LETTERS Moscow enterprise
Sir: Have we at last come across a service to the public in which the Soviet Union is ahead of this country? The moving account by Max Hastings of his vain attempts to persuade a London taxi driver to take him and the children on board (Diary. 25 July) could be repeated any day in Moscow; on a recent visit I was able to get back to my hotel by taxi only be agreeing to pay the driver double the fare. How-ever. the Rus- sians have ensured that neither they nor the foreign visitor need lack transport.
One morning when my wife and I emerged from our hotel to contemplate the empty taxi stand we were approached by a Young man in a well-cut dark suit who led us to a smart black limousine of the kind You see parked, with chauffeurs in well-cut dark suits, outside the Gosplan building off Gorky Street. Our man slipped a Beatles cassette in the player as we sped away
down those centre lanes in Moscow which are reserved for party officials and bureaucrats, to the salutes of the militia patrols on the way.
Foreign residents in Moscow told us, and experience provided confirmation, that if one stands on the kerb with arm extended,
Hitler fashion, a vehicle will very soon pull in and offer to take you to your destination for a few roubles. One of our friends
reported being picked up by an ambulance. Over here public opinion appears to regard Mr Gorbachev as a reformer who is
seeking to encourage a measure of private enterprise. In Moscow many people are inclined to see him as attempting to impose a bureaucratic blight on private enterprises already existing and flourishing. Frank Barber
36 Alfriston Road, London SW I I
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