It was a hot day that trip to the USSR Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (Vystavka dostizheniy narodnovo khozyaystva – VDKNh).  The park lies about ten kilometres north of Red Square, Moscow and covers a vast area, the size of a small town.  I visited in 1987 as part of an Intourist tour.

I remember that I was suffering from something of a hangover.  The evening before, there had been a banquet––also laid on by Intourist––with multiple courses, and where between every course a––generous––shot of vodka was raised and drunk as a toast.  At the time, I was quite a fan of vodka, and drunk my shots with alacrity, but they had left me less-than-enthusiastic for the next day’s outing.  Just outside the exhibition park, I discovered a vending machine, which appeared to despatch fresh apple juice, which I thought might provide something of a cure for my aching head.  Unfortunately, the hot weather must have done something detrimental to the ingredients.  The apple juice had fermented producing a toxic brew, far more potent even than the spirits that I had partaken the evening before.  It was with something like horror that I watched mothers queueing up at the machine, unsuspectingly handing the intoxicating brew to their young children as a refreshing thirst-quencher.  If I had had the language, I might have warned them; instead, I could only stand and stare.

The entrance to the exhibition area was an archway of Triomphe proportions.  The Parisian theme was continued, with a series of ornate fountains, which would not have been out of place at Versailles.  However, the Socialist Classicism-style skyscrapers, which loomed over the background recalled that this was a brainchild of Stalin and not of a Louis.

In my rather foggy-headed state, I visited one exhibit after another, perhaps inevitably most impressed by the pavilion dedicated to the Soviet space programme, complete with an towering Vostok rocket.  Equally impressive was the enormous statue featuring a man and a woman holding a hammer and sickle, and dedicated to the workers in a Socialist Realism-style––Worker and Kolkhoz Woman (Rabóchiy i kolkhóznitsa).

My Intourist guide solemnly explained display after display with a dutiful but resigned sense of patriotism, but it was obvious that his real enthusiasm was reserved for the Beryozka shop, where he explained that he was not allowed to buy anything because they only accepted foreign currency, but where he had a long shopping list pre-prepared in the hope that some of his overseas charges would make the various purchases he wanted on his behalf. 

© E. C. Glendenny

E. C. Glendenny tries to shake off a vodka hangover.