or more thick hold up beams extending from the center pillars 74

and are held in by these beams. T h e type of construction appeared to be very rough, but the building will probably stand up for a long time. T h e wooden window frames seemed to be of poor quality, and what the ultimate ñnish is to be I don't know, but I would guess wooden floors, wooden trim, and dead-white plaster. Next we spent an hour or two riding around the city, taking pictures of the buildings and crowds and generally enjoying the lovely morning. A thing which impresses one greatly is the absence of advertising. T h i s is a lack which strikes one particularly on thinking back about it; there are a few announcements which one sees posted on bulletin boards. There is no telephone directory; how one finds a friend's number in Moscow I do not know. T h e yellow pages of a telephone directory might be convenient, but advertising is not essential in a society where the pattern of consumption is set by the pricing policy of the state. T h e r e are some street signs, but few direction signposts. T h e underground, or Metro, or subway, has maps of a rudimentary sort, but there is little effort to help a stranger around the city. Intourist looks after its own, and well, but the casual visitor must have a very thin time indeed. In this respect, as in others, Moscow is quite unlike Paris. W e got to the airport at 11:30 A.M. for a 12:05 P.M. departure, and the airport manager, who speaks quite a bit of English, gave our interpreter, Oleg, a hand. T h e crowd was large, but we were given extra-courteous attention and waited in the manager's room until 11:5o A.M., and were then the first to be escorted out to the long silver jet plane which is to take us to Tbilisi. It has two jets at the wing roots and swept-back wings like a B-47; it flies 75

at 900 kilometers an hour, about 550 miles an hour, and at 10,000 meters or 32,000 feet. T h e inside is not unlike our own planes, a roomy pilot's compartment with a bubblenose and good visibility; behind that is the first class compartment, where we are, which holds sixteen. T h e r e are four seats abeam of the plane, and plenty of room. There are fifty-five second class places with five abreast, then a lounge, and toilets farther at the rear. T h e designation is TU-104A. We taxied under the power of a jeep well away from the airport to warm up, and then under our own power to the head of the runway. Take-off was slow and gradual, but we were well away before the end. W e climbed, circling the airport, and were soon above the brilliantly-white clouds with all sight of the ground gone. T h e temperature and the pressure are good and except for high clouds and some bumpiness, we could not be more comfortable. Lunch came along at one o'clock on nice little seat trays, à la American Airlines—caviar, bread, chicken and rice, cookies, and an orange—very good, and I am now catching up on my notes. We're over halfway to Tbilisi by now. There are five hostesses, who don't wear uniforms but ordinary clothes. They are good at serving, solicitous with water and candy. T h e clouds are thinned out now and we can see the Ukraine farming country far below us, quite neatly laid out in square fields. They're quite large fields. T h e roads do not seem to be many or prominent, and snow-clad mountains are now ahead of us, our first view of the Caucasus. Now the mountains are beginning to come up a bit above the scattered cloud cover, their lovely jagged snowy peaks more like the Rockies than the Alps. We're directly over them now, and 76

we see a glacier or two in the dark gorges for which the Caucasus are famous. Right after passing over the snowy peaks, we descended rapidly over the foothills of the Caucasus to the plains of Tbilisi, and after a circle landed, only two and a half hours' flying time from Moscow. We were met in the sunny New Mexican heat by an Intourist agent, who took us to a sitting room and got the baggage in a car and started us off to the city. It is a sunny southern city, a cross between Calabria and T u r k e y , or more like a city in Provence, such as Aries or Avignon. T h e hotel to which our agent has taken us is an Intourist hotel, but again reminiscent of Southern France. T h e r e is no elevator; our room has high ceilings, though at that it is quite hot. After a shower we were ready to be off again to see some of the sights, and were first taken by the Institute of Metals and the university, which has 5,000 students, then to the park and out over the neighboring hills. There are lovely views and the mountainous country is very attractive. While out by the park, we saw a funeral coming from a distance. I wanted to take pictures of it but was advised that this would not be well received. T h e funeral consisted of men walking in a column, carrying the coffin high above their heads, and the corpse was arranged on a platform within the coffin at a slant of about forty-five degrees, in order that it could be well seen by the spectators who lined the streets. T h e rest of our party was out at a collective or wine-growing co-operative establishment and was not due to come in for an hour or so; so we explored the region around the city, going up the principal hill on a funicular and stopping at the large and very fine restaurant at the

77

top. Later we returned to our hotel for supper and found an open patio behind the hotel where the food was very interesting; but unfortunately a good deal of soot from the kitchen slowly showered down upon us, unbeknown to us until the end of the evening. T h e meal was peppery with a fresh vegetable salad, accompanied by red Georgian wine; this was followed by something called ciji piji, a hash omelet. We had Georgian champagne and shashlik with the champagne, and after a sweet to top off with, we returned to our hotel. None of the rest of our party was yet in evidence, so we went to bed expecting them to turn up later in the evening.

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Sunday,

July

6

Now I am lying in bed looking out the window at the big new Georgian granite façade across the street. This is a government building in which the mayor and the city corporation have their offices. Keith is next door dictating into his small traveling dictaphone. T h e morning is lovely, sunny and cool, and we shall go out shortly and do a little exploring. T h e first item on the calendar is to go to the Institute of Medicine in the city, with Frank Murphy. It is a large and thriving concern, which has turned out 10,000 doctors in the last forty years, and every small village throughout Georgia and the Caucasus has at least one of its graduates. There is also a large Institute of Agriculture here, a very good one, concerned primarily with the culture of grapes. T h i s we shall not be able to visit in the limited time we have available. There must be a thousand different varieties of grapes grown in the neighborhood of Tbilisi, and wine is shipped out to all parts of the U.S.S.R. Champagne is bottled here, and brandy is a specialty. One is naturally obliged, in the interests of international amity, to sample a wide variety of alcoholic beverages. There is also an institute of geology and mining, which is said to be a large and a thriving one. All work in the university is given in Georgian, a difficult Arabic-like language, and eventually all textbooks will be in that language. T h e r e are 1 , 5 1 9 persons on the faculty, and 4,318 full-time and 1,800 part-time students. 79

T h e teaching load seems somewhat lower here than in Moscow or Leningrad; a full professor with a doctor's degree will probably teach only two or four hours a week; docents teach from four to six hours a week.. T h e r e are the usual eleven or twelve faculties and considerable specialty again on the oriental languages. In passing, I should remark that there are 106 elementary schools in Tbilisi, a city of about 700,000 persons, but there were only three before the revolution. There are nineteen institutions of higher education in Georgia, and none, of course, before the revolution. In the local libraries, there are six million books; the university alone has nearly a million and a half of these. T h e Academy of Sciences in Georgia was started in 1947, and has nearly a million volumes in its library. T h e rest of our party, whom we finally met at a breakfast of toast, omelet, cheese, jam, and grape juice, had enjoyed themselves hugely at the co-operative farm and had had a gargantuan alfresco meal. T h e y saw the house where Stalin was born and in which he lived for a time. T h e y were now ready to join us for the balance of our trip. W e first went for a walk in the local Soviet building and saw large flocks of swallows flying round and round nesting up under the eaves. T h e r e were also lovely flowers all around this building, which were taken care of by old gardeners who seemed to love them dearly. W e left the hotel at half past nine that morning for the airport; our plane was due to leave at 11:30 A.M. and stop at Baku for lunch. T h e plane we are in is chartered, a small slow one of the Ilyushim type—like a DC-3—and it will probably 80

