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course. In 1973 I was sent to Moscow for an eight-week
language course in the summer, which turned out to be for
Russian teachers, but the older colleagues laughed and said that
now it was the young people's turn, because they had already
lived on Sábolovka Street enough, and explained how you need
to prepare what you need to take there in order to survive the
eight weeks in a quality way. They were wrong. I enjoyed my
visit to the Soviet Union from the first day to the last.
Although my Russian language skills did not improve much, I
got to know the Soviet world and its bleak future. As the train
headed inland, I felt myself drifting away from something that
radiated confidence to me. I had already been to England, and I
saw no sign that soviet world would be able to win with the
vigour and talents that I had experienced in Moscow and other
cities. Moreover, in advance I regretted the time lost, the
continuous increase in backwardness that my country suffered.
The harsh reality of power could be felt everywhere and was
unquestionable. After traveling by train for several days, they
immediately took us to the university and gave us the things to
study: 14 books to read and many language books and were told
that we would start the next day at 9 a.m. here and there. We
started to get scared. We occupied our apartment in the block
building on Sábolovka Street, a quiet and peaceful street, and
watched how the teachers of other nations behaved. The
Bulgarians definitely, since they know Russian the best, the
Czechoslovaks were lost in themselves, in 1968 they lived a
little what the Hungarians did after 1956, the Poles radiated,
always ready to sing, everything went with them, the
Yugoslavs, who dressed a little differently, a little acting more
casually and making everyone feel that they don't belong here.
We shared an apartment I was in with two other Hungarian
young Russian teachers and a few dozen cockroaches. The next
day at the university, they said that there would be no education
classes, that there was some kind of symposium at a big lecture
hall, and that we would go there to be the audience. Good

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