Wednesday, 9 August

Fine

At 11.00 a.m. the train arrived in Leningrad. The Russian travel agency and Estonian Hotel staff all welcomed us at the station. We followed them to the hotel, where they prepared room no.215 for me. It was the same room that President Sun Fo stayed in when I accompanied him to come here in 1938. This is the biggest suite in the hotel. It had a bedroom, sitting room, library and a special dining room. The Yugoslavian Ambassador arrived here before me, but they did not give the room to him. This proves that they seem to be courteous to me. After breakfast we went out for a look in the town and visited again some of the well known places which I had seen earlier. All the bronze statues were fenced with wooden fencing. All the precious things in the Winter Palace have been transferred to safer places. One can only look from the outside, which was different from my previous visit. There were very few pedestrians on the streets which made me sigh for great changes. What we visited was recorded in detail by Attaché Hu, so I just skipped it.