take us nine hours altogether before we get to our final terminus of the day, Tashkent. Our party of thirteen, plus five Russian guides and an interpreter or two, filled the plane up quite well. We're at 15,000 feet now, going along at about 200 miles an hour. T h e pilot has come back and talked with us, a pleasant, genial soul. He has pointed out Mount Ararat to our far right; there is no sign of the ark. T h e cabin temperature is comfortable, and studying the maps gave me the following information. We are about at the latitude of New York; Tashkent and Alma-Ata are one hundred miles or so farther north. Tashkent, which is the capital of Uzbekistan—the same province which has Samarkand and Bukhara in it—is in the longitude of Kabul of Afghanistan, while Alma-Ata, where we shall go later, is in the longitude of Delhi and the tip of India. This is to be our farthest eastern point. T h e flight to Baku is short; we then, presumably, go on to Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenstan, which is halfway to Tashkent. Below us lies the valley of the Kura River, which flows from Tbilisi to Baku in the province of Azerbaijan. On either side of us are the Caucasus peaks. There is snow to be seen in both directions. T h e Kura River flows through this fertile valley to the Caspian Sea; the Volga River, of course, flows into the Caspian as well. There is no outlet from the Caspian; it is quite salty and several hundred feet below sea level. T h e plane came down in Baku, a burned-up peninsula jutting out from the west coast of the Caspian. There is a forest of oil derricks all about us. T h e airport restaurant is a very pleasant one, and we had a nice private room and 81

a good lunch provided for us, cold chicken and roast beef, caviar and macaroni, bread, cheese, wine, beer, and water. No one went away hungry. As a matter of fact this whole expedition has been designed to defeat the dieter. I took a good many pictures of our party, though the surroundings were not too interesting. We're now on our way again over the Caspian, and word has just reached us that there is a sandstorm at Ashkhabad, and indeed it looks very murky beneath; also, the temperature is over 1 1 2 o , and as the plane has enough fuel to continue directly on to Tashkent, we have agreed with our pilot that this is the wise thing to do. T h e ground beneath us is rocky and desert, interspersed with occasional flat sandy areas, contoured by the wind. There is a railroad down there and mountains off to the.south. T h e day is exceptionally clear except for the sandstorm over Ashkhabad. T h e desert over which we are flying is known as the Kara-Kum Desert, a very inhospitable region, which I am glad to see only from this altitude. After going along for some time over blazing and, inhospitable sands, we cross the Anu-Dar'ya River, which flows into the southern part of the Aral Sea at the little town of Chardzhou, where there is lots of irrigation and quite a number of fields and houses and a look of civilization after the waste of desert over which we have been flying. A few minutes later we are flying over the old city of Bukhara, which we know best for the rugs which have always been made there. It is a sprawling old city, but a new and much neater-looking one has been built by the Russians within the past ten years or so right next door. There are many canals for irrigation, and the green fields look prosperous; the water seems to come principally 82

f r o m a c o u p l e of fair-sized lakes a few miles to the east. T h e r e is a large rail yard and apparently a g o o d deal of industry. W e reached T a s h k e n t just as w e were

expected—at

8:45 P.M.—halfway r o u n d the w o r l d from C a l i f o r n i a . T h e directors of the Institute met us a n d were most hospitable and cordial. W e were congratulated on its b e i n g cool, and I w o u l d guess it was only a b o u t 8o° in the shade; generally, it comes m u c h hotter in these parts. T h e n i g h t is lovely, the m o o n c o m i n g u p very clear, barred w i t h occasional thin lines of clouds. W e drove to the hotel, very reminiscent of those in N o r t h e r n India, as i n d e e d are the open irrigation ditches in the street, w h i c h k e e p the trees bright and green. T h e bathrooms in o u r h o t e l are b e l o w standard; indeed, they are q u i t e dirty. F o r t u n a t e l y H a r r y G i d e o n s e a n d I have a private b a t h r o o m , and w e are b e i n g ' visited periodically by other m e m b e r s of o u r party w h o are n o t so fortunately situated. T h e r e are little

whisk

brooms provided, w h i c h we are supposed to use to k e e p the place clean; b u t the tile floors a n d the o l d r u b b e r mats d o not give y o u m u c h h e l p in this task. T h e r e ' s a great cast iron t u b in the corner that has n o stopper. H o w e v e r , o n e can m a k e d o with almost a n y t h i n g ; and if o n e never encounters worse accommodations than this, felix

can be ap-

pended to his name. A f t e r o u r wash and change of shirt, w e w e r e taken to an open-air U z b e k theater, w h i c h was fascinating b o t h as to p e r f o r m a n c e and audience. T h e audience, of course, wore native costumes in interesting colors, w i t h strange geometrical designs and little skullcaps; b u t beneath these caps were w a r m smiles, and there were babies all over the

83

place—cute fat ones they were, too. In the orchestra pit there were some particularly cute ones, who had been put there in lieu of a nursery. Everyone was very friendly and endeavored to talk to us; a few of our neighbors could speak English, so that communication was established. T h e performance was equally interesting and went on until Ι A.M., when we returned to the hotel for a collation and to bed. T h e backbone of the performance was the orchestra that sat on a row of chairs at the back of the stage. T h r e e persons on our left played four-stringed bowed instruments, with bridges on parchment sound boxes in the form of hemispheres about the size of bowling balls. T h e r e was a timpanist and a man with a large tambourine with no metal pieces, but he used his thumb and finger on fittings, to bring out particular sounds. He was extremely dexterous with this instrument. T h e r e were also a player on a wooden flute and a man who played a zitherlike instrument with two little hammers the size of pencils. Next there were three plucked, guitar-like instruments, one very long and deep and one which was bowed in the middle, again with their bridges on parchments somewhat reminiscent of banjos. T h e instrumentalists all played very well, accompanying singers, whose efforts I found rather less attractive. T h e r e were dancers, both men and women in lovely costumes, and persons who did splendid pantomimes. In general it was a fine performance. I must now go to sleep; otherwise I shall keep Harry awake for the rest of the night.

84

Monday,

July

7

This is another bright sunny day and so far not too hot. Harry woke me at half past eight, and we breakfasted at nine. We had a fine fresh tomato for breakfast, a small apple, some watermelon, and an omelet. Everyone was present, though a few of us were taking pills. T h e good lady at the door of the hotel said that two days ago the temperature was 1 1 5 o , and yesterday it was 95 o . It's probably not over 8o° now; this is very fortunate indeed for us. This part of Central Asia gets very hot in the summer, but no more so than our own southwest. T h e streets are treelined, cool and attractive-looking. Nearly everyone wears clothes of European type, the women in rather garish, polychromed, zebra-like patterns, the men usually in dark thin trousers, with linen coats and straw hats. Russian is the language, but in the hotels and in the neighboring Intourist agency a good deal of English is spoken, and we have no trouble being understood. There are also many other languages spoken here because this is the show-window of the Soviet Union for the peoples of Afghanistan and India. Tashkent, in the neighborhood of the hotel, is a country-like town; not very high, white stucco buildings are all around us. T h e streets are wide, with deep drains along the side through which water flows at a pretty good rate, irrigating the grass and the trees. There are also a good many flies around; indeed this has been so everywhere we have been in Central Asia. T h e plane had quite a few flies in it yesterday. This morn-

85

ing was spent sight-seeing in the old and the new town. We visited the shopping areas and some parks where there was lovely cool running water. We went to the Opera House. This city of about 800,000 has nine theaters, including one for opera, one for ballet, one for serious drama in Russian, one for musical drama in Russian, one for musical drama in Uzbek, a puppet theater, and a circus. After lunch we visited the medical institute. Franklin Murphy and I were the two who undertook this, and we had an interview with the deputy director and the chief doctor. We asked about the students. These, of course, come to the institute after the ten-year intermediate school, many of them with a two-year work stint intervening. Sixty to 70 per cent of them are girls. T h e student body numbers 4,000. T h e curriculum extends over six years, five years of general instruction and one year of clinical training. There is also provision for a two-year higher course in specialization, but this is not taken by any considerable number of the graduates. Most graduates go directly to country practice. All have to go into practice for three years before specializing, regardless of their preference. T h e Ministry of Health in Uzbekistan decides who will specialize. They're selected locally on the basis of performance in the rural community to which they are assigned. T h e institute determines the qualifications and gives the medical examinations once a year for persons who wish to enter it. T h e first two years are taught in Uzbek, the next years are taught in Russian; often courses are given in both languages. Cadavers are obtained, as with us, from the morgue; they remain there three days, and if they are not claimed by relatives, they are brought to the 86

