24-II-1978.
Moscow, third day. We again skipped the packaged sheep tour and messed around the hotel, doing more smuggling. I kept my praktika in a small shoulder bag which dad bought probably in 1958, it was still in one piece and fully functional. However, I overloaded it when we bought a bottle of vodka, appropriately overpriced (but finding it in shops would take hours which we didn't have), in the hotel restaurant after breakfast. It fell out as we were leaving, and the waitress, cute and somewhat wild, said "U menja čornije glaza" (my eyes are black/spellcasting), i.e. she hexed my bag. I said something to doubt the quality of vodka, it must be something watered down for us tourists. So I pulled out my lighter (the narrow bordeaux metal thingy, refillable, the space between the flame adjusting wheel and the flint wheel being intentionally too small so it broke before the end of year) and lit the puddle on the marble floor. It burned, but not much. Just about right for 50%. We bought another one.
This day we did go with the sheep in the morning, to see the Lenjin's mausoleum, Red square, Czar-cannon and Czar-bell. Waited a lot but still not as much as the others. The tourist guys here know the Yugos, we won't take waiting in line for too long. If it's longer than 20 minutes, the group disperses but for the last five nutcases who really want to get in. The others just won't bother. So they escorted us to the shorter line.
Having sold almost all we wanted to, we started helping girls sell their stuff. We met these on the street when they were returning from a visit, and we from a walk around the Red square, where we found a nice little clock shop, and both bought a pocket watch with a chain. The guy in the shop put each on the oscilloscope and adjusted their rhythms just right. Now we'll see how long will it stay right. [It turned that it lost it within weeks, it's no top notch mechanics, but not by much - it would go off a couple of minutes a week, not too shabby for 25 rubles]
(the girl on the right is the one with a friend in town; the smaller one I'll meet again in Budapest on 07-IX-1999., the big one I don't remember at all, probably the previous year but just went with us - we had maybe ten of those with us; the building in the background is our hotel)
I remember having two guys from Dagestan in our room, looking over the wares. The trade went well - didn't sell much, but for what we did the price was right.
The four LPs I brought along (Nektar, George Harrison's "Material world", some late BS&T, and the old PGP's pressing of "Tubular bells", now that I had the quadrophonic edition, which I'll never hear so) went via another channel. One colleague had a friend in town, so she brought a pal of hers who had the money. Each LP went for 25 rubles - and 120 rubles was just around a normal monthly salary.
On the way down from the transaction, I just imagined at which speed will the elevator go down from 17th to 3rd floor, and rushed back into their room, luckily the door was still open. I puked my soul out, who knows how much we drank last night.
Mentions: 03-IX-1984., 07-IX-1999., BS&T, praktika, in serbian
16-XII-2019 - 18-III-2026