I found this travelogue of Danish author Hans Scherfig’s 1950 trip to the USSR. I think it will be of interest to people here so I have translated it. The illustrations are by Scherfig himself.

In chapter 2 the party plans their trip and Scherfig clowns on western mainstream media and compares Soviet and American mentality. The party enjoys a good lunch at a factory cafeteria.

Travels in the Soviet Union

Table of Contents

Chapter 2

You gain but a faint sense of this country’s immense vastness when you stand on a railway station in Moscow and watch the trains come in. These locomotives with the large red star on the front and the broad green carriages with small windows and neat curtains have been travelling for days on end. Trains arrive with winter-clad people from cities where the snow still lies deep and where winter lasts nine months, and trains arrive with sun-scorched people from deserts and subtropical regions. The express train from Murmansk is two days underway; the express from Odessa has been en route for more than thirty hours. It takes nine days at uninterrupted speed to come by train from Vladivostok to Moscow. Travellers come from regions where polar bears and snowy owls live, and people come by train from places where there are tigers and flamingos. So terribly vast is this land that the sun itself takes ten hours to cross it from east to west.

The Danish newspapers are quite right when they write that we cannot get to know the Soviet Union in a couple of weeks. We could hardly manage it in a couple of years. Still, you can learn more about life in the Soviet Union from a short visit than you can at a Copenhagen newsroom, where you only have telegrams from Washington and your own bad faith to go by. No one prevented us from looking around on our own, or speaking to whomever we liked, or making private calls. We were not kept on a leash, and no one had bothered to put up Potemkin villages for us. VOKS attended to all practical matters: all arrangements, meals, ticket bookings, cars, passports, journeys, and so forth. We were spared the hassle, the wasted time, and the expense, and could therefore use our time more efficiently. But naturally we could do as we pleased and roam about and go exploring on our own; we also had telephones in our rooms, and the fully automatic devices were easy to operate. VOKS is housed in an old, handsome palace at a place called Bolshaya Gruzinskaya, ten minutes by car from our hotel. There, on our very first day, we negotiated the programme for our stay and presented our wishes. We wanted a lot. We were not modest. There were twelve of us in the delegation, and we all had different trades, different interests, and different demands. Member of Parliament Alfred Jensen wished to see factories and trade unions, and Assistant Professor Erik Stahl wished to visit schools and study folk music. Trade-union chairman Carlo Hermansen wished to go out to building sites and speak with fellow bricklayers, and Margrethe Lomholt, MD wished to see nurseries and hospitals and reformatories. Roman Szomlaiski, who is a weaver, naturally wished to visit textile factories, while Professor Mogens Fog demanded to see nerve clinics and mental asylums. Professor Gabrielsen wished to see universities and institutes and speak with biologists, and the chairman of the typographers’ union, Willy Brauer, wished to study conditions within the graphic trades and see Pravda’s printing works. Stage director Evald Rasmussen wished to see theatres, and since he had seen a great many performances, he also demanded to be allowed to look behind the scenes. Christian Madsen, who is chairman of the unemployed in Aalborg, had to give up his study of unemployment problems, since the present generation in the Soviet Union has never known unemployment and does not understand the phenomenon. Here, truly, was a shortage the Danish bourgeois press ought to make note of.

Chinese at the hotel, Moscow, may 1950

I wanted to visit the writers’ union, and I wanted to look at paintings and art schools and have the opportunity to question painters and museum people. But apart from that, we all wanted to see all sorts of things. And we did not just want to see the sights; we wanted to try to form an impression of ordinary daily life. We would not content ourselves with visiting museums; we wanted to go into shops and department stores and study prices and goods. We wanted to see workers’ clubs and canteens, cafés and places of entertainment. We wanted to go out into the countryside and see Russian villages and collective farms and talk to peasants. We also wanted to visit cities other than Moscow and republics other than the Russian.