hall of anatomy. T h e relative can even turn u p there and claim the cadaver if he wishes. T h e r e is a considerable shortage of cadavers, and one of them has to be shared by a n u m b e r of students. Foreign languages are taught for two years in all the institutes, including this one of medicine. T h e students are often anxious to get these out of the way and take their examinations, so that this requirement is behind them. English is the language most frequently chosen, according to our informant. During the first year they take five courses, physics, inorganic chemistry, organic and analytic chemistry, and anatomy, besides a foreign language. In their course of studies they also take Latin and biology and the history of the Party. In their second year they take physiology, biochemistry, histology, language, and again the history of the Party. T h e y have physical education in both of these years and also bacteriology. In the third year they do pathological anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and bacteriology. T h e y do some general therapy and physical diagnosis in the hospital, and also general surgery and some roentgenology. During the fourth year there is special surgery and therapy, most of the time in the hospital, and this merges gradually into the clinical years. In the fifth year they assist in operations, take some ophthalmology, and are generally helpful around the hospital. In the sixth year they do some specialization in surgery, obstetrics, gynecology, general therapy, and other subjects. After the fourth year they have a m o n t h and a half of practice in rural areas, working in hospitals d u r i n g their vacation period. T h e r e is a professor who holds a chair within the faculty, 87

and he has assistants, some of whom have degrees and some of whom do not. T h e r e are about 300 teachers, some of these being full-time docents and others assistants. T h e ratio of students to faculty is somewhat greater than ten to one. T h e hospital facilities are really very considerable. T h e r e are 1,600 beds in the hospital which belongs to the institute. T h e r e is also a first-aid emergency station in the city and three city hospitals. T h e r e is a railroad hospital, a hospital which goes with the textile institute, and a children's hospital. Each of the above has from 200 to 300 beds each. T h e emergency first-aid installation has 400 beds. T h e r e is also a special psychiatric hospital, and 200 beds for infectious diseases. A chair of psychiatry at the psychiatric hospital is associated with the institute. All these groups, in particular the medical institute which we visited, are under the Ministry of Health. T h e budget for operation comes from the Uzbek Republic. W e inquired a little bit about higher specialization, but this was not the province of the institute we visited, and hence the answers to our questions were not entirely satisfactory. We did ask, however, how many surgeons, for instance in Tashkent, were competent to conduct surgery on the heart. A f t e r some discussion, it was decided that there were ten surgeons in that town with this competence. Of the fifty professors at this institute, one is a corresponding member of the Medical Academy of Sciences in Moscow. T h e r e are two corresponding members of the Uzbek Academy of Science. Most of the students are from Uzbekistan, but actually all nationalities are represented. T h e r e is a research institute of hematology and one of traumatic therapy, which are separate units but associated with the institute. 88

There is the same system of scholarships or stipends here as we have found elsewhere, and the size of such grants depends upon the students' excellence of performance. T h e awarding of these stipends seems to be largely in the hands of the dean who assesses the quality of the student and how much his performance merits. T h e general stipend for the first year or two is 200 to 350 rubles per month for twelve months. There are three medical institutes in the republic: one at Samarkand, the second at Andijar, and the third at Tashkent. There are also some special tropicaldisease institutes, about which we learned little or nothing. After leaving the medical school we toured the hospital adjacent to it, which appeared to be very utilitarian and adequate. We wore white coats and were followed by a curious queue of people who were fascinated by the strange Americans. This also happened in the streets outside, where we were constantly the center of attraction, and crowds of barefoot, as well as well-dressed, people would gather around us to stare and to ask us questions. Often they could talk to us in a fair approximation of English, and they were willing to take whatever length of time it took in order to establish communication. They asked us questions about our country and told us about theirs. After bidding the medical people good-by, we went to the university to join the rest of our party. We looked in at a shop where I bought a small Uzbek hat for $12.50. I also looked at Uzbek shirts, which are very prettily stitched indeed, but they cost $30 or $40 and appeared too small to be worn by a fellow my size. Such goods are not cheap because the state has no particular desire to sell them in any large quantity. We returned to the hotel for

89

lunch at 3 : 3 0 P.M., the usual variety of cold vegetables, beer, wine, water, bread, soup, and rice (in this case very good, mixed with grapes and peppers) . At five o'clock we were off to pay our compliments to the mayor for a couple of hours. A t the mayor's office we were faced again with the usual groaning board. T h e mayor was a fine, stocky individual in a Uzbek shirt, flanked by the city architect, his financial adviser, the sanitary engineer, and the director of education, and all together they provided a very impressive reception. T h e architect, who was very Mongolian in feature, told of the planning of the new Tashkent. T h e old Tashkent started over 2,000 years ago. T h e new city is being built upon its ruins. Tashkent is planned with streets in rings, through which wider ones radiate, there now being 950 kilometers of streets. T h e absence of private property has made land condemnation relatively easy. T h e difficulties we should experience in capitalistic countries can here be reduced to a minimum. T h e people who are displaced are given new apartments or plots of ground and money to build new houses. Before the revolution, Tashkent was a typical desert village. Now it is the sixth city of the Soviet Union. Before the revolution there were no higher educational establishments; now there are seventeen in the city and thirty-seven technical institutes, secondary technical high schools really. Before the revolution there was one theater, and now there are nine. T h e construction is entirely of local material though the wood comes from Siberia. As earthquakes are not uncommon, the houses are not built very high. T h e y do not plan to have the city grow very much beyond its present size, which

90

seems to be about right for an industrial unit. Control is established by limiting the growth of the new industries within the city. W a t e r comes down from the Pamir R a n g e and goes through the elaborate irrigation system to support the agricultural industries. T h e r e are 2,600 kilometers of irrigation channels in Tashkent. T h e

water in

the tap is

controlled by tests and is entirely safe for drinking. Mineral water is bottled from wells which are 2,000 meters deep. (An old Uzbek saying affirms that "water is life.") T h e sewage was formerly put in deep pits; now it goes into open pools and is purified by bacterial action. T h e r e are twenty-one inches of rainfall in a year, but it all comes d u r i n g the winter months. Electricity comes from hydroelectric plants in the mountains; the first was installed in 1924. T h e r e are also large resources of natural gas near Bukhara; this comes by cars to T a s h k e n t in compressed form. Later, it is piped to fourteen cities in Uzbekistan and used for heating and for industry. W e asked what schools were under the jurisdiction of the T a s h k e n t municipality, and were told that there were »13,000 students in 137 elementary schools, the seven- or ten-year schools; there are also a number of

technicums

w h i c h are technical high schools, and these are all the responsibility of the Ministry. T h e schools are growing; 8,000 students were graduated last year, and 17,000 entered. It is possible to get through the ten-year school in seven or eight years if one is very bright. A pedagogical council of parents and teachers considers the needs of both the exceptionally gifted and the slow and backward, extra teaching being furnished for the latter when necessary. 9'

T h e r e are also six special schools for the deaf or blind; these schools take longer than ten years, generally eleven, and during this period special teaching is given the handicapped. T h e city council is responsible for local government, which is maintained by income derived for the most part from the small local industries. T h e large national industries have their income taken by the Soviet Union. Again, the theaters are supported in part by the city and in part by the Soviet Union; the same is true of transport and various other civic functions. T h e most important industries are bakeries and the food industry, lumber, readymade clothes, and small metal parts. These are the ones upon which the city depends primarily for its revenue. W e asked how the mayor was chosen and were told that the people of Tashkent elect deputies forming a city soviet or council. These deputies elect an executive committee and a chairman of the executive committee; this chairman is the mayor. T h e present mayor did not study at one of the party schools; he went to a law institute at the university. None of the mayor's staff has ever gone to a party school either; this is rather unusual, because, in general, party schools are used to upgrade the members of the party who will assume these responsibilities. T h e mayor's most difficult problem is the provision of housing for the citizens; this is what he is worrying about at the moment. Also, next to the problem of providing housing is that of providing adequate food, clothing, and other things that the citizens require. T h e third problem is the finishing of the sewage-disposal system and bringing the natural gas pipeline into Tashkent. T h e mayor asked us a few ques92

tions, too. He was a very interesting man, and provided us with one of the most illuminating sessions that we have had with any individual. Finally, he wished us well and was glad to hear that we were enjoying our trip to Russia. A l l Tashkent, he said, has been brought about since the revolution, before which the Uzbeks simply had some flocks and herds and moved from place to place. Now they have settled down and are building themselves a civilization. After this interesting interview, we came back to the hotel for an hour and then went to a neighboring building to see a descriptive film of Uzbekistan. It was an excellent documentary of the old cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, showing the old dances and songs, as well as the new development of factories and industries. It also emphasized the modern agricultural methods and the extensive irrigation system in this neighborhood. It was artistically done and a tribute to the accomplishments of the Uzbeks, as well as to their culture and taste. Finally, we went back to the hotel for cold vegetables, apples, toast, beer, wine, water, and anything else we could want. W e are to breakfast at 7:15 A.M. and leave for the airport at eight, for a few hours in Samarkand before going on to Alma-Ata for the night.

