DIARY
ROWLINSON CARTER etting out on the drive from Prague to Marienbad, the taxi driver rolls down his window and throws money out of it. Insurance for good luck, he explains, the premium depending on the length of the Journey. When he takes his family on holiday, he may throw out 30 crowns. Trying to be funny, I ask whether he is demonstrating a local predilection for de- fenestration, that curiously formal and pompous word for what is after all a very simple business. He is generous enough to laugh. It is my turn later when an old boy in a riverside cafe remarks that communists are like pigeons: 'They shit on everything and you're not allowed to shoot them.' That little joke, he adds cheerfully, could get him locked up for three years, and it would not be for the first time.
During the Counter-Reformation in Slovakia, Protestants were reluctantly given permission to build churches. Condi- tions were imposed. Neither stone nor iron (and hence no nails) were to be used, there were to be no spires, the construction had to be completed within a year, and the churches could only be built outside towns and villages, their entrances facing the other way. Few, if any, churches have been built since the communists took over, although they are said to be full and more are needed. The government has evidently agreed in principle that new ones may be built. But look at the fine print, I am told, for some (MO vu. The necessary land can be bought only from the state, if and when it chooses to make it available. The actual building would have to be done by the state building organisation, which may find itself preoccupied with more important tasks. It may be obligatory to pay for the construc- tion — my informant was not quite sure on this point — with foreign currency. The money could conceivably come from abroad, but let it try!
The literature which the government hopes visitors will read has the usual quota of good news from this or that tractor factory, as well as ample coverage of Czechoslovakia's friendship with the Third World. No mention of arms, which was not a great surprise although it is no secret that Third World wars are fought with many Czech-made weapons. Two incidents occurred which threw some light, I hope, on how things work in practice. Parked on the apron at Bratislava airport was the Russian crib of the American Starlifter, a powerful military transporter capable of carrying armoured vehicles or, of course, large quantities of smaller stuff. The air- craft had no markings except for a green oblong near the cockpit and, in small letters, 'Iraq'. A few days later the same aircraft, or one identical to it, was parked in full view of the terminal at Prague airport. The green oblong was still there but 'Iraq' was missing or had been painted over. The other trivial event was an en- counter with two jovial West African students in a tourist haunt frequented by the inevitable tarts. Over drinks the Afri- cans let on that they wished to engage a couple of the girls, their sex lives having been barren since their arrival in the country. They had been well received but the Czech girls they met drew the line at a black man in bed. The going rate for the professional girls is linked to the deutsch- mark, so I was called on to convert into sterling. `Fifty pounds,' I announced. The poor fellows drank up quickly and left.
Czechoslovakia is crazy about motor cars and motor sport. There are some marvellous private collections of pre-war cars, and races or rallies almost every weekend. Even the racing fraternity must occasionally pay its party dues, as in an event being staged in Zernovica in August, `The Slovak National Uprising Golden Helmet Motor Cycle Road Race'. Perhaps Brands Hatch should consider laying on 'The Repeal of The Corn Laws Moss Bros Grand Prix'. Still, I thought I could iden- tify almost any car at forty paces, but not in Czechoslovakia. I came across what turned out to be a 1932 J2 MG, unrecognisable (except for the famous radiator) because it was imported as a bare engine and chassis and fitted with a locally designed body. The owner showed me the original design notes, roughed out on scraps of tracing paper. These doodles produced a unique machine, a `doctor's coupe' lovelier than anything the factory ever produced, and that's saying something. The car that the Czechoslovaks are definitely not interested in is the Trabant, a tiny East German import with a hopelessly underpowered two-stroke engine, and so flimsy that, according to folklore, the slightest collision will leave the driver sitting on the road, possibly still on the seat and clutching the steering wheel, but with the rest of the car conspicuously gone. When I. returned to Prague, a particularly sorry example of the wretched Trabant came pottering along, trailing smoke and generally ready to disintegrate. It had diplomatic plates in front, and I waited for sight of the back, which would reveal which embassy it belonged to. 'AL' for Albania, of course.
We are all cowards, that's why!' The reply was disarming, especially as it came from an ex-boxer with a flattened nose and re-arranged ears. I had routinely asked if and when the country would get restless again, and he had first said there was nothing on the horizon. We had talked about the Battle of White Mountain, as a result of which the Czechs spent the following 300 years under the Habsburg heel practically without lifting a finger. It was a skirmish rather than a battle; it lasted all of two hours and there were very few casualties. Could the Czechs have thrown away their independence so feebly? Move on to 1938, and British or French visitors can still expect to get some stick for letting the country down. As politely as possible, one points out that Czechoslovakia had a fairly strong army at the time but did not use it. What resistance there was after the German occupation (apart from the spec- tacular assassination of Heydrich), took place in Slovakia, which had a pro-German puppet government but was not really occupied. The initial resistance to the Soviet tanks in 1968 was plucky, but it was short-lived and the masses have not stirred since. Small men are sometimes ridiculous- ly pugnacious to compensate for their size; the Czechoslovakians take the opposite view and, I think, enjoy saying how small and helpless they are. It is pure Soldier Schweik, a tactic used by him to come up trumps in the end. It may work.
The main purpose of my trip has been to collect material for travel articles. Over breakfast with two senior representatives of Cedok, the tourist agency, I try to repay some of their unstinted hospitality with a few thoughts (at their request) on what could be done to increase the number of foreign visitors. Prague sells itself: a splen- did museum of a city for walking about. In the pubs, cafes and restaurants the locals, unlike Russians in Moscow, are easily accessible as long as one observes the conversational taboos. But tourism in Rus- sia is booming, my hosts say; is there some marketing trick they have missed? The question makes me shuffle a bit. The Russian sales gimmick, I venture, is Gor- bachev. It takes a while for that to sink in. 'We have not heard that idea before,' they respond politely, then we move on to other things.
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