All the wishes we brought were granted. Everything we asked to see, we were shown. It was really quite an achievement on VOKS’s part to organize a programme that could satisfy such a variety of demands in just a couple of weeks, especially since the Danes were not the only foreigners in town — there were twenty other delegations in Moscow at the same time. The Danish government press, ever diligent in its efforts to foster cordial relations between our country and the Soviet Union, had already before my return home reproached me for not having visited prisons and penal camps in Siberia. I must confess that I have never expressed a desire to inspect prisons, whether in the Soviet Union or anywhere else I have travelled. I do recall, however, that tourists in New York could see the execution chamber with the electric chair at Sing Sing for a dollar and were allowed to sit in the worn seat and shudder a little, but I have not found this tourist attraction appealing. Had there been a legal scholar in our delegation, he would without doubt have visited prisons and studied Russian law, as indeed Professor Hurwitz did in his time. But no one in this delegation — not even editor Anker Kirkeby — thought of making any request for prison visits. And of all the delegation’s demanding members, Anker Kirkeby was surely the most troublesome for our hosts. We were very fond of him, because his journalistic immodesty also benefited the rest of us. Among his many demands was a stubborn insistence on meeting the famous dancer Galina Ulanova; he simply refused to leave the Soviet Union before he had had a personal meeting with this lady. Serfdom having been abolished even before the Revolution of 1917, Soviet law has no provisions whereby a dancer can be compelled to endure the company of Anker Kirkeby against her will. And yet VOKS managed to bring the meeting about. I do not know what means of coercion were applied to Ulanova, but Kirkeby got this wish fulfilled as well.

We were already aware, on that first day, that the stay would be no holiday. There was little time for sleep at night; our good beds at the hotel were in use only a few hours of the day. People like to say that the Russians have plenty of time, and that everything in the vast realm proceeds slowly and combersomely. That is not true. There is, I dare say, nowhere on earth where people work harder or faster than in the Soviet Union, and nowhere that reconstruction has advanced so far as in this country, which suffered greater losses through the devastations of war than all the rest of Europe combined. But it is true that the people in the Soviet Union seem to have plenty of time. They are, quite simply, without nerves. They do not push and shove at the trams or in the metro. Trains run every other minute, no one stoops to pushing or shouldering others aside, as those nervous New Yorkers do in their subway. I have seen Americans bolt to their offices like madmen, shed their jackets, make feverish preparations for breakneck work, then sit down to solve crossword puzzles with a tense expression, as though life and death depended on it. I have seen Americans on their lunch break eating standing up, reading colourful serials, chewing gum and smoking cigarettes, while they were slurping down hot soup, and while the attendant stood behind them screaming: Hurry up! Hurry up! There are others waiting!

I do not believe it is due to Oriental indolence when Russian workers take their meals in a more dignified manner. We saw the cafeterias at several factories; they resembled luxury restaurants, with marble floors, flowers, and heavy damask tablecloths on the small tables. At the Kalibr factory we asked if we might take our midday meal in the cafeteria alongside the workers, and cancel the dinner waiting for us at the hotel. We insisted on having the day’s ordinary menu. There were various things to choose from. We had solyanka, a [Line missing due to printing error] cream, afterwards we had a large pork chop with vegetables and salad, and finally red porridge like back home, served in a glass. This meal costs the workers 1.5 rubles.

Okhotny Street, Moscow 1950

Standard of living can be calculated in many ways. Statistically, an American worker has a very high standard of living. But in America they smash the milk bottles once they have drunk the milk, and this yields a higher personal consumption in the statistics. The costs of advertising and packaging are included, and advertising creates fashions that shorten the lifespan of useful things; you throw away your old fountain pen when a new one is advertised that can write under water. If advertising could persuade people to smash their plates after every meal and thereby save on washing up, the standard of living would rise statistically. In Moscow you pay three rubles deposit for a milk bottle. Some propaganda is conducted to save on packaging; wrapping paper is reused, the used sack is handed back, it is the same thrift you find in France.

Shops and department stores were well stocked, and there was always a crush. The shops do not open until 11 AM, and many establishments remain open until 11 PM. It takes time to reach the counter and locate what you want, but even here people are calm and peaceable. There is a different atmosphere among people than in the Wild West, a friendly cheerfulness, a wonderful innocence that would be difficult to understand in the liberal democracy of neuroses. Here is a people without nerve tablets. People work very hard, and they are very busy, but they do not waste time shouting about their busyness; they are not wound-up and bitter; they probably accomplish what they set out to do, and it probably goes easier when they do not hustle and snap at others. A great deal of work can be done when you don’t need to set aside time for costly relaxation exercises because you are too busy.