93

Tuesday, July 8 After a good night's sleep, Harry woke me at 6:45 A.M., with a bath all drawn. The day is again a lovely and sunny one, not too hot. A few other Americans are at the hotel, but having a somewhat thinner time than we; they're only getting four rubles to the dollar, and do not find that the Intourist service is particularly good. Up and down the corridors of this hotel trudge plump Turks and Uzbeks in some dishabille, going back and forth between the facilities and their rooms. They are a heavyset, interesting-looking lot of men and women, somewhat taciturn, however; and being of the older generation, they are not so competent in foreign languages. We're ready to be off at 9 A.M., and the laggards have been brought in. When we got to the airport, we saw the morning jet start off for Moscow, and there were many other flights going off in various directions. We are now in our own special airplane with our Nordic captain whose name ends in "off," a pleasant steward, and a rather Turkish-looking stewardess who is all smiles and anxious to please. The country below is desolate but with some green; Samarkand is just ahead of us with a flying time of something under an hour. We've christened the plane the "magic carpet." We flew at about 6,000 feet and reached Samarkand at 10:30 A.M. We were met at the airport by a delegation from the university who were very understanding of the fact that we had but four hours to see their lovely old 94

city, have lunch, and be off. They had a caravan of five or six cars, and we drove through arroyos where bearded old ruffians in turbans rode on little donkeys to the outskirts of the city, where we first saw the ancient observatory of Ulug-Beg, a grandson of T i m u r the Lame, whom we usually call Tamerlane. T h i s is a very interesting spot indeed, but descriptions can be found elsewhere. T h e n we went on into the city to see Tamerlane's tomb, which is a lovely green scalloped turnip-shaped dome with a fine courtyard and the usual lovely appurtenances of ancient mosques. W e found here some very interestinglooking people to photograph. T h e country is reminiscent of Pakistan, which is indeed just to the south of it. T h e girls wear long black pigtails, often five or six of them with little tassels or cones on the end. Children abound around this tomb. They are friendly, but somewhat diffident when photographed. After leaving the tomb, we went on to a beautiful old group of buildings, tombs, mosques, and walls in rather poor repair but very colorful and peopled by a lot of men and women in the baggy costumes of the country. This is the Madrasah of Bibi Hanum built by Tamerlane. T h e next stop was the main mosque, with its tall towers, one of which is held up by guy wires. T h e old Reghistan, the central square of Tamerlane's city, is under repair, and workmen are making the small green-and-blue mosaics in great heaps, for application to the walls. These are ground into Arabic shapes by artists and carefully put in place. T h e town is repairing the mosques, I suppose, primarily for their cultural rather than their religious value. Some of the Mullahs are already living in them, and others will be

95

housed eventually in the new quarters when they are fully completed. We were then taken to the hotel, where up on the roof in a nice room we were given a very complete midday repast—the usual salads and Samarkand bread, soft round seed-covered disks about ten inches in diameter; water and apple juice were also served, together with wine and vodka, and onions and shaslik on spits. Very good lamb and goat appeared on the table, too, and I enjoyed the meal very much. There were the usual toasts drunk to learning and to friendship, to peace and to education, and much use was made of the rudimentary toilet facilities. We drove from there to a store, where, surrounded by the usual crowd of interested spectators, some of us, including me, invested in pieces of Samarkand embroidery. Mine is black with gaudy yellow and red embroidery, which may look rather inappropriate in any western house. At 2:30 P.M. we got back on the plane, and are now off at 9,000 feet for Alma-Ata. Samarkand is a fascinating old town, full of flavor and, incidentally, aroma. T h e ancient Marakanda of the caravan route was conquered by Alexander the Great 300 years before Christ, by the Arabs in the ninth century, by the Turks in the eleventh, by Genghis Kahn in the thirteenth, and in the late fourteenth it was the starting point of Tamerlane, who at the head of his Mongols raided Asia Minor and defeated the Ottoman Turks at Ankara in 1402. We are now east of Tashkent and can see from the window to the south the lovely snow-covered Pamirs and Hindu Kush mountains, some of the highest in the world. They're a most impressive sight. Alma-Ata is just north of the Chinese province of

96

Sinkiang; after three hours of flying time, we are descending to Alma-Ata. W e saw Frunze in Kirghistan way below us an hour or so ago, and are now in the eastern tip of Kazakhstan. T h e great towering snowy peaks to the south of us are very majestic indeed, forming the only barrier, but a huge one, between us and India. I can see n o pass between the mountains, and I should certainly not like to try scaling the solid wall of rock and snow which we see before us. T h e northeastern extension of these mountains, called the T i e n Shan Mountains, form the

immediate

background for the little town of Alma-Ata, to which we are now descending. T h e country looks very lush below us, a welcome change from the desert we have left. T h e runway of the airport is of dirt, as indeed was that in Samarkand, and bumpy; but there are machines making a better one, and there will probably be a black top on it before the end of the year. W e were met by a delegation from the university, the rector and his wife, together with men and women from the university faculty, fifteen or eighteen in all, with large bunches of fragrant flowers, more than enough

to go around for the ladies, so some of

the

gentlemen got them as well. T h e foreign-language teachers predominate in the delegation, so there is plenty of conversation. T h e

German

and English

teachers

have

never been out of the U . S . S . R . but speak their languages very well. W e had a good drive to the hotel through beautiful wide streets lined by high trees and low planting, so that only the largest of the houses were visible at all. T h e hotel is a pleasant one; the washing facilities are separate from the rooms, but are cleaner and more modern than in 97

Tashkent. T h e mountain view from my window is superb; it looks like Switzerland; the peaks must be at least 15,000 feet high. My bag will be here in a few minutes, and then I shall change my clothes, going down a couple of floors to take a shower in one of the little cubicles which are prepared for us there. We are to be ready by half past eight for a concert in the national music hall or opera house two blocks down the street. In the opera house we saw a marvelous performance, the first half being better than the second. A string orchestra played, with one accordion, one soft drummer, and sixty or more bowed or plucked instruments looking quite unlike any of ours. The instruments, however, resemble ours in being graduated in somewhat the same register, like the violin, viola, 'cello, and bass viol. Most of the sound boxes were covered with parchment, upon which the bridge carrying the strings rested. T h e finger board was not close to the strings, so that they were rarely pressed against the board but generally stopped by an application of the finger. T h e members of the orchestra played excellently, often accompanying singers who sang songs both in Kazakh language and in Russian, some of which we had heard, while others were new to us. T h e costumes and the oriental features of most of the musicians added a great deal to the spectacle. T h e men wore small green or blue caps, linen shirts, and flowing blue or green velvet trousers loosely cut and slit at the foot, with silver embroidery, rather in Mexican fashion. T h e girls wore flowing linen skirts and dresses with maroon velvet jackets and spangles and little spangled maroon velvet caps, topped with fawn-colored feathers. Many singers wore 98

yellow spangled velvet. A solemn girl appeared in a white sparkly dress, making announcements of what the n e x t n u m b e r would be. She had long black pigtails which I finally

decided were her own: they came down to her

knees. T h e only similarity to the western orchestra was that the leader wore black tails and a white tie. T h e second half of the performance was solo singing and dancing. W i t h the exception of one Indian n u m b e r , we were not particularly impressed by any of these, but then

they were all quite different from any forms of

entertainment we had ever known. W e were all delighted, however, with the evening as a whole, and in walking back to our hotel for a midnight snack, wondered at our visit to the other side of the world, where we were seeing, quite literally, how the other half lived. Before going to bed, we were each given large dishes of red raspberries and cream. W e are enjoying in these distant regions some of the best vegetables and fruit we have ever tasted, but maybe, as Campbell has reminded us, "distance enchantment."

