Eastern Approaches (22 page)

Not many miles south of Bamyan the road crosses the watershed of the Oxus and the Indus at a height of some 12,000 feet above sea level. Thence it descends again until it emerges from the rocky gorges of the Hindu Kush into a flat plain. Crossing this, we came in the evening to Kabul, a rambling, featureless town with its miles of covered and uncovered bazaars.

I
T
was time to consider how to get back to Moscow. My original plan had been to make my way back to the Soviet frontier by way of Herat, to cross it at Kushk and to rejoin the main line of the Transcaspian Railway at Merv in Turkmenistan, the capture of which by the Russians in 1884 had caused us such acute ‘Mervousness’, as the Duke of Argyll facetiously put it at the time, and which is thought to be the oldest city in the world, though little now remains to be seen save a few crumbling ruins. Thence I intended to travel westwards across the Caspian to Baku and Moscow.

But when I called at the Soviet Embassy it was gently but firmly explained to me that the reports of the cholera epidemic in northern Afghanistan were now more alarming than ever and that, although the frontier guards might have been misguided enough to let me cross the frontier into Afghanistan, there could be no question of my returning to the Soviet Union via the infected area.

It was not clear to me how far the cholera in northern Afghanistan was being used as a pretext to prevent me from paying another visit to Soviet Central Asia, but it was quite evident that in the circumstances there was nothing for it but to return by an alternative route. I accordingly decided to leave next morning by the Legation lorry for Peshawar, travel thence to Delhi, fly from Delhi to Baghdad and make my way as best I could from Baghdad to Moscow by way of Persia and the Caucasus.

Leaving Kabul at dawn, we crossed the highest point of the pass towards the middle of the day, sharing the road with long caravans of wild-looking nomad tribesmen from the hills who were making their way down to the plains at the approach of winter with their families, their flocks and herds and all their worldly goods. In the early afternoon we reached Nimla, where the great cypresses still stand in the garden of Shah Jahan. A few miles further on was Jalalabad, a typical
Central Asian town approached through long dusty avenues of poplars. Here we spent the night as guests of His Majesty’s Consul, an Indian Moslem of charm and distinction, with a beard like an ancient Assyrian, who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and thus earned the title of Haji.

Next morning we left Jalalabad while it was still dark and by dawn were climbing up into the mountains towards the Khyber. By half-past ten we had come in sight of the first British fort, with the Union Jack fluttering from the summit, and a few minutes later were on British territory and travelling along a perfect asphalt road. The Oxus, though only four days’ journey by road and as many hours by aeroplane, seemed very remote.

From the Khyber the road twisted down into the plain of India and by midday we were in Peshawar. There I spent a happy day, wandering first through Peshawar city, completely Central Asian in character with its citadel and bazaar, and then through Peshawar Cantonment with its shops, its Club, its rows of neat bungalows. Sitting at tea with a friend in the garden of the Peshawar Club I could hear the pipes and drums of the Highland Light Infantry beating Retreat. In was all refreshingly unlike anything in the Soviet Union. That evening I took the train to Delhi. I have always enjoyed contrasts and certainly the splendours of the Viceroy’s House, the abundance of delicious food and drink, the amiability of everyone with whom I came in contact made a welcome change after the austerities of Central Asia.

From Delhi I flew to Baghdad in an Imperial Airways mail-carrying aeroplane. Beneath us the country unrolled itself, panorama fashion the plains of India; the howling wilderness of Baluchistan; the Indian Ocean; the Peninsula of Oman; the Persian Gulf; Bahrein, with it palm trees and oil-wells; Basra, where we were allowed to sleep for an hour or two in an unbelievably large and up-to-date hotel; and, next morning, the gigantic ruins of Ktesiphon, the Tigris and finally Baghdad, a disappointing city.

After a pleasant day and a comfortable night at the Embassy, I left for Teheran at four next morning with two German spies, thinly disguised as commercial travellers, in a very old American car driven by
an Armenian of Egyptian nationality. At dawn we crossed the frontier at Khanikin where we waited for hours, while one of the Germans cleared his calculating machine at the Customs House. This was an imposing building in a mixture of the late baroque and Moorish styles, lavishly decorated with Iranian lions, agonizingly entwined with cupids and acanthus leaves. Outside three or four dozen vultures hovered over a dying camel.