The Kremlin

The two psychiatrists in the delegation could confirm this observation. The child psychologist Dr. Margrethe Lomholt noted that never in her time here had she seen a mother grab and wrench her child to make it go the way she wanted. It should scarcely need saying that grown teachers naturally do not hit small children. Corporal punishment is of course prohibited in Soviet schools; so is, by the way, detention as well. They would not believe us when we told them at a school that Danish schools still uses corporal punishment, that the authorities tolerate it, and that the teachers themselves, through their organization, have admitted that they are incapable of maintaining discipline without resorting to violence. They did not believe us. But on this point Denmark seems to occupy a special position with respect to both the Eastern and the Western world.

Original Danish text

Rejse i Sovjetunionen

II

Man får en svag forestilling om dette lands umådelige størrelse, når man står på en banegård i Moskva og ser togene komme ind. Disse lokomotiver med den store røde stjerne foran og disse brede grønne waggoner med små vinduer og meget sirlige gardiner har været flere døgn undervejs. Der kommer tog med vinterklædte mennesker fra byer, hvor sneen endnu ligger højt, og hvor vinteren varer ni måneder, og der kommer tog med solbrændte mennesker fra ørkener og subtropiske egne. Eksprestoget fra Murmansk er to døgn undervejs, ekspressen fra Odessa har været mere end 30 timer om turen. Det tager ni døgn i uafbrudt fart at komme med toget fra Vladivostok til Moskva. Der kommer rejsende fra egne, hvor der lever isbjørne og sneugler, og der kommer folk med toget fra steder, hvor der er tigre og flamingoer. Så forfærdeligt stort er dette land, at det tager selve solen ti timer at vandre hen over det fra øst til vest.

De danske aviser har ganske ret, når de skriver, at vi ikke kan lære Sovjetunionen at kende på et par uger. Vi kunne vel ikke engang nå det på et par år. Men selv på kort tid kan man dog erfare noget mere om livet i Sovjetunionen, end man kan på en københavnsk bladredaktion, hvor man kun har telegrammer fra Washington og sin egen dårlige vilje at gå efter. Der var i hvert fald ingen, der forhindrede os i at se os om på egen hånd eller tale med hvem, vi ville, eller aflægge private besøg. Vi blev ikke ført i ledebånd, og man havde ikke gjort sig den ulejlighed at bygge Potemkin-kulisser for os. VOKS ordnede alle praktiske ting: alle arrangementer, måltider, billetbestillinger, biler, pas, rejser o.s.v. Vi var fri for alt besvær og tidsspilde og udgifter og kunne derfor udnytte tiden mere effektivt. Men naturligvis kunne vi foretage os, hvad vi ville og strejfe rundt og gå på opdagelse alene, vi havde også telefoner på værelserne, og de helautomatiske apparater var lette at betjene. VOKS har til huse i et gammelt kønt palæ på et sted, der hedder Bolsjaia Grusinskaja ti minutters bilkørsel fra vores hotel. Herude forhandlede vi allerede den første dag om programmet for vores ophold og kom frem med vores ønsker. Vi ønskede meget. Vi var ikke beskedne. Vi var tolv i delegationen, og vi havde allesammen forskelligeremoved, forskellige interesser og forskellige forlangender. Folketingsmand Alfred Jensen ville se fabrikker ogremovedforeninger, og adjunkt Erik Stahl ville besøge skoler og studere folkemusik.removedforeningsformand Carlo Hermansen ville ud på byggepladser og tale med murerkolleger, og dr. Margrethe Lomholt ville se på børnehaver og hospitaler og opdragelsesanstalter. Roman Szomlaiski, som er væver, ville naturligvis besøge textilfabrikker, mens professor Mogens Fog forlangte at se nerveklinikker og sindssygeanstalter. Professor Gabrielsen ville se universiteter og institutter og tale med biologer, og formanden for typografernesremovedforening, Willy Brauer ønskede at studere forholdene inden for de grafiskeremoved og se Pravdas trykkeri. Sceneinstruktør Evald Rasmussen ville se teatre, og da han havde set en masse forestillinger, forlangte han også at få lov til at kigge bag kulisserne. Christian Madsen, som er formand for de arbejdsløse i Ålborg, måtte opgive at studere arbejdsløshedsproblemer, eftersom den nulevende generation i Sovjetunionen ikke har kendt arbejdsløse og ikke forstår fænomenet. Her var virkelig en mangel, som den borgerlige danske presse bør notere sig.