99

lends

Wednesday,

July

9

After a delicious breakfast, including poached eggs on toast, we drove to the university where we were greeted by hundreds of students lined up in front of the main building clapping and cheering. There were mixtures of Caucasian and Mongolian countenances, but all were wreathed in smiles. Inside, we were met cordially by a delegation of professors, and sat down with a score or more of them in the office of the rector of the university. His long green baize-covered table was heaped with compotes of cherries and raspberries. There were bottles of water and also of kumiss, a slightly-fermented variety of mare's milk. Again we were supplied copiously with cigarettes, a fact which I have not mentioned before. We found these at all of our conferences, and the variety of Russian cigarettes is almost as wide as our own. They are, however, of quite a different type, heavier tobaccos, more reminiscent of the Turkish variety and often with longish cardboard tips, an inch or more in extent, before one comes to the tobacco. They are packed in colorful boxes and by and large are quite acceptable to the occidental taste. T h e rector of the University of Kazakhstan in AlmaAta is of a pronouncedly Mongolian cast of features, but he wears western clothes and looks very neat and businesslike. He made a brief but interesting introductory speech with a broad smile and an engaging manner. Before the revolution, he said, Kazakhstan was a colony of Czarist 100

Russia, illiterate to the extent of 98 per cent and dependent exclusively on agriculture and cattle breeding. T h e r e was no industry, very few schools, and no establishments for higher education or theaters. All these institutions which they now enjoy have resulted from their efforts since the revolution. Kazakhstan is a large province, about five times the size of France or one-third that of the United States. In the northern part of it for five or six months during the winter the temperature may fall to 40 o below zero centigrade. In other parts, the summer temperature may rise to 70 0 centigrade. There are large mineral resources in Kazakhstan, some of the richest in the world, with plenty of iron, copper, zinc, and chrome ore. Before the revolution the republic had between one and two thousand schools of all kinds; now it has over nine thousand. Before the revolution there were no establishments of higher education; now there are twentyseven of them, and five new engineering institutes are about to be established. T h e biggest of the institutions of higher education is the Kazakhstan University, the object of our visit. Unlike the universities in the United States, it is concerned only with the two aspects of higher education considered most important: science and the humanities. T h e specialties, such as medicine, agriculture, engineering, pedagogy, and so forth, have separate institutions. Kazakhstan University was founded in 1934, and there are now eight faculties—four in science, physics and mathematics, chemistry, biology and soil science, geology and geography. T h e r e are four faculties in the humanities— history, philology, economics, and law. T h e number of full-time students is 4,000; the number of corresponding 101

students, 3,500. T h e length of the course is in general five years, and two languages are used for instruction, both Kazakh and Russian. In some of the faculties there are special Kazakh sections, but in general the more advanced courses are given in Russian. From the first to the third years, the studies are more or less general as in other universities, and specialization takes place in the last two years. All students, of course, study foreign languages as in the other universities, and all students study some philosophy and economics and do some physical education. Research is encouraged, and students form scientific societies, which are very valuable to them and stimulating to their interest. Prizes are given for excellence of performance in these societies. Faculty research is encouraged as well. T h e teaching staff consists of 400 persons, with fifty-two professorships, more than half of which are occupied by persons holding the doctor's degree. T h e r e are twenty-six members or corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences in Kazakhstan. T h e research results of the faculty are published in local scientific notes and monographs. About 80 per cent of the students get stipends which vary from 250 to 600 rubles per month, the size of the stipend being adjusted to stimulate and reward good academic work. T h e facilities for physical education are good; there are special stadia for sports, which the university shares with other neighboring institutions. T h e r e are a biological and geological museum, a zoological station, and a botanic garden, from the last of which the fruits on the table have come. T h e library for the students and the faculty contains more than 600,000 volumes. All Soviet publications 102

are received and many of the foreign ones, 500 periodicals altogether. T h i s library is mostly used by the faculty and the senior students. In the fifth year each student is required to produce a thesis, his first research work. T h i s must show both knowledge of the subject and of the literature, both domestic and foreign. T h e latter requirement stimulates the thorough learning of the foreign language. About 40 per cent of the students are Kazakhs, but thirty-six nations or provinces are represented among the students. Those who come from distant parts live in hostels. T h e Kazakh government is particularly interested in higher education and welcomes the attendance of persons from all other segments of the Soviet Union and from foreign countries. A large new building is being planned for the university, and next year a special union will be built for the students. Several large but rather old buildings have been donated by the town and are in use currently by the university. T h e university prepares students in twenty-five different specialties, and many of the students continue on to post-graduate education either here or elsewhere. In the course of its twenty-four years of existence, the university has produced 9,000 specialists who have gone on to graduate work. More than 600 graduates of the university have the candidate's or doctor's degrees. T h e university itself has given 300 candidate's degrees; the policy is to urge the best people to go on to graduate study. T h e new construction which is planned for the next year or two involves an expenditure of some 70,000,000 rubles. T h e student centers for teaching and for the housing of students and faculty will cost about 200,000 rubles 103

this year and will replace the older government buildings now in use. T h e public libraries in the city also get periodicals from abroad; and if the library of the Academy of Science is included, there are some 20,000,000 volumes in the province, distributed in 6,000 libraries. In commenting on the organized student activities the rector mentioned the young Communist League, student scientific societies, sports clubs, and trade-union organizations. T h e majority of the regular students, about 60 per cent, are girls, and the remaining 40 per cent are boys. T h e student activities, while extensive, are not under the administrative control of the university, except that there is a chair of physical education. A pro-rector is concerned with business and finance, a practical businessman, who looks after university affairs and to whom an official known as the commandant reports. T h e commandant is concerned with the general supervision of student matters but is not involved in the detailed operation of the student societies. T h e Kazakhstan higher educational establishments started only in 1929, and they have been faced with two major problems: to provide an adequate teaching staff and to secure a satisfactory student body. T h e original faculty came from Moscow and Leningrad, as well as from other older-established universities. T h e r e is still a considerable interchange of faculty members among these institutions. A t present about 40 or 45 per cent of the faculty are Kazakhs. Many of the students who were prepared at the Kazakh University have gone on to the Universities of Moscow or Leningrad and done well there. As mentioned earlier, the salaries paid by the Kazakh University are 104

30 per cent higher than those paid in Moscow, but this inequality will be reduced in the coming year. In common with the other universities, four years of foreign languages are required, and in the early portion of the university course, classes are large, many of them being held in the Kazakh language, which is mastered by the students who come from the secondary schools. In the last two years, all instruction is in Russian. T h e r e are students from China and Mongolia, and a number of students from Kazakhstan go to China for their advanced study. T h e r e is now great competition for entrance to the university, which is improving the quality of the student body. Only one of four or five applicants is accepted. Preference is given to those who have done some work in industry since graduating from the intermediate school; and, of course, next year they will conform to the general policy of accepting 80 per cent of persons with such experience. T h e authorities believe that there are now enough young people in this category to provide them with a good student body. T h e i r chief source of dissatisfaction with the students who reach them is their inability to handle foreign languages and even the Russian language. T h e y believe that the work in Russian and the work in foreign languages in their secondary schools should be improved, and they are giving their attention to this. By 1965, they expect to have 6,000 full-time and 4,000 part-time or correspondence students. T h e r e are now some 60,000 students, full- and part-time, in all the institutes of higher education in Kazakhstan, as well as 67,000 in the technicums, and about 1,400,000 in the ten-year schools. T h e population of Kazakhstan is about 8,400,000. About