Khanikin lies at the foot of the mountains and we drove all day through craggy light red hills along a road built for the most part by our troops during and after the First World War. At nightfall we came to Kermanshah, which lies pleasantly enough amongst groves of poplars in a valley. Leaving again at sunrise we drove all next day through the same kind of country as the day before. The dusty roads, the poplars, the reddish hills in the foreground, the bluish hills in the background and the strings of camels and donkeys, all reminded me of Turkestan. But the inhabitants trudging along the roads and lounging in the villages in the shabby European suits forced on them by Reza Shah were disappointing after the Uzbeks of Samarkand and Bokhara in their striped
khalats
, and the Afghans in their flowing robes and turbans.

We stopped for a meal at a
chai-khana
by the roadside and in the early afternoon reached Hamadan, the Ecbatana of the ancients, and reputedly the burial-place of Esther and Mordecai. The car had by now broken two springs and something had to be done. It took a long time to do it, and in the meantime I was able to look round Hamadan. Everywhere there were signs that the old order of things, had been swept away and very little put in its place. The mosque and bazaar were decayed and uninteresting and the central square, with its public garden, a feeble caricature of a European town. Soon after nightfall we emerged from the mountains into the plain and at midnight arrived at Teheran.

There had been rumours that the Soviet-Iranian frontier was closed and, after endless inconclusive telephone conversations with the Soviet Embassy which left me still in doubt whether the Soviet-Iranian frontier at Djulfa was open or shut, I finally set out in a very small car with four extremely bulky Iranians to find out for myself what the
position was. We stopped at Kazvin to eat and at Zenjan to sleep and, after passing rapidly through Mianeh, where according to legend the bite of the bed-bugs is apt to be fatal to the victim, arrived next afternoon at Tabriz, the capital of Persian Azerbaijan, where I was most hospitably welcomed at the British Consulate.

Tabriz is a pleasant town. From the towers of the ancient Ark or Citadel, which commands a view of the surrounding mountains, the flat-roofed houses seem more spacious than one would ever suspect by looking at them from the street, and the high mud walls enclose pleasant gardens. The covered bazaars stretched for miles and, besides foreign wares, were full of local carpets and other local products. The inhabitants, mostly Turko-Tartars and Armenians, were indistinguishable in appearance from the Soviet Azerbaijanis I had met at Lenkoran. The famous Blue Mosque is a ruin and the other mosques were for the most part shut. In the main square of the town I saw a policeman tear the veil from a woman’s face and throw it in the mud. The Persians were being modernized, whether they liked it or not.

After forty-eight hours, spent for the most part in arguing with the local Civil Governor, who at first denied the validity of the exit visa which I had obtained in Delhi and refused to accept the responsibility of issuing me with one himself, and then finally admitted that the visa which I already had was all that I required, I started on the last stage of my journey to the Soviet frontier.

The road to Djulfa follows for the most part the railway line from Tabriz to Djulfa built by the Russians in 1916. After some two or three hours we emerged from the light red mountains of Iran into the valley of the Araxes. This marks the frontier between Iran and the Soviet Union and also, in theory at any rate, between Europe and Asia. Far away beyond the Araxes rose the black wall of the Caucasus.

The Customs formalities on the Iranian side did not take long and I soon found myself standing with my two bundles half way across the bridge which crosses the Araxes at this point. I shouted to the sentry at the Soviet end, explaining that I was anxious to enter the Soviet Union. He did not reply, but looked rather pointedly down the barrel of his rifle. After half an hour of more or less continuous shouting
neither he nor the frontier guards on the far bank had shown any signs of departing from their hostile attitude. One of the Iranian sentries, who for some reason spoke Italian, said that the frontier seemed to be shut, and advised me to keep away from the Soviet end of the bridge as they did not want a frontier incident. He only wished he could let me return to Persia, but that was unfortunately impossible. It was cold and wet and I had had enough of hovering in uncertainty between Europe and Asia and was trying to devise some safe means of shaking the Soviet’s sentry’s composure, when a car drove up on the Soviet bank of the river and an officer got out who, after a certain amount of parleying said reluctantly that I might come across, though it would have been better if I could have waited till next day.

