French classes at the House of Scientists

There was not much to do in the evenings, so when we learned that the center employees could sign up for French classes, we didn't think twice about it. However, the beginning of the course coincided with a trip to Poland, and we missed the first couple of meetings. When we finally reported to the class, we sensed that we were not welcome there. The teacher did everything in her power to discourage us from remaining: she said it might be difficult for us to catch up with the rest of students, and that the textbook was out-of-print. We told her not to worry and that we'd manage all right. The room was full of Russian scientists and engineers, and we were hoping to make friends with at least some of them.

            In fact, meeting people was the real reason for our attending this course. But when we next came to the class, there were only five students. I felt so disappointed. One nice thing happened though: an older Russian mathematician, lent us the textbook, saying that he owned two. To show him how much we appreciated his friendly gesture, we brought him something unobtainable in Russia: a bottle of French wine and a French record. To my great  surprise, he did not want to accept the gifts. Only after long persuasion did he take the wine and the record, but he absolutely refused to visit us at home; so much for making friends with the Russians.

             The teacher somehow came to terms with the fact that we were attending the class. It soon became apparent that although her pronunciation was incomparably better than mine, I understood more words in French than she did. The only trouble was that I did not always know them in Russian; this made for was a lot of guessing and laughing. The class turned out to be a fun one for our small group.

            And we did, finally, make friends: a young engineer named Lusha, who lived close to us, did not mind walking home together. She came to us for dinner and invited us to her home. Once I asked her why she thought so many people had dropped the class. “It happened because of you” she said. “You mean, they don't like Poles?” I queried. To my relief, I learnt that it had nothing to do with our nationality; the reason was much simpler: the scientists worked on classified projects, and were not allowed to have any contact with foreigners. So when we showed up and insisted on attending the class, they were told - by the local security service agent - to drop it. Others could talk to us, but they had to be careful not to get too friendly. I mused over it all and thought to myself that the inherent Russian distrust of foreigners took really extreme forms.

Eploring around the city of Dubna

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*Lusha did not elaborate by whom. It was generally understood that all people in Dubna were under close surveillance.