105

go per cent of the graduates of the ten-year schools are estimated to go on eventually to higher education. T h e physics and mathematics faculty give 600 hours of instruction, all told, during the first two years; in the chemistry faculty, the specialization represents 300 hours; and in the biology faculty, 265 hours of instruction. All these science courses have laboratories. T h e r e are five professorships in physics, one in molecular and thermophysics, one in general physics, one in optics and spectroscopy, one in nuclear physics, and one in mathematical physics. In the economics faculty, both general economics and Marxian economics are studied, and either here or in the history faculty, courses are also given in finance, city planning, and in the various other specialties which are considered appropriate. A f t e r an exchange of questions with the rector, we left his office and were greeted by many students and faculty members who had waited for us outside and who gave us enormous bouquets of field and hothouse flowers, which appear to be available in great abundance. Our pictures were taken, and there was a large and enthusiastic crowd that followed us about the campus. Keith Glennan and I went in a car with the nice lady professor of English and two other professors of the university. T h e abundance of flowers made me think of a bridal party. Our first stop was at the physics laboratory in a low rambling building among trees, with a great many students about, both inside and out. Forty per cent of the students in the faculty of physics and mathematics are girls; this is a surprising percentage when one considers that it is ten times what one would find in one of our own universities. T h e elementary 106

laboratory equipment was simple and unpretentious but apparently quite adequate, and the advanced equipment was commensurate with the requirements. T h e r e seemed to be good work going on in cosmic rays and in neutron diffraction; other work involved gamma ray sources, and girls and boys were examining emulsions which had been exposed to cosmic rays at 30,000 meters. We looked at some of these plates and at the scanning records which were being kept by the students. We also saw a standard electrical laboratory which had fine-looking meters and auxiliary equipment. T h e students using this laboratory were in their fourth and fifth years, and in the next room we found students measuring the radioactivity of local minerals. T h e y used not only modern electronic equipment, but old electrometers were in use as well. I would say that the equipment compared favorably with what one would find in the better universities in our country. T h e spirit among the students was particularly noteworthy, for they displayed much enthusiasm for the work in which they were engaged. After leaving this laboratory, we went to the building of the Academy of Science, a large and imposing structure still in the course of construction. Like the central Academy of Sciences, it is very highly regarded, its budget of 90,000,000 rubles being nearly three times that of the Kazakhstan University. It appears to be a very thriving institution, and is certainly impressive; we were greeted by a score of academicians who had gathered to welcome us. An academician whose concern was archaeology was speaking when Keith and I entered the room. He said that there had been no archaeology studied in Kazakhstan be107

fore the revolution, but that it had grown rapidly and attracted much interest in that area. Scholars of the academy are currently investigating three sites which had been occupied by stone-age man; they are also finding that some of the first use of bronze had occurred not far from the university site, and so they feel that their finds are of particular interest. They are doing some work in Siberia and in Southern Russia as well. A number of additional cities on the old caravan route to China have been located and marked for further exploration. They send about three large archaeological expeditions out every year; this year one is working on bronze-age sites in central Kazakhstan, and two are studying burial mounds of the early peoples who lived in that area. T h e academy table was supplied with beautiful strawberries, small, sweet, and abundant. We enjoyed the fruit very much indeed, together with the charged water, juices, and cigarettes such as we had found on other similar occasions. T h e Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences occupies a position of high prestige and is looked to for leadership by the government of Kazakhstan. T h e faces around our table were interesting to see; many of them had a pronounced middle-Asian cast, some even quite Mongolian. T h e remainder could have been American Indians or ordinary Europeans; however, the high-cheek-boned physiognomy predominated. T h e chairman had a particularly fine head with heavy features, a solemn and kindly man with an occasional twinkle which indicated an underlying sense of humor. There was one woman member present, with fine oriental features, jet-black hair; she wore Euro108

pean clothes, however—a black dress with a white silk scarf. T h e academy operates an astrophysics institute up in the mountains, which we are to visit in the afternoon. One of the problems they are much interested in concerns zodiacal light, which they say can be observed particularly well in the mountains. T h e r e is also an observatory for cosmic rays, where the academy's nuclear physics group works, and we shall also visit them this afternoon. T h e meeting at the academy adjourned after mutual compliments, and we carried away with us books on the academy's history and activities. We also carried away our large bouquets. We then returned for a lunch of the usual sort at our hotel, and at 3:30 P.M. we were off for the astrophysics institute in the mountains, about fifteen miles away. T h e drive up to the mountains was delightful; we followed a mountain stream through pleasant little valleys which narrowed and became eventually quite steep. Some of the cars did not perform too well and had to stop for water. When we reached our destination, we were not far from the snow-covered peaks which towered above us to the south. T h e institute is relatively new, having been established in 1950. T h e r e are three faculties; one concerned primarily with the sun, the second with astrophysics, and the third with the physics of the atmosphere. T h e director showed us photographs and copies of published work, and told us of the observations which his people were making in a routine fashion on the transits of the sputniks. T h e station is apparently well-equipped for the work upon which it is engaged; there are a number of telescopes and much apparatus for the measurement of 109

meteorological phenomena. They also said that they operated a station in Egypt in conjunction with the one we were visiting. Twelve expeditions have been sent out by this institute to various parts of the world. One was to investigate the great meteorite which fell many years ago in Siberia. T h e director who entertained us was a rather formal astronomer, who, however, seemed very competent indeed in the subjects upon which he spoke. He took us out to see some of the telescopes; one was of Russian design with a special lens and mirror combination, all-spherical, which combination he alleged to be equivalent to the Schmidt camera. Here, I believe, there must have been some confusion either in the translation or in my understanding. T h e r e were also photoelectric measuring devices and a special selenium photoelectric cell, which he said was being tried in its early stages and offered promise for great improvement in observing sources of very low intensity. T h e r e was also a telescope which had been removed from Potsdam some time ago and set up at their observatory. T h e work appeared to be good, but the communication between us seemed rather less adequate than we had encountered in visiting other institutions. We all enjoyed the trip very much and came away with considerable respect for the way in which the Russians handled activities at remote localities. W e then went back dinner at the home of there at half past seven large, comfortable old town, set in an orchard

to the hotel to freshen up for a the university rector. W e arrived and found that our host lived in a house, not far from the center of and with a garden which appeared 110

to have gone somewhat to seed and not been accorded the special care which the university grounds themselves received. T h e house had a classical portico and yet a definitely oriental flavor, both outside and in. T h e Russian motif was represented by an ormolu clock, but next to it was a typical Indian cabinet full of cut glass. T h e atmosphere was one of warm welcome, and all together there were some fifty guests. T h e table was enormous, and a most generous banquet had been prepared. Hors d'oeuvres of many sorts were served, featuring particularly sturgeon, stuffed peppers, hard-boiled eggs stuffed with fish, sausages, paté, salads, and various kinds of bread. Cognac, two wines, and vodka accompanied the first part of this collation, which was followed by chicken and delicious sautéed fish with peppery sauce, heaping plates of different vegetables, with ice cream for dessert, and finally coffee. There was a continuous series of speeches and toasts by the rector, his faculty, and by his guests. Most of these appeared to be heartfelt and in good faith, and given in high spirits. Occasionally there were some references to our differing ideologies, but these were minimized, and it was indicated that men of good intent should have no trouble surmounting such minor obstacles. I sat next to Professor J. S. Takibaev who is a correspondent of their Academy. He is a nuclear physicist at the university, and we talked physics as well as more general matters throughout the dinner. He had a very pleasant personality, and was dressed in the neat costume of the country, which includes a rather heavy linen shirt with a colored cross-stitch border. At the end of the evening gifts were delivered to all of us; some were given statuary, but I received a useful cigarette 111

box of lacquer with the opera house of Alma-Ata on the front. Behind it can be seen the lovely mountains where we had spent the afternoon. W e left the rector's house about 11 or 11:3ο P.M. and went back to our hotel to get our bags ready for an early departure. W e slept for a short time, and I found it easy to sleep, as the fresh mountain air blew in the window over my bed.

