The reality of the tense relations between Russia and the West during the Cold War (1947–1991)109 is conveyed by the difficulties experienced by two visiting foreign teachers of Russian in the 1970s (of German and American origin respectively). Stanley, a teacher from the USA, is expelled from the Soviet Union for importing forbidden books, after his colleague, the Russian teacher B.G., has been obliged to collaborate with the KGB to ‘shadow’ him and inform against him. Those of us who travelled to Russia at that time will remember Yevtushenko’s famous poem ‘Khotiat li russkie voiny?’ (‘Do the Russians want a war?’), which was commonly recited to visiting foreigners. It still remains a warning against what some commentators call a ‘new Cold War’ in the twenty-first century.110
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