Jeg ville gerne besøge forfatterforeningen, og jeg ville gerne se på malerier og kunstskoler og have lejlighed til at udspørge malere og museumsfolk. Men forøvrigt ville vi allesammen se alt muligt. Og vi ville ikke bare se seværdigheder, men prøve på at få et indtryk af det normale daglige liv. Vi ville ikke nøjes med at se museer, vi ville gå i butikker og magasiner og studere priser og varer. Vi ville se arbejder-klubber og kantiner, caféer og forlystelser. Vi ville ud på landet og se russiske landsbyer og kollektivbrug og tale med bønder. Vi ville også gerne besøge andre byer end Moskva og andre republikker end den russiske.

Alle de ønsker, vi kom med, blev opfyldte. Alt, hvad vi forlangte at se, fik vi at se. Det var i virkeligheden ganske godt klaret af VOKS at få organiseret et program, der på et par uger kunne imødekomme denne mangfoldighed af ønsker, navnlig da der foruden danskerne befandt sig 20 andre udenlandske delegationer i Moskva på den samme tid. Den danske regeringspresse, som jo bestandig bestræber sig for at styrke det gode forhold mellem vores land og Sovjetunionen, har allerede før min hjemkomst bebrejdet mig, at jeg ikke har besøgt fængsler og straffelejre i Sibirien. Jeg må indrømme, at jeg ikke har ytret noget ønske om at se fængsler hverken i Sovjetunionen eller i andre lande, jeg har berejst. Jeg erindrer ganske vist, at turister i New York for en dollar kunne se henrettelsesværelset med den elektriske stol i Sing Sing og få lov at sætte sig i den slidte stol og gyse lidt, men jeg har ikke fundet denne turistattraktion tiltalende. Hvis der havde været en jurist i vores delegation, ville han urvivlsomt have besøgt fængsler og studeret russisk retspleje, sådan som bl. a. professor Hurwitz i sin tid gjorde. Men ingen i denne delegation — ikke engang redaktør Anker Kirkeby — fandt på at fremsætte nogen anmodning om fængselsbesøg. Og af alle delegationens fordringsfulde medlemmer var Anker Kirkeby sikkert den besværligste for vores værter. Vi var meget glade for ham, fordi hans journalistiske ubeskedenhed også kom os andre til gode. Blandt hans mange fordringer var der også et stædigt krav om at træffe den berømte danserinde Galina Ulanova; han nægtede simpelthen at forlade Sovjetunionen, før han havde haft et personligt møde med denne dame. Eftersom livegenskabet var afskaffet allerede før revolutionen i 1917, findes der faktisk ikke nogen lovhjemmel i Sovjetunionen, som kan tvinge en danserinde til at være sammen med Anker Kirkeby mod sin vilje. Og alligevel lykkedes det VOKS at bringe mødet istand. Jeg ved ikke, hvilke magtmidler, der er blevet bragt i anvendelse over for Ulanova, men Kirkeby fik også dette ønske opfyldt.

Vi var allerede denne første dag klare over, at opholdet ikke ville blive nogen ferie. Der blev ikke megen tid til nattesøvn, vores gode senge på hotellet var kun i brug få timer i døgnet. Det siges gerne, at russerne har god tid, og at alting i det store rige foregår langsomt og omstændeligt. Det er ikke rigtigt. Der er vist ingen steder, man arbejder hårdere og hurtigere end i Sovjetunionen, og der er ingen steder, hvor man er kommet så vidt med genopbygningen, som i dette land, der har haft større tab ved krigens ødelæggelser end alle Europas andre lande tilsammen. Men det er rigtigt, at folk i Sovjetunionen synes at have god tid. De er nemlig ganske unervøse. Man maser og puffer ikke ved sporvogne eller i undergrundsbanen. Der går tog hvertandet minut, og ingen nedlader sig til at skubbe eller vælte andre mennesker, sådan som de nervøse New Yorkere gør i deres subway. Jeg har set amerikanere styrte afsted som vilde til deres kontor og smide jakken og træffe febrilske forberedelser til forceret arbejde og derefter sætte sig til at løse krydsord-opgaver med en anspændt mine, som om det gjaldt liv og død. Jeg har set amerikanere spise i deres frokostpause, stående op, læsende kulørte serier, tyggende gummi og rygende cigaret, mens de slubrede varm suppe i sig, og mens opvarteren stod bag ved og skreg: Hurry up! Hurry up! Der er andre, der skal til!