I was back in the Soviet Union.

Soviet Djulfa, like its Iranian counterpart, is of little interest, consisting almost entirely of one dusty street of low white houses. It was the day after the anniversary of the November Revolution and at the post office, where I went to draw some money, an uproarious party was in progress. Vodka was flowing freely and the post office staff were far too busy singing and dancing to attend to customers. It was not till midnight that I got what I wanted.

The relatively large sum I had drawn attracted universal attention and there was much whispering as I left to go back to the inn. After I had been asleep for an hour or two I was wakened by the door opening stealthily. When my visitor had reached my bedside, I asked him what he wanted. He replied that he was the landlord and had come to see that I had everything I needed. Outside in the yard a crowd of Persians were encamped, who had been expelled from the Soviet Union and were on their way back to Persia. Ceaselessly they talked and murmured amongst themselves. I did not sleep much that night.

Next morning I took the train to Erivan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. As we were starting, two Armenians, dark, furtive men, got into the carriage and sat on either side of me. When an officer of the frontier troops came to ask them for their passes to the frontier zone they winked at him significantly. The officer, however, clearly not realizing the significance of the wink, insisted on seeing their papers
and, when these were at last reluctantly handed over, held them rather clumsily under my nose while he inspected them. They showed their holders to be agents of the N.K.V.D., and I could not resist the temptation of winking in my turn at my neighbours over the unfortunate slip which their uniformed colleague had made. They were to be my constant companions for the rest of my journey.

The railway follows the red stream of the Araxes, which marks the Iranian frontier, almost all the way to Erivan, a distance of about a hundred miles, with, to the north, the range of the southern Caucasus and to the south the pale red mountains of Iran culminating in Mount Ararat, which stands near the point where the frontiers of Turkey, Iran and the Soviet Union intersect. The only important town between Djulfa and Erivan is Nakhichevan, the capital of the tiny autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of that name, in which Djulfa is situated. Its white buildings are dominated by a large straggling fort on a hill, dating back to the days when the whole region was a bone of contention between Russia and Persia. The inhabitants were Turko-Tartar rather than Armenian in type and the women who came down to the station to look at the train were almost all heavily veiled. Along the valley of the Araxes the ruins of mosques alternated with those of Armenian churches.

Erivan is a pleasant enough town. Armenia had once occupied a privileged position in the Soviet scheme of things. The Katholikos, or Head of the Armenian Church, had been allowed to remain in the Monastery of Etchmiadzin a few miles from Erivan, and religious persecution was, it seemed, considerably less savage than in most other parts of the Soviet Union. The population were not entirely cut off from all contact with Armenians abroad, many of whom sent considerable sums of money to their relations and friends in Soviet Armenia. At one time even immigration was encouraged and a number of Armenians from America and elsewhere returned to the land of their fathers, a step which some of them may since have regretted. National pride was fostered and individual prosperity not discouraged. These advantages, combined with the fruitfulness of the land and the natural business instincts of the inhabitants, made the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and its capital an oasis of prosperity
of which it was no doubt hoped that rumours might even filter across the frontiers into Turkey and Persia and thus add to the prestige of the Soviet Union.

Of this prosperity many indications still survived. Erivan had, to a very great extent, been built since 1921 when Armenia came under Soviet rule, and was still being built. The new buildings, built of the local reddish stone in the neo-classical style or in an adaptation of the Armenian national style, compared favourably, both as regards appearance and solidity of construction, with new buildings elsewhere in the Soviet Union. As usual the tendency had been to concentrate on immense public buildings: a new University, a new cinema, a new Institute of Marxist Propaganda, a State Opera House, and an enormous hotel for travelling officials, not to mention great blocks of offices which house the various Government and Party organizations. But, in addition to the usual blocks of luxury flats built to accommodate highly paid officials and specialized workers, streets of humbler dwellings were being erected where room might perhaps be found for members of the less privileged classes. Of the old Persian town practically nothing remained save a gaudy eighteenth-century mosque and a few hovels on the slopes of the surrounding hills.