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The darndest things surface when you rat through old files , storage containers . Take the case of Darwin agronomist Robert Wesley-Smith . Much to his surprise, out popped the above small metal disc while sorting out the miscellaneous contents of a carton containing items going way back in his active life of fighting for many causes , outlined in Little Darwin.
He surmises the disc, now attached to his keyring , was given to him when he attended an international grasslands conference in Russia in the early 1970s. "I don't think you could just rock up to any hotel in Russian, say you were from overseas , and book in ," Wes said.
It seems Wes arrived late in Russia for the conference , and when it became obvious, he was told he should be in Samarkand ,Uzbekistan . He was quickly placed in a large black car , which forced other vehicles off the road , making him feel like some important commissar, and driven to an airport where soldiers were standing about with guns .
Then he was placed aboard an old looking plane , up front near a noisy engine, with the soldiers, flown to the conference.
During the visit he got lost trying to find his way back to the hotel and a friendly taxi driver picked him up , drove him to his destination, refused payment . A Russian woman took a shine to his denim jacket, he took part in a vodka drinking contest, jumped up on a table after waiting almost three hours for a meal and instantly got attention .
Somebody remarked he did not look like an agricultural scientist, which may have been made after his cossack dancing act on the table to get some tucker. When asked if his visit was backed by his government, Wes honestly replied he was not certain.
Could he remember anything at all about the ominous sounding KGB Guest Room ? Nope . Little Darwin suggested he might be the star of a popular KGB training movie featuring a decadent westerner-perhaps a spy- who did not look like a scientist,in a denim jacket.
FOOTNOTE: The Samarkand Hotel , not believed part of the KGB chain , was started in London in l959 , catering for travellers from afar, including colonials in denim clobber.