1926
It was difficult to select a less suitable time for an expedition to Syria. When I presented my passport with the French visa in the port of Beirut [1] it provoked great suspicion. Nobody wanted to believe that any French authority had issued a visa to a Soviet citizen (according to the authorities somebody definitely a ‘Bolshevik’) when not even French citizens were admitted. Under military escort I was taken through the city to a prefecture for verification of my documents. A very thorough examination of my luggage and letters and additional telegraphic information apparently at long last put the receiving Prefect at ease and I went to one of the largest tourist hotels. Later I came to understand the cause for the anxiety of the authorities. [2]
Beirut is situated within the coastal subtropical belt, i.e. in a typical Mediterranean area. It is surrounded by enormous plantations of bananas and sugarcane, gardens and vineyards. The coastal part of Beirut is represented by a European-type city with beautiful, straight avenues, comfortable homes and wonderful parks. There is a large American university where American professors teach. Nearby is a Jesuit educational institution of special interest to me since, according to earlier information, the enormous herbarium of the Jesuit Bouloumou is preserved there. [3]
I had planned the route of the expedition when preparations for it were being made in London and Paris. Syria is a complex country for studies of cultivated plants and agriculture. The coastal Mediterranean belt of the country stretches from Beirut to Latakia. It is represented mainly by introduced crops such as bananas, sugarcane and citrus fruits, which were of no special interest to me. It was important to penetrate deep into the country, to southern Syria in the neighborhood of the border of Palestine, where the botanist Aaronsohn in 1906 had collected wild wheat in the mountains. Khoran was reportedly one of the most important territories of cultivated wheat and at the same time the native land of wild wheat.
On my arrival at the final destination in Khoran, I had to present myself and the appropriate documents to the military authorities and obtain permission for travelling farther. One of the teachers at the American University, spending his holidays by going on trips, had joined me as a travelling companion.
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