MemorySAKHAROV’S BELTBy Vassily Golovanov
September 2006
SourceIt’s so sad to be just a memory of the years of freedom
Shortly before New Year holidays I went shopping for presents. It was easy to choose them in the former Culture pavilion at the former All-Union Exhibition of Economic Achievements, where I soon found an interesting boutique of Indian goods owned by a proud descendant of Incas, who in solemn silence was offering customers ponchos and sombreros, as well as crude imitations of various things, for instance, pipes for smoking hemp made of ordinary plastic.
Hardly had I found this boutique, when the pram in which my four-month-old son was sleeping broke down. The descendant of Incas paid tribute to my composure and, with a friendly grunt, offered me a long capron cord to mend the carriage. But I stopped him with a gesture and, having taken the belt out of my trousers, tried to put the thing right. This belt helped me in various predicaments more than once, but this time fate played a dirty trick on me. It broke almost immediately. It was a real good leather belt which served me well for many years, but the main thing was that it used to belong to Andrei Sakharov.
I have never met Sakharov and never thought that I shall wear his belt. The belt was presented to me soon after Sakharov died by my friend Yury Rost. He was the only Soviet journalist meeting Sakharov at the railway station when he was returning from his exile in Gorky on December 23, 1986. He brought to the editorial office of the Literaturnaya gazeta the recording he had made of Sakharov’s replies to foreign correspondents there. We assembled in the room of one of our colleagues, listened to it attentively and realized that it couldn’t be published. Several days later Yury Rost took a photo of Sakharov which was published in the Moscow News after he died.
I don’t know why Yury Rost presented me with Sakharov’s belt. Perhaps because of his exceptional sensitivity toward things. He believed that things have their own strength and apparently wanted this belt to become something like a support to me in my life. Yury Rost himself uses for this purpose a rope from the yacht on which he once crossed the Atlantic.
I realized whose belt I wore and appreciated it. Perhaps, it really did help me. I was entrusted to wear this belt, which meant that I could be trusted. And, naturally, they gave it to me not for being a loafer, a drunkard or a coward, not for succumbing to hatred and frenzy.
I have seen Sakharov only on TV. I well remember his speech at the 2nd Congress of People’s Deputies shortly before his death. He tried to bring home to the rude aggressive majority his noble ideas, while Gorbachev, sitting in the presidium, did everything to silence him. I remember how most of those present in the hall laughed almost in unison and began to applaud him in a communist manner as soon as he opened his mouth, and that was why the words which he tried to shout sounded strange and were almost inaudible and unintelligible. He was absolutely lonely at that gathering. He demanded that Article 6 of the Constitution which proclaimed the leading role of the communist party be abolished. He demanded that our country develop in another direction. But at that time it was impossible and all sober-minded free-thinkers realized this.
The knight of freedom called slaves to freedom, but they mocked him.
It was only after his death that it became clear what happened on that day and what price was paid for his “nonsensical” words.
I had worn Sakharov’s belt for many years. It was on me during northern expeditions, on the Yenisei and Dvina Rivers and it accompanied me in all important turns of my life. I took care of it and it faithfully served me in important circumstances. Once I used it to bring to the camp a bundle of logs gathered in the tundra, on another occasion it served as a tow for a boat, and on still another I bound a broken chair with it. This black modestly-looking belt with a yellow brass clasp had lived a long, interesting and useful life, full of real dignity, which all these new fashionable belts have no idea of.
When it broke, I had to buy a new one, but I keenly felt the cold indifference of a new leather, a leather without history.
Then I tied together the parts of the torn belt and went to see Yury Rost to talk to him about time and things. Our conversation took such a strange turn that I tape-recorded it in order to remember some of the details which might be of interest later. Because quite a few years have passed and now we can better understand and see many things which have been left.
“What was left?” Yury asked and answered himself: “First, there is a feeling of a greater order in thoughts. It should be said that Sakharov influenced me greatly, without wishing it himself. It was a purely human influence. A great many negatives and tapes have been left. I am keeping all the cassettes. On one of them there is his unique lecture, a lecture in physics which he read to me alone. Once, as a student, he read a lecture to post-graduates, but inasmuch as they didn’t understand what he was talking about, he decided that he couldn’t be a lecturer. And once, sitting at a kitchen-table, I asked him to give a lecture on physics to me, but warned him that I had graduated from the institute of physical culture and sport. He did read me a lecture lasting fifteen minutes. It is here on tape. As to the other things left, there is the feeling of trust which he felt, as it seems, to me. Another thing left is very good relations with his widow Yelena Bonner, whom I love and respect a great deal. And two more things are left: the beret he wore and the axe.”
“Axe?”
“Yes, axe. Nothing unusual about it, but the point is that the handle for it was made by Sakharov himself.” And Yury showed me this instrument looking rather clumsy.
“And did Sakharov have a style of clothes of his own?”
“Yes. He wore a suit with a tie, just as it was accepted. This was the official style, but at home he looked differently, wearing the same things almost all the time: jeans, a flannel shirt and two woolen jackets, usually put on one arm, for some reason. They were quite warm. He also liked berets. And he didn’t like new things. When I photographed him, I noticed that the glasses he wore looked rather strange. They were small, round and black-rimmed. It turned out that in the 1920s, when he learnt that he was near-sighted and would have this defect for life, he bought twenty such spectacles, so that he would not think of the problem any longer. He got used them and liked them. I felt that Sakharov was the least interested in clothes, and he would have been quite satisfied if he could buy five pairs of jeans and jackets. In short, he had everything to remain what he was…Sakharov…, that’s all.”
When I try to remember the time when Sakharov died and his belt began an independent life, I have to go deep into my memory, casting aside many events of the past epoch because that was before everything: before the downfall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania, before the beginning of the “developments” in Armenia and Azerbaijan, before the events in Baku and Vilnius, before the unveiling of the monument to the victims of Stalin’s terror, the removal of the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky in the days of the August coup, before Chechnya, before terror… At the time Yeltsin was simply a frondeur without enough guts to bring his revolt to the logical end. As to Putin, not a single person had heard anything about him. And no one would have bet a ruble for that man from the faceless mass of people to be able to take the whole country in an iron grip and make it fear something unknown and keep silent…
Sakharov died and his death could not pass simply unnoticed. The country should have changed.
Yes, Gorbachev interrupted him time and again, and the communist scum didn’t let him speak. But they were unable to stifle the entire people and keep them mum. We were young and impatient and believed in doing good, but the young eagles of the KGB were mature enough from the very tender age, they studied political technology, the theory and practice of political provocations and the use of unshooting weapons such as money, mass media, silencing and intimidation, organization of unstable crisis situations, the nurturing of apathy and socio-depressive psychosis among the population, etc.
Having finished the book on which I had been working the last five years, I felt that I have lived another “internal” life which are several in each person.
And Sakharov’s belt was with me all the time. But it snapped.
And I thought that I’d take it with me into the future, not as a museum item, but as an object of use which should yet to be found.
It’s sad to be only a memory of the past events and the years of freedom which we gained as a result of the defeat in the Cold War, the defeat which relieved us of so many preposterous imperial obligations, but we failed, or didn’t want to use it properly…