Landing Party

In windswept Wellington (pop. 122,400), the seaport capital of New Zealand, mothers hurried their daughters off the streets, hotels and pubs increased their liquor stocks, restaurants and roadhouses and easy women prepared for stirring times. Steaming into port was the factory ship, Slava, and a fleet of 25 whalers. Aboard were 1,060 officers and men, back from eight months of solitude and hard work in the Antarctic with a catch of 14,000 whales and just over $160,000 in spending money. Wellingtonians nervously awaited the first landing party.

But the whaling crew were Soviet Russians and, as far as riotous behavior went, Wellington might as well have been host to a church convention. The Russians did their drinking in coffee and milk bars; they avoided waterfront dives, were polite and soft-spoken in trams and shops. The pursuit of women was out of bounds.

They spent their money freely, but in unexpected places; they cleaned out all stocks of gabardine from one department store, all the nylon fur from another. They loaded up on lingerie and stockings and perfumes--for the girls back home; for themselves, they bought shirts, shorts and ties--in any color, curiously, except red. A surprising haul was made by Wellington's druggists, for the Red sailors swept the shelves bare of laxatives, and even bought up patent medicine that had been gathering dust for years. At week's end the Russians went back to their ships laden like housewives returning from a bargain sale, and the fleet steamed out, headed for Odessa and home.

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