A Business Trip to Kabul in 1988
In my post about Peace Dove over Kyiv, I promised to tell the story of my Kabul trip if there was interest. Here it is: a memory of a journey in 1988, written in March 2022.
Preliminary Remarks
After finishing my dissertation, it was time to exchange the comfortable life of a student for respectable work. An old friend, with whom I had lost touch, heard that I had studied Sinology. Like me, he believed China would become an interesting market. We decided to start a company. Modest as we were, we called it International Management KG, rented a ridiculously expensive office and were laughed at by everyone—including our wives. Not entirely without reason: we had almost no money.
He would concentrate on training salespeople, working with companies such as Apple, Honda and Kodak. I would represent Austrian and German companies in China. We expected the training side to bring in money quickly, while mine would take longer. Things turned out differently.
I wrote to twenty-seven companies offering my services. The very next day, someone called to ask whether I could renovate an office for one of their clients in Beijing. No problem. He sounded relieved: he had been trying to get it done for almost two years. There were structural changes, new walls and flooring, antistatic carpet and furniture shipped from Hong Kong. We completed the job quickly. The client was delighted, then asked the decisive question: “Would you also do this in other countries?” Sure.
My immediate client made data-processing equipment and had won a lucrative contract to modernize offices of the Soviet news agency TASS around the world. Before the equipment could be installed, the offices had to be made suitable for it. That was the troublesome part they wanted to delegate. They had found their man.
After consultation with Moscow, we agreed on five or six offices. That became eight. I suggested one long journey, moving from office to office. It was a “money doesn’t matter” project, which certainly made some things easier.
Afghanistan
I put together the itinerary. Some destinations—Brasília, São Paulo, Cairo—were relatively straightforward. Others raised practical problems. I needed two passports because visas from some countries could complicate entry elsewhere. The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs helped me arrange the additional passport.
The first stop was Kabul. This was 1988, while Soviet troops were still in Afghanistan.[1] Organizing the trip was not simple. I called an Afghan friend in Vienna and asked, among other things, where I should stay. “Hotel Kabul, of course!” Of course.
A taxi took me from the airport to Hotel Kabul. Behind the reception desk stood one of those men who make you count your fingers after shaking hands—if you ever do. With an important expression, he consulted his books and handed over a key. I seemed to be the only guest. Could I have a quiet room for a meeting the next morning? “Of course, you can have our conference hall.”
Upstairs, I called Mr. B., the head of TASS in Kabul and my local contact. We agreed to meet at nine the next morning in the hotel’s conference hall.
Then I swung my suitcase onto the bed. A cloud of dust rose. Not good. The evening sun made it look quite picturesque: golden dust suspended in a cone of light. At the window hung curtains that must once have been white. I bent a corner of one, and part of it broke off. Not good.
A refrigerator stood alone, unplugged, its door ajar. Inside, cockroaches crowded the two glass shelves. More than I could count on both hands. Not good at all. Three strikes. What now?
I called the Austrian consulate, but the office had closed. The German embassy answered. “Where are you now?” “Hotel Kabul.” “For heaven’s sake, you should be at the Intercontinental Hotel. Grab your bags right now and make sure you get to the Intercontinental as soon as possible.”
I hurried down to reception and asked for a taxi. “You can’t leave here.” The curfew had begun at six, and it was now much later. Leaving my suitcase behind, I went outside. Diagonally opposite stood something that looked like a taxi. I waved. The driver extended an arm and made a circular gesture: no, impossible.
I took out a hundred-dollar bill and waved it in the same circular motion. The car rolled towards me. “Intercontinental Hotel, 100, now.” Deal. I retrieved my suitcase and we set off.
I had no idea where the hotel was. Perhaps just around the corner? It was a long drive. At almost every intersection stood an armed soldier. We were stopped several times: passport, explanation from the driver, a look in my briefcase. Then onward.
Intercontinental
From the Intercontinental I could see the city and the mountains beyond. My first look out of the window, though, startled me. As I mentioned in the previous post, the sky seemed full of fiery projectiles, almost like New Year’s Eve. I relaxed when I understood they were aircraft countermeasure flares, intended to divert heat-seeking missiles.[2]
I kept the same driver throughout my stay. He made a good impression and spoke a little English. Together with my few words of Russian, that was enough. The next morning he drove me downtown. Daylight revealed a different city: shot-up cars, groups of soldiers and checkpoints at every crossing. I was sure I would be late.
At one intersection, a soldier held a weapon considerably larger than a machine gun, ready to use. My driver called out and gestured for him to lower it. The man barked something back, then came to my window. A grim face. Not someone I would have chosen for a beer.
“Where you from?” Austria. His expression changed completely. “Austria!?! Waldheim!! Good friend!” He opened the passenger door and jumped in, one leg and his weapon half outside the window. Next stop: Hotel Kabul. No more checks. Near the hotel stood another car destroyed by a bomb. I could understand the embassy’s concern.