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Thursday,

July

io

It was a sleepy group that assembled in the lobby of the hotel about 2 A.M., but we were all there, even if not entirely in our right minds. Our cavalcade took us through the quiet streets to the airport, where we were greeted by our hosts of earlier in the evening, who outdid themselves in their hospitality. They were most thoughtful to get up and bid us good-by in the early hours of the morning. Our private plane had left us by this time, and so we had to take a small commercial plane, which bounced over the dirt airstrip and was off at 3 : 1 5 A.M. T h e moon was visible through the clouds. In relaxed comfort we continued our interrupted siestas as we sped from AlmaAta to Tashkent. T h e plane was not our private preserve this time, however, and we were accompanied by four very serious countrymen of strongly Turkish cast of countenance, who occupied the front seats. They snored rather loudly. We came down in Tashkent at 6 A.M., two and three-quarter hours after our take-off, and found the jet on the ramp, nearly ready to take us to Moscow. By half past six we were aboard and ready to go. Now we found ourselves in the large back section or tourist compartment. My seat faced the rear, so I had a good view of my fellow passengers—men, women, and children of all ages, a cross section of the central-Asian population. Most of them had rather seedy-looking luggage; I noted some mesh bags containing clothing and food. Like our trip south from Moscow, this one was also very pleasant. "S

W e rose rapidly to our altitude of 11,000 meters and traveled to our destination at 550 miles an hour. A good breakfast was provided—juice, bread, cheese, sausages, and coffee. After four hours we reached Moscow, where we joined the caravan ready to take us to the Hotel Ukraine. T h e washing up and repacking process was rather longer than I thought it would be, but as it was early in the morning there was no great hurry. We foregathered in the lobby and went to the embassy to pay our final call upon the ambassador. We also found some mail there, which was very welcome. Since we had some free time later in the morning, we went shopping; this was actually more of an exploratory than a shopping expedition, and we went into a number of the smaller Russian stores, where we found goods of fairly high quality. T h e only bit which took my eye, and which I would have purchased had it been less expensive, was a malachite-and-gold box, but the price was $1,600. We went into stores which sold wines and liquors, which were not particularly cheap by our standards. We also looked into some men's clothing stores, and were again impressed by the mediocrity of the quality of the clothes and by the relatively high prices that were asked for them. Bookstores, on the other hand, produced a very favorable impression. T h e y are large, numerous, and wellsupplied with books on all subjects. Good books are very cheap, technical books in particular apparently selling for about one-third of what we should have to pay for them in America. There is a great demand for these books; the bookstores do a good business and are often full of customers. Reproductions to be found in the books on art were 114

very good, though many of the small illustrated pamphlets which one finds about have very inferior illustrations. T h e ladies had prepared a cocktail party at the Prague Restaurant, which is, of course, spelled differently in Russian and pronounced " P r a h a . " T h i s was Deane Malott's sixtieth birthday, and the party was arranged by the Scaifes. It was late in the afternoon, the blinds were drawn, and the illumination was by candles, providing what the ladies considered to be an appropriate atmosphere. T h e dinner was a delicious one of shish kebab and many side dishes, plus an unusually varied assortment of wines and liquors. T h e dinner and our conversation continued until 1 1 : 3 0 P.M. We discussed our impressions in detail, exchanging views and sharing with one another information on the various sights which we had not all seen. We also talked a little bit about the general nature of the joint report which we proposed to formulate. At about midnight, we strolled back through the R e d Square, gaining a somewhat different impression of this large area under the subdued and impressive lighting, spotted by the glowing red stars on top of the towers and the shadows cast by the tomb of Lenin and Stalin and by St. Basil's.

'»5

Friday,

July

ii

T h e r e was some confusion about the next morning's plans, and these were in fact to be changed several times before anyone finally took off. T h e stay in the lobby of the hotel was somewhat longer than usual, and so we had more chance to watch the passing parade of people from all parts of the Soviet U n i o n and their guests from other nations. O n e particularly obtrusive g r o u p consisted of blue-zoot-suited athletes from U r u g u a y , who had come to Moscow to play soccer. T h e r e was also a rather

large

sprinkling of priests in the lobby that morning:

some

y o u n g men with fine fair hair and a light down on their chins, others with l o n g honey-colored beards and hair that came d o w n over their shoulders. A

few had very

aesthetic faces beneath black caps or broadbrimmed black hats. One's attention was caught by the swinging crucifixes. I have not mentioned the n u m b e r of picnics which we observed in the course of this tour, b u t there were a good many of them. People appear to enjoy eating in the open in Russia as much as they do in the United States. W e must have seen a score or more of little groups eating outside in the country in T b i l i s i and equal numbers in Tashkent, Samarkand, and Alma-Ata. Some of these were the small Biblical g r o u p of a father and mother and a small child, under a tree by a stream in the early morning; others were parties of a dozen or more, well-supplied with picnic baskets and bottles and apparently in jovial holiday mood. T h e y were all e n j o y i n g the outdoors, however; and it was 116

rare to see anyone sitting under a tree without having a small bag or folded napkin or jug at his side. O u r first visit that morning turned out to be our farewell call upon the Ministry of Higher Education. T h e minister was now present, and we found him very welcoming and regretful that he had not seen us on our first visit. We asked about the return delegation and he said we could expect one in October or November, that it would consist of the rectors of their leading universities, and that he would correspond with us in regard to a program during the month of J u l y . He hoped the planning would be as flexible with us as it had with them, in order that they could see as much as possible of things of particular interest to them. T h e minister and his two deputies, whom we had met before, gave us many statistics on this occasion, which, however, I will not recount in any detail. T o orient us, he said that the total budget of the Soviet Union was about six hundred billion rubles, and of this eighty billions went for education and culture, and some fifteen to seventeen billions for higher education. These figures include medicine, agriculture, and pedagogy. T h e cost of educating an engineer in the Soviet Union is estimated roughly at 100,000 rubles. A lawyer is cheaper; he costs only 40,000 rubles. Eighty-two per cent of all students now get scholarship stipends. A n expansion of from 25 to 30 per cent is expected in the ranks of higher education during the next five years. Of the budget, about half goes for salaries, one-quarter for stipends, and one-quarter for plant and other expenses. Plant expansion alone is estimated currently to be between twenty and twenty-two billion rubles. In talking about general planning in educa117

tion, the minister acknowledged that the pattern was determined centrally by his office, down to the textbooks which are used; but as far as personnel is concerned, both faculty and students, the determination in the individual instance is made locally. Probably they would continue to reject as many ten-year school graduates from their higher educational institutions in the future as in the past. T h e number of graduates from the ten-year schools will certainly increase more rapidly than they will be able to increase admission into their universities. About 5 1 per cent of the students in their institutions of higher education are women, and they do not think this percentage will change much; 36 per cent of the scientific research workers are women, though less than 10 per cent of the members of the Academy of the U.S.S.R. are women. Six per cent of the persons holding doctor's degrees in science are women; 39 per cent of the full-time attendants at the scientific and polytechnical institutes are women; and so are 44 per cent of those in agriculture, 69 per cent in medicine, and 70 per cent in pedagogy and the arts. Of the approximately 200 universities responsible to the ministry, the directors of eight are women. Some of these eight are their best educational administrators. T h e minister said that one of the people for whom he had the highest regard was the woman who served as director of the Tashkent T e x t i l e Institute. Some 35 per cent of the faculty in all establishments of higher education are women. H e confirmed the amount of time which is spent on physical education as being a general policy and a pattern adhered to throughout the country. He also commented 118

on the 800,000 persons who return to the universities for one or two months in connection with their correspondence work throughout the country. He said that there are no complaints from industry in this regard and that industry is enthusiastically behind this pattern. He spoke again of the retirement plan, of the five-year reviews, and of the general adequacy of the result, though these matters are under constant supervision by the ministry. A f t e r saying good-by to the people at the ministry, Keith and I went to visit one of the technical high schools, or technicums, in Moscow. T h e one that we visited is on the bank of the river, a little distance from the center of the city, and has 1,600 students specializing in welding, machine work, and the making of liquid oxygen. These students are all essentially full-time students who give ten months of the year to their work and have all had ten years of middle-schooling. T h e course lasts two and a half years. T h e technicum is responsible to the City of Moscow Regional Council. Besides their general technical curriculum, they have courses in mathematics, physics, and foreign languages. T h e y specialize in one of the three technical subjects I have just mentioned, and usually are associated with industries to which such activities are pertinent. Some of them work full-time in these industries and some part-time; there are two kinds of practical activity available: one is actually to work in industrial machine shops, and the other is to take practical courses for experience in these shops. T h e students at the technicum generally do both of these things in connection with their industry, and we should note that 20 per cent of the students in the technicum are girls.

