Russian Banquet

In the mid 1990s Larry was asked by a Russian colleague to cochair a scientific conference to be held a compound owned by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The retreat is near Moscow in a wooded area. The surroundings are beautiful but the buildings are austere. The compound center has meeting halls and accommodations. The rest of the compound is sprinkled with dachas provided for officials of the Academy and famous scientists. Notable among the scientists who lived there was Nicolay Basov, who won the Nobel Prize in 1964. He invented the MASER the forerunner to the LASER. The conference focused on x-ray technologies, X-ray lasers, and X-ray lithography. X-ray lithography is the next technology for producing microchips. Such microchips could produce smart phones as powerful as the biggest computers.

 Larry was assigned a small room.  His next-door neighbor was Grigory a close friend of  Nicolay Basov. He was of average height, husky with a robust personalities. He gave me a bear hug and his slap on the back every time we met for breakfast.  Every evening Grigory would visit his friend Nikolay Basov at his dosha. They drank until the wee hours of the morning. Since the walls of the rooms were paper thin Larry could hear everything that went on in the halls and in the room next door. Being awake most of the night because of jet lag he heard Gregory come bouncing down the halls, bang, bang, bang. He stumbled into his room and fell on his bed. He was dead drunk every night. Then he appeared at breakfast first thing in the morning looking like he was ready for a big day. 

Participants came from all of the world.  Larry and his Russian colleague Alexander Shevelko presented  papers on plasma diagnostics and a novel plasma source for X-ray lithography. The Conference lasted five days and several hundred papers were presented. It was a success.

Every conference has a closing banquet. Everyone seemed excited to go to the closing banquet for this conference. Larry didn’t understand why because banquets are boring and if it wasn’t for the fact that he was cochairman he have skipped it.

 He was assigned to sit at a long head table, surrounded  by Russian dignitaries. Tables filled with food and drink were set out in front of the head table. The first row tables was filled with every kind of food you can imagine ––caviar, salmon, ham, turkey, pork, vegetable plates, fruit plates, breads, and rich desserts. The second row of tables was filled with liquor. 

 There were no speeches. Everyone started eating, drinking and talking. Later when they were all––almost all––drunk. There was some singing and dancing.  The meeting started at seven and Larry left at midnight.The party was still going strong. 

He asked his friend Leonid, “How can people eat so much and drink so much. 

Leonid answered, “You eat until you are so full you can’t stand it. Then you drink enough to burn out all the food. Then you eat some more. Larry, you just don’t understand. We have to do this in Russia to survive. You have a good life in Utah and we have a rough life in Russia.” Leonid lived in Utah for a year.