Chapter 22
The Russian Connection
I decided to refresh my Russian knowledge. I purchased a text-book compiled by the Ministry of Foreign Trade for people learning on their domestic courses. It was not very hard at first, but I did not have the necessary time beside the university to memorize words. My progress has been poor. I did not stop, only dealt very little with it. It would wait another year for me to get on the Russian in an in-house course.
At the same time it was far from my intentions to leave the topic of an expert mission, even that my Libyan application had not been successful. I went to the lady in TESCO, but she advised me to find her colleagues dealing with other countries. Need for our experts started to decrease, as in international treaties the contingent of our experts on aid had been determined on a limited level, and paid experts, developing countries wanted to get from Western-Europe or America.
My wife tried to find connections through her boss, a doctor having her friends everywhere. The result has been near to nothing, our connection at TESCO got fired by his general manager – of course not because of me. For a time I left that topic sleep and would not start my attempts for two years.
In March I got my driving licence. For the mission to Libya I would have needed it and after I learned about the rejection I finished the course and sat for the tests. On the course there was a lady in the same group, whose husband was a pilot. He would be shot down by rocket at Beirut in his passenger airliner some months later. He has been left on the bottom of the sea since.
On the tug I had my own design jobs to do, as the design of the screw, preparation of the drawings for engine room arrangement and shaft system, a lot of calculations and the drawing up of machinery list. The machinery came partly from the GDR as engines, partly from the S.U. as special naval equipments. The rest was our domestic product.
Three details have caused greater concerns, emergency pump, towing tank experiments and air conditioning. Later a fourth one joined them: rudder-blades. The emergency pump would have two functions, to pump out as much bilge-water as possible at leakage and providing the fire-extinguishers with water in case of a fire. It has been planned to buy from the Soviets and in a long series of talks I would succeed at the end.
The towing tank question had double origin. First, the Wageningen institute has been closed for reconstruction. Second, the Scientific Society for Mechanical Engineers had a good connection with the Polish counterpart and was offered such services at the recently finished tank of the Gdansk university. Only, we did not have any experiences with the Poles, and were afraid of a fiasco.
Air-conditioning was a brand new field in our products. Responsible for the equipment became my colleague Steve, who studied civil engineering and was a 4th-year student. The equipment was to be purchased from Poland.
During all the spring of 1976 I was busy with my studies and preparations for the exams, as well as working on my thesis. For its topic I had chosen the research of probable effects from the opening of the Rhine-Main-Danube canal on our foreign trade in the first five years after the event. I could only finish my thesis during our holiday on the lake Balaton in July. My wife would type it then, and the deadline of August 15 would be kept with difficulty.
The head of the hull department, Michael, a very good sailor of yachts in international championships, proposed me as project manager to be present at the towing tank experiments in Gdansk. The factory management agreed and our trip has been prepared by the Commercial Division.
As soon as I finished my exams, we flew to Warsaw and took the train there to Gdansk. I give a detailed account of that trip in the book Canned Roaddust.
For the acquisition of the air-conditioning equipment, after my return I had to take part in the talks with the Polish deliverers. Both the girl in charge for the import contract and I had to surpass our authority as our bosses would not deal with the case. We at last signed the contract as deputies.
I took my holiday granted for educational purposes and tried to finish my thesis. The last pages of the text remained unfinished, when time came to travel to the lake on our holiday. The voucher for it I had got from the trade union. We would spend the holiday in a trade union hotel not far from Siofok, the town of my first secondary school. The place has been nicknamed "Silver Coast”.
The two weeks have not been all joy. I had to finish my thesis and usually remained in the room, when my son with his mother went to the beach. It did not cause much happiness to the cleaner. Also there were bad days when we had to stay within or, if possible, go for walks or excursions. We have been visited once by my sister-in-law, her husband and their daughter.
In the hotel we have met a couple familiar to us long. The woman was a little younger than my wife, she lived upstairs in the same house my wife left when we married. The husband was a Greek, Yannis, and we knew also him from that time. They had two sons, the elder being the senior of my son by two years. The small boy we would only see later, as he has not been there. He was a toddler yet.
The woman was a cook with a secondary education, the man a construction worker, but he had two hobbies, bird-watching – and catching – and making relieves from thin copper plates. He was a true Greek, kind, clever, unreliable. With them we went walking on bird-watching and, during the second week’s rainy weather, we took them to aunt E. in my former village and there, at the lower end of the village, Yannis discovered a rare colony of hole-nesting bee-eaters. He influenced us in our decision, when we bought the book "The Birds of Europe” in an English edition.
Later a few times we called them to our home and visited them, but their energy and noise-level – especially the children’s – was much higher than that of ours, and for us it was a torture to bear the few hours we spent together.
Our German friends arrived together in their Trabant in July. They would get our flat for the eight days they wanted to spend with us. They would also visit their friend in the country. We would become guests of our neighbour, Irene, whose husband has been in America.
It is another story worth telling. Joe, her man, had his relatives in New York. They had left Transylvania years before and once he had visited them. He had been spending there three months. When I got my high-degree certificate of the English language, they wanted me to teach them a few words, as they had plans to make a trip to the relatives. At the first lesson I asked him, if he knew an English sentence. He said he knew and said: "Six beer, please.” Their lessons had been ended soon because of lack of interest. Joe had gone to America alone, together they had not been given exit visa. He would not come back. In two years Irene would divorce him and marry an American. Soon we would get a post-card with the signature of both Irene and Joe.
Well, in those days we were accommodated by Irene.
Our first sightseeing has been a little tiring for the guests. We advised them to park their car and use municipal transport. We took them up to the castle hill and they enjoyed it. Coming home tired, we began with my wife to prepare dinner. Hans smelled pancakes and onion at the same time, he came to the kitchen to check it. He did not like them together, but we told him to be calm. When the pancakes a la Hortobagy – one of our national dishes – was ready, they liked it, and of the food nothing remained.
Their holiday with us has been pleasant and their elder daughter has got an impression that would help her to decide some years later for a university application in our country.