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An English swallow riding a horse An English swallow riding a horse
Relations between the Soviet sports management and the International Federation of Equestrian Sports (the FEI) have always been rather strained, seeing as how the Federation was usually presided by European royalties who remembered what the Bolsheviks had done to the Czar’s family quite well. However, in 1973 the FEI unexpectedly gave the USSR the right to conduct the European Eventing Championship in Kiev. Furthermore, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Queen Elizabeth II, paid a visit to Moscow and then to Kiev as President of the FEI.
It goes without saying that Philip was seen as a figure of a much higher status than that of the President of the FEI in Moscow. He was received by Nikolai Viktorovich Podgornii, Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet – a president in European terms. I was one of the three representatives of the Novosti news agency, which covered the championship and the Prince’s visit.
I realized that our “President” Podgornii wasn’t really prepared to discuss equestrian sports. The former director of a Ukrainian sugar plant simply declared his love for “sports of all sorts” and proceeded to discuss football. He was a footballer in his youth and frequently had “all sorts of crap kicked out of him”, as he confessed. Podgornii must have been concerned with the credibility of this statement, and so he rolled his right trouser leg up to his knee to demonstrate the vestiges of his former athletic glory. The obliging Prince studied the ankle with great attention. Podgornii was obviously nervous, and his nervousness transferred to the interpreter Viktor Mazur, a staff member of the Soviet embassy in London. When Podgornii expressed his hope that the Prince’s visit would be but the first portent (literally “first swallow” in Russian) from the foggy shores of Albion and that his example would be followed by other members of the Royal Family, Mazur translated the proverbial swallow as a sparrow. This was a true test of Prince Philip’s stiff upper lip – he demanded a clarification of the whole ornithological metaphor.
As for sports-related discussions with the Chairman of the State Sports Committee – those were a great deal more professional in nature, of course. Sergei Pavlov was so touched that he asked the British envoy whether the latter had any personal requests. It turned out that he did – one of the British athletes expressed a wish to ride his steed all the way from Riga to Vladivostok, and the Prince asked permission. Pavlov was so flabbergasted by this request that he just shrugged and said: “Sure, let him ride”. I couldn’t help imagining how many secret service agents in disguise would have to follow him were this journey to become a reality. Let me remind the reader that the year was 1973 and that the country in question was called the USSR.
Recollected by Vladimir DOBKIN Archive: autumn 2009
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