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Even in South America you find that.

For the following four weeks we had so much vodka and caviar it was coming out of our ears.

What did you think of Russia?

Remember, this was 1934, and they were still very anxious to get foreign money, called valuta. They had bureaus all over the world called Intourist, where they tried to get you to sign up for Russian tours so they could get additional “valuta.” We had arranged our trip ahead of time in New York. We also had an official invitation from Russian publishers to come and visit. They told us, “Don't arrange the details till you get to Odessa, and there you can map out your trip.”

So we arrived in Odessa after a sleepless night on deck. The boat went so slowly that we could have swum alongside. It's a very short trip from Istanbul to Odessa, but it took that boat about 16 hours.

Intourist supplied us with a girl guide. Her name was Mina Vinner. She was pretty as a picture, and she had been trained as a guide for American tourists. She spoke very good English, but had never been out of Odessa in her life. All she knew was Odessa--but she knew Odessa very well. This was our first day in Russia. We were a little nervous till we found how friendly everybody was, especially in the South of Russia. They still called the rulers Bolsheviks there, and