For five weeks during the summer of 1977 I was in Moscow, working at the British Embassy (see photo) to set up a library within the Cultural Section. This proved to be a fascinating time, not least for the string of distinguished visitors who came and went. I once made a cup of tea for the architect Sir Hugh Casson and on another occasion shook hands with the Foreign Secretary at that time, who was David Owen.
As a guest of the Embassy’s diplomatic staff I worked hours
that fitted their routine, which meant early starts but long lunch breaks, with
two hours being allowed. On most days I made my own lunch arrangements and used
the time to explore Moscow on my own, but sometimes I was taken out to lunch,
usually when a guest was being wined and dined and I was asked along to make up
the numbers.
One particular lunch sticks in the memory. I don’t remember
the name of the restaurant to which we went, but it was somewhere in central
Moscow. As might have been expected, we were shown to a table (I think there
were six of us present on this occasion), bread rolls were buttered, water was
poured into glasses and menus were brought for our perusal.
It took some time for a waiter to turn up and take our
orders, but when he did some sort of disagreement appeared to take place. I
couldn’t follow the conversation, as I spoke no Russian, but I learned
afterwards that the waiter was telling someone that a certain dish was off the
menu today despite the fact that diners on other tables were happily tucking into
the dish in question.
It was explained to me afterwards that restaurants such as
this operated almost as three or more restaurants under the same roof. Although
the dining room was undivided, each mini-restaurant controlled its own set of
tables and the waiter looking after one set would have nothing at all to do
with any other set; there was therefore no point in catching the eye of a
passing waiter who was not “your” waiter. Likewise, the kitchen was divided
between the domains of three or more chefs who not only had their own
under-chefs and waiters but they also set their own menus and bought the food
themselves from the local market. Two or more menus might share the same items,
but that was always down to chance.
With the orders taken we sat back and waited. Then we waited
some more. And some more. Nothing arrived at our table and the waiter was
nowhere to be seen. Other waiters came and went to other tables, where orders
were placed, food was provided and eaten, bills were paid and diners departed,
all during the time that we were sitting waiting.
It was more than an hour before any of the orders on our
table were satisfied. Fortunately the conversation was interesting enough for
the time to pass reasonably swiftly, and, given that everyone present had a
professional reason for being there, the time was not wasted in idle chit-chat.
Eventually, the food arrived and things proceeded as normal.
It was explained to me afterwards that this sort of thing
was not unknown, and that this was one reason for the two-hour lunch breaks.
This was Moscow in 1977, the Communist Soviet regime was in full swing with
Leonid Brezhnev in charge of an empire that extended from the River Elbe to the
Pacific Ocean. At the heart of Communist ideology was the concept that everyone
was equal, although George Orwell had a point when he stated that some were
more equal than others.
If everyone is equal, then everyone has a right to at least
an hour for lunch, starting at the time stated in their contract. If a waiter
has taken an order a minute before one, and his lunch break is from one until
two, then he is under no obligation to do anything with that order until he has
had his own lunch and come back to work.
In other words, our waiter went to lunch with our order in
his pocket. When he came back, the order went to the kitchen and the food was
prepared. It all made perfect sense, in a bizarre kind of way.
This happened at around the time that Douglas Adams was
writing the first drafts of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. He was not present
on the occasion just related, but – if he had been – it might have been just the
inspiration for his famous line: “Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so”.
© John Welford
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