23-II-1978.

Ljuba and I were roommates, of course. The room has high ceilings with some molded ornaments, not too ornate. We were wondering where the microphones may be hidden. Concluded that we don't care, who fucks them. There's a general consensus that they don't touch foreign tourists, specially not Yugos, the worst that can happen if you're really caught with smuggling is that you remain confined to your hotel room for the duration of the trip.

We had brought stuff to sell - jeans, LP records - and one of the girls had a friend downtown, so he came and bought all four LPs of mine for 100 rubles, which was just about one smaller monthly salary. I think I also sold my old vijetnamka (aka quasi military style) winter jacket, was not thick enough anyway, and a few other things. I think we got seriously drunk the night before, don't remember on what - thought the fake tequila we drank two evenings ago (which made my shit stink like hell, or rather like bad plum destillery remains left on a heap for weeks and then mucked over) would have made me pause. I remember that after that transaction I entered the elevator (from about 24th floor down to our 8th) and just thinking that it's gonna go quickly down, got my stomach so queasy that I rushed back to their room and puked my guts out.

Me on Arbat. People weren't staring openly, just discretely.

Me on Arbat. People weren't staring openly, just discretely.

Soviet hotels are too big to have just central bars, so there's one on each floor. Small jobs with just a dozen seats, and a cash register and a sčotka (abacus) on which all the calculation is done. The cash register is just there to keep track and print the receipt. We discovered that ours is just in front of our room, so after returning from breakfast (excellent rye bread, real butter, good hotel coffee) we decided that we'll skip the tour of museums and whatnot, and will visit this bar first. They had some beer, 0,33l, "naša marka" (our brand), which was kind of sweet-ish, cold and simply sliding through the throat. Amazingly good. We paid and got up to go, and then immediately sat back on the bench. Stroooong... so we had another one, this time braced for the impact.

Mentions: Ljubivoje Tomić (Ljuba), in serbian

16-XII-2019 - 23-II-2025