Jeg tror ikke, det skyldes orientalsk sløvhed, når russiske arbejdere indtager deres måltider på en mere værdig måde. Vi så kantinerne på flere fabrikker, de lignede luxusrestauranter, med marmorgulve, blomster og svære damaskduge på småbordene. I fabrikken Kaliber spurgte vi, om vi ikke kunne få lov til at spise til middag i kantinen sammen med fabrikkens arbejdere og afbestille den ventende middag på hotellet. Og vi forlangte at få dagens normale menu. Der var forskelligt at vælge imellem. Det blev til soljanka, en [Linje mangler på grund af trykfejl] fløde, bagefter fik vi en stor kotelet med grøntsager og salat og tilsidst hjemlig rødgrød, serveret i glas. Dette måltid koster arbejderne 1½ rubel.

Man kan beregne levefoden på mange måder. Statistisk har en amerikansk arbejder en meget høj levefod. Men i Amerika knuser man mælkeflaskerne, når man har drukket mælken, og det giver et højere personligt forbrug i statistikken. Udgifterne til reklame og emballage regnes med, og reklamen skaber moder, som forkorter nyttige tings levetid; man smider sin gamle fyldepen væk, når der agiteres for en ny, som kan skrive under vand. Hvis man gennem reklame kan formå folk til at smadre tallerknerne efter hvert måltid og på den måde spare opvasken, vil levefoden stige i statistikken. I Moskva må man give tre rubler i pant for en mælkeflaske. Der drives en vis propaganda for at spare på emballage, man bruger indpakningspapiret engang til, man afleverer den brugte sæk, det er sparsommelighed som i Frankrig.

Butikker og stormagasiner var velforsynede, og der var altid trængsel. Butikkerne åbner først kl. 11 om formiddagen, og mange forretninger har så åbent til kl. 23. Det tager en vis tid at nå frem til disken og finde, hvad man vil have, men også her er folk unervøse og fredelige. Der er en anden atmosfære mellem mennesker end i det vilde vesten, en venlig munterhed, en forunderlig uskyldighed, som man vil have ondt ved at forstå i neurosernes liberale demokrati. Her er et folk uden nerve-tabletter. Man arbejder meget hårdt, og man har meget travlt, men man spilder ikke tiden med at råbe op om sin travlhed, man er ikke anspændt og forbitret; man når nok det, man har sat sig for, og det går nok lettere, når man ikke maser og skælder ud. Man kan få svært meget arbejde fra hånden, når man ikke behøver afse tid til kostbare afslapningsøvelser, fordi man har for travlt.

De to nervelæger, som var med i delegationen, kunne bekræfte denne iagttagelse. Børnepsykologen, dr. Margrethe Lomholt bemærkede, at hun aldrig herovre havde set en mor, som rev og ruskede i sit barn for at få det til at gå den vej, hun ville. At voksne lærere naturligvis ikke slår små børn, turde det være overflødigt at nævne. Pryglestraf er selvfølgelig forbudt i Sovjetunionens skoler, oversidning forøvrigt også. Man ville ikke tro os, da vi på en skole fortalte, at man i danske skoler endnu opretholder korporlig straf, at myndighederne tolererer det, og at lærerne selv gennem deres organisation har erkendt, at de ikke evner at opretholde disciplinen uden ved hjælp af vold. Man troede os ikke. Men på dette punkt har Danmark vist også en særstilling både over for den østlige og den vestlige verden.

  • StillNoLeftLeft [none/use name, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    il y a 5 jours

    These are amazing, can’t wait for the next chapter. Thank you!

    Also:

    Serfdom having been abolished even before the Revolution of 1917, Soviet law has no provisions whereby a dancer can be compelled to endure the company of Anker Kirkeby against her will.

    What a fire.