The Moscow chandelier is a legendary BOAC story told and re told for many years.
The hotel was The Ukraine which was a Stalinist monstrosity the rooms were tiny and the facilities in the bathroom consisted of a small piece of cloth that served as a towel, a sliver of carbolic soap and the lack of a plug in the sink! Standard instructions were to take towel, soap and plug with you on these trips.
The 'restaurant' was a joke. A vast menu would be produced and as you asked for each item the huge waitress, wearing socks and with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, would say 'Niet'. You would,at some random point in the proceedings, find a tin dish containing some fat and gristle and maybe a little yellow, overcooked cabbage thrown down in front of you. Accompanying this delight would be a piece of black concrete which was supposed to be bread and a glass of black tea.
This was the reason that self catering was the norm on Moscow trips and the large fruit cake liberated from the First Class galley was eked out until pick up and the return to civilisation arrived.
The one good point about the hotel was the Beriozka shop which was filled with goodies which could be purchased with hard currency. Bottles of grog and cases of beer were very cheap if paid for in £'s or $'s so the parties were always well oiled.
Each floor of the hotel had a desk in front of the ancient manual lifts this was the home of the 'Dragon Lady' who would write something in a large book each time you arrived or left the room. There was much speculation as to what sensitive information was being gathered for the KGB by these jolly souls.
We once held a party in one of the lifts which were like something out of an Agatha Christie film with a young lady who operated the thing. We toasted every guest that arrived in the lift with drink from the Beriozka and attempted to woo the lift operator. All jolly good fun until a man with an air of menace entered the lift addressed us by name and told us it was time to go to bed! Arguing was not an option so off to the freezing cell it was.
The Captain was given a huge cavernous 'suite' which even had a grand piano the floors had moth eaten rugs and this is were the origins of the Chandelier took root. The room party was usually in this room as you could only fit two people in the standard ones.
As 'strong drink' was taken and theories of KGB spies were told someone lifted the rug and saw a small area that could be lifted in the floor. The Flight Engineer was dispatched to get his tool kit and the floor board lifted revealing an object that they decided was a 'bug'. A spanner was produced and the rest is history
