Molotov Cocktail (24 January 1940)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Jesse owes me a favor for this.  If he can write to the Chicago Tribune and get someone to kill me for solving "Windy City" many years ago, we'll call it even.

MY FINNISH DIARY
by Sir Walter Citrine, K.B.E.
Penguin Books Limited, NY
March 1940

Pg. 37 (WEDNESDAY, 24TH JANUARY, 1940):
   We took some food, during which we were introduced to the pilot, "one of the best in Finland and a 'millionaire'" (i.e. a pilot who has flown more than a million kilometres).

Pg. 41:
   We swallowed some light refreshments (non-alcoholic) and, whilst we were nibbling sandwiches, we were regaled with stories about the damage which had been done by "Molotov's bombs."  Everyone apparently speaks of them in this fashion, and when the aeroplanes are heard to be dropping their deadly cargoes, the people say "Molotov is barking again."  Similarly when the soldiers attack the Russian tanks, they call their rudely-made hand grenades "Molotov's cocktails."  Stalin is not mentioned, principally, it is said, because the people ascribe the change in Russian foreign policy to the advent of Molotov as Foreign Minister.  I wonder what Litvinov thinks of it all?

Pg. 136:
   In the evening we took a train for Tampere (Tammerfors), an industrial city and the so-called "Manchester" on Finland.

Pg. 139:
   Tampere is called the "smokeless Manchester of Finland," and many splendid factories are built near the Tammerkoski (Tammerfors) rapids.
(Maybe the OED will enter "Manchester," meaning an industrial city?...If you Google "Popik," you'll see that some of my work is in the English language web site of the university at Tampere, Finland.  I'll go there one of these days and maybe give a lecture--ed.)

Pg. 168:
   He said he had a good granite-walled cellar, but neither he nor his wife bothered to go into it when the "Nolotovs" appear.  He seemed to take great delight in pronouncing the name "Nolotov," instead of "Molotov," and it was explained to us that "nolo" is a word which in Finnish is used to describe a rather helpless person who has done something stupid or embarrassing.  Whether the name was of his own devising I don't know, but he apparently enjoyed saying it.