BLACK SEA ENCOUNTER
By PETER STUCLEY
IVAN TUVALOV, aged thirty-three„ was one of those " scientific workers " with which the Soviet Union seems to abound. For science, in the Soviet Russian meaning, is not solely applied to physics ; it implies a search for knowledge on every subject, and is practised in every trade and profession. Tuvalov, for example, was an official in the fish-canning in- dustry, with his headquarters at Vladivostok, and was, when I met him on the Black Sea steamer, making a four-months' visit, with a Government grant of 3,000 roubles, to the fish-canning centres in South Russia and on the Caspian. _ He was short, wiry and fair-haired, with a constant grin and a quick., intelli- gent laugh. He wore a dark-blue, double-breasted serge suit, on the large size, and with it a full-brimmed white yachting-cap, in token, perhaps, of the sea-going nature of his profession.
On the first night out from Yalta I heard a tapping at my cabin-door. It was Tuvalov come to introduce himself. He blushed and grinned, and blushed and grinned again ; he was trembling with excitement. He had heard that there was an Englishman on board. For seven years he had been a student of the English language and of English affairs ; but he had never yet met an Englishman. He had, he told me, a vast admiration for Sir Austen Chamberlain, and for the works of Jerome K. Jerome. " Though if you will pardon my saying so," he re- marked, with a blush and a grin, " I do not hold the author of Three Men in a Boat—to Say Nothing of the Dog—to be so great an artist as our Anton Chekhov." I said I quite agreed. " Nevertheless," said Tuvalov, " you have some fine writers in your country—Seton Thompson and Jack London, and Stephen Leacock—I read them all—and then you have your Mr. Shaw. He is a humorist, indeed, yes? "
Had I been to Oxford College or to Cambridge College, Tuvalov enquired, and to Eton? He had read Russian transla- tions of Liddell Hart and Fuller. He thought k lot of the British Navy ; mot so much of the British Army (this was before the defence of Calais or the Bade of Britain). We used to start our day by breakfasting together (Tuvalov breakfasted regularly and robustly on bceuf stroganov), .and then we would sit on the top deck while Tuvalov practised his English idioms (" to parry a thrust " was one which recurred, I remember), and gave me painstaking lessons in Russian. A loud-speaker clamped to one of the ship's funnels provided us with synthetic music from Moscow, and when it played a song from a Russian opera which Tuvalov recognised he would break off from his instruction and join in with a voice which was unfailingly true. Sometimes we watched the peasants in the stern performing dances of slow and simple step to the accompaniment of rhythmic clapping and the plucked notes of the balalaika.
The steamer made frequent and lengthy stops at various ports along the coast, and when the calls were made in daytime Tuvalov and I would land and take brisk and rather aimless walks. There was Novorossiisk, for example, which we reached early one evening. The town lay spread out on the hills of a
wide 'bay, and consisted of a great many barrack-like buildAngs, a huge cement-factory, and a vast dun-coloured grain-elevator which Tuvalov assured me was the largest in the World. Novorossiisk did not appear to be of any great interest to the casual visitor, but Tuvalov and I landed to take our customary exercise. There were the familiar flamboyant pre-Revolution buildings, two or three stories high, of an off-white shade streaked with rust running from the iron roofs ; there was the same range of goods as I had seen elsewhere, plentiful enough, and of a rough home-made quality. And there was a newly-opened fish emporium. Tuvalov looked on this with professional interest, and with pride. I was to admire the concealed lighting, the living fish in illuminated tanks, the marble pillars, the smart and hygienic uniforms of the fishmonger and his assistants, " That is what we mean by Soviet culture," said Tuvalov, as he gazed at the marble and the tanks.
On the day we reached Sotchi, the most exclusive of Russian resorts, there was a brilliant sun and a sparkling sea. Here Stalin maintains a summer villa, and it is here that the officers and men of the Red Army come for summer leave. We were not allowed to land at Sotchi, but Tuvalov and I leaned over the ship's railings and made out the large modern building of con- crete and glass standing among the trees, which was- the rest- house for the men of the army, and below it, close to the harbour, and equally modern in design, the Riviera Hotel for the officers. Behind, rose the snow-covered peaks of the Caucasian ranges; the military plage was bathed in sunshine. I thought Sotchi a charming place, and said so to Tuvalov, who agreed, and replied with an engaging simplicity, " Nothing, you understand, is too good for our army—we want them to have the best always." They are indeed making a handsome return.
At Gagri, a little further down the_coast, there came on board a party of cyclists. Tuvalov introduced me to them, and ex- plained that they were members of the athletic team of a Moscow factory, and were spending their holiday on a bicycling tour. They consisted of six or eight magnificent looking young men wearing singlets and shorts, and a strapping young woman simi- larly attired. They jumped about the decks with great hearti- ness, talking very loudly and stuffing chunks of buttered bread and hunks of meat into their mouths as they talked. In the evening, when it was dark, we all sat in a group on the top deck drinking glasses of tea and eating macaroons supplied by the faithful Tuvalov. They discussed with Tuvalov what I should see when I got to Moscow, and the athletes were all agreed that the first thing I should do was to pay a visit to their sports-stadium. Then there was the New Moscow hotel, the Metro (which was quite certainly, they all said, much better than anything of the same kind in London), and the Park of Rest and Culture. And I must not forget the museums and the theatres—nor the Lenin Mausoleum, one added. Oh, the delights and distractions of Moscow were endless, they all said, Tuvalov joining in the chorus. We drank another glass of tea all round and parted the best of friends.
Next day there was Poti, and of all the dismal places in the world Poti must surely be the most miserable. The steamer paid a particularly protracted call on Poti, and Tuvalov and I had plenty of time to explore its resources. They comprised a concrete warehouse (unfinished), a row of poplars, a cement quay against which the sea lashed furiously, though its surface appeared quite calm, and a score of dirty one-storied buildings forming a street. The port appeared to be built upon a marsh,-and its citizens, judging by their French mustard complexions, the con- stant victims of malaria. Poti damped even Tuvalov's enthusiasm, and he had to admit that it was " a sad town."
The voyage was drawing to an end, and on the afternoon of our arrival at Batum Tuvalov invited me into his cabin and delivered an emotional envoi. He showed me photographs of his winter quarters—a wooden bungalow close to the Far Eastern frontier of the U.S.S.R.—and, as we delved into his dwindling supply of macaroons, he presented me with a photograph of him- self inscribed, " In commemoration of our voyage on s.s. Ukraine, from his friend and comrade, I. Tuvalov." It showed him, always grinning, in his winter furs and round fur cap. I have- it before me now. We bade each other good-bye, promis- ing to write, and Tuvalov remarked, " And when you read that the Japanese have crossed the frontier and bombed Vladi- vostok to the skies, you will know that I have gone too." I wonder whether he has had to wait as long. He was a lovable little man.
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