There was another incident, also in Moscow,
where we saw a group of Gypsies sitting underneath a bridge
Maybe I should say Roma,
but I think the Hebrew word Gypsy is certainly right,
like 'blacks'. I've never understood why one cannot say 'blacks'.
Being a Gypsy in Moscow is a profession.
The woman usually has ten kids with her
and they fall upon the tourists, all ten of these children
pulling at their clothes, begging, and so on.
So Rachel - what can Rachel do? She filmed them.
Wow, an old Gypsy woman attacked her!
We managed to get out of there while we were still alive.
Of course, I talked with writers and politicians.
I was in the Kremlin, I spoke with the secretary of Yeltsin
who was then in power.
It was the same in Hungary, Budapest.
I was very excited by all these countries. I saw a lot of beautiful things
everything was still in a state of ferment because the Soviet regime,
which everyone hated, had only just collapsed.
Where was it? Budapest or Prague, I always get them confused,
although they are two completely different peoples,
these two cities are very similar:
a river in the middle, a hill, and on the hill the palaces of the rulers
and the town below − there are many similarities.
And in one of them, the Czech Republic −
the Czechs are known as being very moderate
and do not like to take risks, but are cautious –
they told us there on the river in Prague
at the bottom of the hill
stood a huge statue of Stalin,
and the city fathers struggled to know what to do with it.
Blow it up? Stalin could come back tomorrow,
or his followers, and they would exact a terrible revenge.
On the other hand, it was impossible to keep Stalin.
so they decided to paint it black
and say it is [Patrice] Lumumba.
Lumumba was an independence leader in the Congo
who was executed.
We collected a lot of jokes,
especially in Hungary. Hungary had a lot of comedians,
for instance Ephraim Kishon.
They did not specifically consider Kishon - that is, he was not one of their first rate comedians,
second rate, perhaps.