1990

1990: Moscow. The Ukraine Hotel's Breakfast Room.

In 1989 and 1990 I had taught myself Russian and even attended a course in Russian at the University of Canberra, in which I got a High Distinction. I got to the point where I could speak reasonable tourist Russian. Later in 1990 (still days of the USSR) Warren Atkins and I were staying in Moscow, in fact in the prestigious Ukraine Hotel, a Stalinist-style hotel adjacent to the Parliament (White House), where there were two types of customers, tourists like us who were expected to use premium facilities and pay premium prices, and Russians, who had rough conditions.

On each floor of the hotel there was a woman who generally sat all day doing nothing. I asked her in Russian where the breakfast room was. I must have sounded genuine as she directed us to the Russian cafe, where the workers were, the atmosphere was bleak, the cost was just 40 kopek and the food was awful, very poorly processed coffee bread, etc.