Клетка и жизнь

But it all nearly went badly wrong at the first meeting. As usual, at these official soviet meetings there was a lot of vodka and toasts at the conference dinner all were expected to propose a toast. Trinkaus, always the gentleman, thought to flatter his hosts by proposing a toast to the glorious Soviet Union and long may it prosper. But, of course, a lot of Russians weren’t at all keen on it prospering and Gelfand leant towards Yuri and whispered «I cant drink this toast». Yuri said, «You must, they’re our guests, the rules of hospitality are more important».

And so, Yuri’s tact and diplomacy, equal to Michael’s, saved the day.

Michael and Yuri met again in Moscow in 1973 and somehow Michael persuaded the Soviet authorities to let Yuri attend Michael’s meeting on the locomotion of tissue cells in London — that’s when I first met Yuri.

More amazingly, they subsequently managed to get a project on cell behaviour included in this cooperation which eventually started in the same year as Michael’s death.

Yuri insisted that I take over as UK coordinator of the project and this official photo was taken at the signing in 1980.

One of the first results was that Yuri came for 1st Abercrombie conference in 1982 at UCL organised by Ruth Bellairs and Adam Curtis and me. Adam Curtis also sadly died last month (written in 2017).

Surprisingly they were allowed to come without a minder as they were expected to mind each other. But we took Yuri away to visit Cambridge after the meeting — shock — we thought he had defected — but he turned up 4 hours later with a big grin on his face.

During the program Yuri was able to come to the first three Abercrombie meetings.

We had to arrange 10 man-weeks per year of reciprocal visits. So many memories come flooding back of my many trips to Soviet Moscow, that I don’t know where to begin.

There was the time when we were all invited to a formal dinner party by Terry Garret, the Scientific Attache to the British Embassy, and I think Vasiliev asked this pompous bore called Brigadier Bitties what he did. «Military Intelligence» he replied curtly, whereupon Peter Hollenbeck (who was Dennis Brays postdoc at the time) said «My old grandpappy always said that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms». While Bitties grew puce-colored, the whole room fell into a deathly silence until Garret, being a true British diplomat, started to complain about the price of meat in Moscow. In the taxi afterwards Zaitsev, our official minder, thought it was the best party hed ever been to and Yuri said that he had thought rumours of British spies were propaganda until he met Bitties (who spoke Russian like a native).

There was one of the latest visits ‘92 when Gorbachev was in power and glasnost had started — «openness». We had been speaking with our tea lady at the cancer hotel in broken Russian for 10 days, when one morning she suddenly spoke perfect English to us.

She was of course a KGB agent posted to watch over us.

Yuri liked to arrange exciting trips for us when we visited Moscow.

The authorities had no idea that they were not always serious scientific expeditions.

Bershadsky took us to Leningrad 89.

To give you an idea of what cell biology involved in those days in Russia, Pinaev even made his own liquid nitrogen in 2 self made plants to freeze cells — but the authorities regularly stole it to rescue buildings from subsidence when the ice melted in spring.

And Yuri arranged the ultimate scientific meeting for us in 1992.

Rovensky took us to Tbilisi to meet a group of archeologists. I asked Yuri, «How can we discuss microtubules with archeologists?» He said, «Relax, Graham, its a holiday». He said, «Whatever you do, don’t say you like anything in Georgia — by their rule of hospitality they’re obliged to give it to you». I came back from Tbilisi clutching six bottles of their local firewater called Chercha having forgotten Vasiliev’s advice never to say that you like something of theirs to a Georgian.

Finally, this is Perhaps Yuri’s greatest achievement, as a teacher — especially of PhD students.

I sometimes think that these three friends, Vasiliev, Abercombie and Trinkaus were between them responsible for most of the world’s next generation of cell behaviourists.

Some of my fondest memories — Yuri Vasiliev

^{Peter HOLLENBECK. Professor of Biological Sciences Purdue University.}