A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
IFEAR that I made a deplorable impression on the Russian Ambassador, with whom I fell into conversation the other night. Having in the past derived much pleasure and interest from travelling in his country, I asked His Excellency why this was no longer possible. Conditions, the Ambassador replied, were at present very difficult in Russia. I said that this was also the case in England, but that we did not for that reason exclude visitors ; indeed, we encouraged them. The Ambassador expressed the hope that the existing restrictions would be lifted very soon (he used the word sechass, which means "in the immediate future," and is the Russian equivalent of mailana) and broke contact. Although we have grown to accept the fact as a permanent feature of the contemporary scene, it is—if you stop to think about it—really rather extraordinary that one-sixth of the earth's Wid surface should be virtually out of bounds to the people who live outside it. All police states suffer from spy fever ; but I fail to see why the Russian Government, which went out of its way to attract foreign tourists in the 1930's, should now so resolutely exclude them. Of whatever this policy is symptomatic, it can hardly be a sign of increasing political maturity.
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