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T h e salaries of the faculty members, as well as the scholarships, where the latter are available at the technicum, are the same as at the university. The basis of calculating these salaries, however, appears to be the number of hours taught at a certain rate of pay per hour. Students are rarely allowed to take courses at this technicum until they have had some industrial experience after their ten-year school. Sixty per cent of those admitted have had two years of such industrial experience; a number have worked more than two years; and, to be sure, a small minority have merely graduated from the ten-year school. None of the national ministries are concerned with this technicum, however, for the City of Moscow decides how large it is to be, and decides all matters of policy in its operation. As a result of his work in the technicum, the student is upgraded in his position in the industry or factory where he works. In contrast to the technica which we found associated with industries in various parts of the Soviet Union, this one was independent of a particular industry, but served equally the three types for which its curriculum was designed. The only area in which the Ministry of Education impinged upon the operation of the technicum was in determining the nature of the curriculum to be studied in the various specialties. Here the ministry provides the textbooks. Following this very interesting and profitable visit at the technicum, we drove back to the Prague Restaurant, where the Minister of Higher Education and his wife provided a very fine luncheon from Ι P.M. to 3 P.M. for about thirty-five guests, including our delegation. His deputies were there, as were also representatives of the university 120

and the technical institutes in the area. In addition to our own party, the ambassador and his wife and a few members of his staff attended. It was a most sumptuous affair, the culminating crescendo of all we had attended—three wines, vodka, and brandy, hors d'oeuvres of all kinds, including a new way of doing sturgeon, with lemon in aspic. T h e r e were delicious little rolls of white meat of chicken, cooked on spits with lemon and spice sauce, vegetables, fish, condiments of all sorts, winding up again with ice cream, cake, and coffee. T h e r e were the usual innumerable toasts to learning, peace, the ladies, and any other topic we could think of. T h e atmosphere was exceptionally hospitable, and our ambassador made a good speech on this occasion, pointing out that we must look to the future generations to build upon the friendship which we were establishing but which was somewhat impaired by our previous political relationships. We broke up in time to return to the hotel and be ready for a 4 P.M. departure by the S.A.S. Airline for Stockholm. In riding out to the airfield, I talked with Harry Gideonse about his very interesting visit to the pedagogic institute in Moscow, which has a five-year curriculum with four years of a foreign language; no work is specifically given in education in their pedagogic institutes, but a member of each regular faculty gives a course in the methods of teaching his subject. T h e people at this institute said they had no hand in selecting students, who are chosen for them by the ministry, which actually delivers 800 freshmen a year to their doors. T h e program appears to be an energetic one and the building good. Of course, elementary education is not under the ministry with which we 121

have been associated during our visit to the Soviet Union, but under the Ministry of Education; there are also provincial ministries of education, which are concerned with the same general problems in the republics. T h e s e maintain their own pedagogic institutes and work with them much the same as the Russian Minister of Education works with the one in Moscow. When we got to the airport, we were told that it would be closed until 7 P.M. T h i s would delay our take-off for about an hour and a half. T h e reason was that Premier Khrushchev was coming in from Berlin. Sure enough, at about half past six a large jet landed and rolled up to the airport ramp, right in front of our windows, and out popped the prime minister with a large entourage, and they were all whisked away in the long black cavalcade of cars with which we had become so familiar in our case. It was quite an occasion, and I'm sorry that we didn't have a chance to speak to him, though I'm glad to have had at least a view of him from a few hundred feet away. T h e trip to Stockholm was pleasant and uneventful; some of our party left us there; the rest of us, Keith, Franklin, Harry, the Scaifes, and I, transferred to a plane which went on to Copenhagen. T h e Scaifes continued on in this plane directly to N e w York, but the balance of our party deplaned and went to our several hotels in Copenhagen. T h i s is the end of the trip, and my next encounter with these gentlemen will be in Pittsburgh, to summarize our experiences. T h e r e are a few additional comments which I jotted down in Copenhagen. One of these is that in the Soviet Union the educational administrators continue to en122

gage in teaching to a surprising extent. T h e Minister of Higher Education is a metallurgist, and in addition to his ministerial duties he manages to teach about 100 hours a year—some three hours a week during the term at the University of Moscow. His wife also teaches. T h e deputy ministers are scientists, too, the word being generally employed to include scholarship of all sorts, and they teach, in addition to their administrative duties. At the final dinner given at the Prague Restaurant by the Minister of Higher Education, our ambassador emphasized in a toast the importance of our visit in the interest of mutual understanding, because, he said, the future relationships between our countries depend upon the next generation, the oldsters among us being so conditioned by experience and prejudice as to be almost irredeemable. The attitude, therefore, of the next generation toward the problems of peace and international relations should be a prime concern of institutions of higher education. It is important that we should know one another and work with one another in the education of students who may thus learn to live more understandingly and more peacefully together. Franklin Murphy was fond of the phrase res ipsa loquitur, which, in a liberal translation, means "the facts speak for themselves" or "there's nothing like taking a good look at a situation rather than hearing about it second hand." This certainly applied to our visit to the Soviet Union. 1 had thought that a master-minded economy would take ever so much more paper work than ours and would bog down in its own extensive bureaucracy, but, of course, it has the advantage of being planned. Instead of having to 123

follow the statistics generated by a free and uninhibited economic system resulting from the activities of millions of private entrepreneurs, one can in the Soviet Union establish definite and consistent policies and carry them out, knowing pretty much what the statistics are going to be in advance. T h o u g h the Soviet system reduces the freedom of enterprise, it contributes to efficiency of operation, and what paper work is made by the system is also to some extent obviated by the system. T h e material well-being of those parts of the U.S.S.R. we visited is indisputable. Moscow and Leningrad are naturally the most impressive, but they are older cities and located in an area long touched by western civilization. Even here, however, the advance is impressive, and much more so among the Kazakhs and Uzbeks in the distant east of Asia. T h e r e the difference in their state since the revolution is the difference between night and day; their cultural integrity has been reclaimed, and for this they are very thankful. Of course, many of the more intransigent souls have been liquidated in the process, but folk music, dancing, singing, and the maintenance of the old customs are all flourishing and in no way interfered with by the state; they have, in fact, been specifically fostered and nurtured by the central planning which radiates from Moscow. T h e people appear to regard the Communist Party as beneficent tyranny; there is no one to question the tyranny and few the beneficent aspect. T h e r e is, however, no built-in device for correcting abuses when they arise, and the history of human nature is that abuses always arise. T h e party has shown some sensitivity to popu124

lar opinion, especially in the last few years. T h i s may either enable the party to perpetuate itself, or it may be the leak in dike which will give it trouble in the future. Education may also go far toward the formulation of an intelligent public opinion and reduce the previous historical tendency to resort to force when disagreement arises on economic or social matters. On the other hand, this may not be the case. W e are largely the products of our past experience, and our own prime concerns are not necessarily those of the U.S.S.R. We can neither bid time return nor hold it back: we can only try to prepare for a future we cannot foresee.

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