Thanks to this unexpected escort, I arrived early. Same receptionist, same attitude. From the corner of my eye I saw a man of perhaps thirty or thirty-two enter and greet him with a brotherly kiss. I thought little of it and went to the conference hall. An impressive name, at least. I sat at a table and laid out my papers.
Soon afterwards, a man approached. My first reaction was an alarm somewhere below conscious thought: something was wrong. Then the questions followed. Was he not rather young to head TASS in a place like Kabul? He did not have the authority I expected. Perhaps an employee? He held out his hand. “Are you Mr. Zettl?” “Yes.” “I am Mr. B…”
I recognized the man who had greeted the receptionist. That familiarity now added to my unease. I needed time to think and suggested ordering tea and snacks. “Oh no, don’t bother, I just had breakfast. Let’s get straight to the point.”
While I searched for an elegant way out, the door opened again. An older man walked directly towards me without acknowledging the other. “I am Mr. B… It’s best if we leave immediately, my car is waiting outside.”
Two Mr. B.s. I had told nobody at the hotel my contact’s name. I suspected that someone had listened to my telephone call, but I never established what had happened.
We drove to the TASS office, where I carried out my inspection. Printers stood on banana boxes; the heavier telex machine rested on a wooden fruit crate.
Later, in his living room, Mr. B. said the new equipment would be a fine thing—for his successor. He was due to retire in three months. “And you can’t imagine how much I’m looking forward to this day. I will only play tag with my grandkids and grow big fat beans in my garden. Come with me, I’ll show you something!”
Opposite the windows stood a telephone table and a chair. Above the chair was a large bullet hole. “2 minutes before the bullet hit, my wife was sitting there and was on the phone.”
We got on well. Later, after my client returned from Moscow, I asked whether he had seen Mr. B. and whether he had retired. I was told that, shortly after our meeting, he had been caught in a car bombing and lost both legs. No playing tag with the grandchildren. No big beans.
Leaving Kabul
My flight was supposed to leave at eight in the morning, and I had to be at the airport three hours beforehand. The departure hall was deserted and freezing. A German man came in and sat beside me. He said he represented Mercedes-Benz in Kabul, which struck me as an unlikely business. He also covered a region of Iran, but conditions there were even more chaotic, so the Kabul office had remained.
Naturally, we did not leave at eight. Eventually we were asked to walk far out onto the tarmac and board through the rear of the aircraft. It was a fairly large plane, but I could see only six or seven rows of seats before a heavy velvet curtain. We sat close to it. After take-off, we watched the flares being released, this time from very close quarters.
Noises kept coming from beyond the curtain. Curiosity won. I looked through. There were no more seats, just five young Afghan men sitting in a circle on orange cloths on the floor. In the middle stood a stove with an open flame. Perhaps they were heating water for tea. An open fire inside an aircraft seemed a rather original arrangement to me.
A Sack Full of Money
One final incident. I had allowed three to five days for each destination and usually finished my work in two. The rest was for looking around. In Kabul, I also wanted to shop.
Since my student days I had collected and traded antiques and curiosities, partly financing my studies that way. On the second evening I explained to my driver that I wanted to browse the shops. “I do.” First, though, I needed local money. A bank? “No bank.” The hotel? “No good. I do.” I agreed; I expected an informal exchange to give me a better rate.
The next morning he picked me up. After a while, I became puzzled: we were heading out of the city rather than towards the centre. The surroundings grew increasingly sparse. He stopped beside a weighbridge. Next to it stood a little hut. He disappeared inside, then waved me in.
A rather shabby man stood at a desk. I gave him a hundred dollars. He folded the note and put it in his breast pocket, then searched a drawer and produced an old plastic shopping bag. Beside the desk was a large wicker basket, like a laundry basket. He lifted its lid and brought out a handful of banknotes. Then another. He weighed the bag in his hand, added a few more notes and pointed to his heart—where my hundred-dollar bill now rested. Transaction complete.
I did find something in the shops: three beautiful solid sterling-silver bracelets with stone inlays.
Kabul was still cold. Next came Saigon and its muggy heat, then Beijing and Pyongyang with temperatures below freezing. One city defeated me: Beirut. Each time I obtained a visa, renewed warnings prevented the trip. After three attempts, we gave up.
Footnotes
[1] Historical context: Soviet troops completed their withdrawal in February 1989. The Taliban movement emerged in 1994, after the period described here; it should not be equated with the mujahideen groups of the Soviet-Afghan war. Sources: U.S. Department of State historical background and UNHCR’s 1996 review. ↩
[2] Aircraft countermeasure flares create alternative heat sources to divert infrared-guided missiles from an aircraft. See the U.S. Air Force explanation. ↩
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