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| Entrance
to apartment of my colleage Mikhail Ivanovich (Misha) Popov and his
wife Valya in Donetsk. Both Misha and Valya were heads of
departments in the
Institute of Industrial Economics of the Academy of Sciences.
Both had the Soviet equivalent of PhDs, Their
apartment had one bedroom. Their thirteen year old son lived with
gandma in another part of town. This arrangement was not just
because of the lack of room in the parents' apartment but also because
if grandma could hold out until the boy reached his majority (18), he
would inherit her apartment upon her death. |
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Typical
high-rise. Note the tiles falling off the exterior. The
sidewalk below is littered with them. |
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| Apartment complex on the outskirts of Donetsk.
It holds a lot of people but, as you cann see, it is isolated and there
is only one very inadequate trolley line to it. The complex is
hard to see in this photo because of the constant haze in Donetsk, one
of the most polluted places I have ever been. |
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The
nomenklatura (the elite of the Communist Party and
government) live very differently. This is their district in
Donetsk. There are fountains, playgrounds and luxurious houses
and apartments. It's not easy to find, as you can imagine.
While showing me this area, my colleage Misha made the assertion that
the real distribution of income in the Soviet Union was less equal than
in the US, even if money income is more equally divided. |
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| One
of the houses of the nomenklatura. It's enormous, perhaps 5,000
square feet. |
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Typical
private home. There are no home buiders -- these have to be
constructed by family and friends, possibly with the help of
moonlighting construction workers. About 25% of urban housing is
private (on land owned by the state) and about 75% of rural housing is
private. |
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Here's
a private house in a rural area. Not much difference, is
there? To tell the truth, I don't really remember which is which.
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Busses
and trolleys (and subways in Moscow) are the most common forms of
transportation. They use the honor system -- riders punch their
own tickets. There are plain-clothes inspectors who can demand to
see your ticket, but they are not common.
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This picture was taken in '92 or '93, a couple years after
Ukraine became independent. All of a sudden, huge houses like this
started springing up in little villages all over the place. These
guys didn't get their money working at state enterprises. |
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More conspicuous building. Most people in these
villages were living very hard lives. Not these guys. |
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Everything
is in short supply. The shoe department in a Soviet department
store.
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On
the other hand, this store has all you could possibly want -- as long
as what you want is onions (or whatever that stuff is).
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These
scrawny chickens were for sale by a private vendor outside a state
store. The temperature was about 90. As bad as these look,
they were better than what was available inside, one of the benefits of
perestroika.
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A
private vendor. For more on markets, see the folder on markets on
the home page. Flowers, by the way, are an important part of the
culture here. One would not think of going to a friend's house
for dinner without them.
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No,
this is not an example of child labor. It's a club. In many
industries, there were children's clubs. This, of course, is a
railroad club. They had their own miniature train system here that
you could ride (see below). Every job, with the exception of
engineer, was held by a club member. This was one club of many
scattered about the Soviet Union. It is an example of a mass
organization, set up by the state to occupy the people to keep them
occupied and to keep them watched.
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One
of Moscow's finest availing himself of the services of a soda
machine. Here's how it works. You put your money in.
Then you pick up the glass that you see this chap holding (I'm not
kidding) and you press it down on a spout to rinse it out. Then
you make your selection and the glass fills. When you are done,
you replace the glass for the next person.
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The
train of the railroad club. For a token payment, you can get a ride around
the park.
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A
bank of soda machines. The selection and availability is much
less than you would get from a single Western soda machine, an example
of the inefficiency of the Soviet system. |
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As
perestroika and glasnost progressed, religious freedom increased and
then blossomed after the fall of the Soviet Union
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Most
of my days in the Soviet Union or Ukraine ended like this. The
chap in the middle with the grey hair is the deputy speaker of
Parliament in the newly independent Ukraine. He is opening a
bottle of Ukrainian cognac. On the right is my colleague Misha,
who is opening a bottle of vodka. Generally, women drink cognac
and men vodka, but this is by no means a rule. The vodka and
cognac are drunk at meals in shot glasses or sherry glasses, bottoms
up, with toasts. Between toasts, they drink soda (such as the
chap standing at right is serving) or beer. Each person at the
table is expected to offer a toast, the more elaborate the
better. The third toast is always to the women in our lives.
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These
people spend much of their time socializing. The folks on the
left are fishermen, complete strangers who sold us a fish in a market
and were curious who the guy was with the big camera. They were
worried I was secret police, but when Misha told them I was an American
professor, they immediately invited us to their lake on a state farm
for a picnic. The food, and vodka, was fabulous.
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While
visiting at a friend's home, a neighbor and his wife dropped by toting
a guitar. They sang traditional and folk songs for hours.
The man's voice was one of the most beautiful I have ever heard.
It was one of the most memorable days of my life. When you lack
nightclubs, bars, and restaurants, you make do with your own resources.
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