Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
between socialism and capitalism in Britain and France. I had grown up on Amer-
ica's more liberal coastal fringes, in Massachusetts and Oregon. In 1976, the war in
Vietnam had only recently ended, brought to its humiliating conclusion, from an
American perspective, by Richard Nixon in the face of mounting losses and hostil-
ity to the draft.
[3]
In 1976, there were no major wars being fought and just a whiff of change in the
air in relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. The space race
had ended and joint missions were being discussed. There had been a string of
treaties limiting the testing and proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology.
Talks on limiting such weapons were underway. The media had to content itself
with the occasional spy scandal or a fatal shooting of some poor individual trying
to cross from East to West Berlin. But if there was change in the air, it was still a
very tense time. Our small team of climbers was headed where few from the West
were allowed - to the other side of the Iron Curtain.
It was a brilliant and eye-opening experience. We expected this walled-in society
to be closed and reluctant to talk, but we discovered that the lack of open public
debate had created private discussions and friendships of the highest quality. We
also began to understand the devilish nature of corruption in the communist
world, where black-market scams kept climbers in equipment. Those few who
were well off had additional freedoms and were able to spend more time in the
mountains. I noted in my diary that this 'enclosed openness for the selected few
was primarily a luxury of the educated and the aristocrats. For most, life is a
routine of work doing menial jobs that are mentally underwhelming. They declare
there is one hundred per cent employment in the communist state but what are
they making and producing? Most spare time is spent in endless queues for basic
supplies. They are welcoming and friendly to all Westerners but I see many expres-
sionless faces which I take as a sign of oppression.'
I remember visiting a lovely girl called Eva in Krakow, introduced to me by
Voytek Kurtyka's wife. Eva had given me her address after we had met at dinner in
a restaurant, and when I showed this to the Burgess twins, they basically said:
'What are you waiting for?' Since we were under curfew, they helped me abseil out
of our window and I took a taxi to a grim six-story apartment block, one of many,
all identically built on grids, new buildings on the city's outskirts that seemed half
finished but already in state of decay. Half the occupants of the apartment block
woke as news spread that a foreigner had knocked on a door to ask directions.
People in shabby dressing gowns emerged on each floor as I climbed the stairs,
keen to show me the correct flat. They stood packed along the bare concrete cor-
ridor as I finally knocked at the right number.
