Life after the Hungarian trip seemed to happen at a faster clip. The tentative confirmation of my English abilities practised on unsuspecting Germans and Magyars, plus no apparent and pressing interest in a future engineering career, started leading me in a different direction. The time was spent in fancying an international career in whatever was more exciting than trying to keep the crumbling Soviet infrastructure together. Reading just about any English book I could get my hands on was way more fun than drooling on some ancient engineering treatises.
At that time, the central bookstore in town started getting shipments of relatively freshly published and glossily packaged western stuff. Most of these valuable bundles were cheap paperbacks. Sometimes a classier material managed to seep through the borders too, as one day I even found a copy of the Bible, the New International Version. This was to be my first exposure to the Holy Writ. Alas, my atheistic background hindered my thinking so I had to stop early into Genesis stumbling by the genealogies, lists and strange names. Why did I start at Genesis? Well, I was sort of used to starting most of the books at page one. Besides, thinking that the New Testament was literally just a newer version of the Old Testament did prompt me to start there. A great pity indeed, since I could have learned about Jesus sooner, as such it was not to be for another couple of years.
I typically ploughed through other books with greater success, although at times negating some more difficult parts – they had to wait since I hardly had time to decipher. One of them was Murder in the Catskills. For the longest time while and after reading the book I puzzled over the bewildering fact of whether the cats were the culprits or cat’s skills served as a useful murder weapon. In either case I was not to discover the truth until some years later when living in New York. After all this was not that important as the murder did take place as well-evidenced by the shrilling bright cover that depicted something resembling a murder weapon and a set of handcuffs – very useful for anybody endeavouring to grow all and any American inclinations…
Abridged Story of Plyush
About this time my best friend Misha and I managed to come across a very intriguing business opportunity. Although it hardly had anything to do with English, it did have a lot to do with another foreign tongue – Czech.
When the majority of our school friends left to serve the glorious motherland in the ranks of the Red Army, many typically ended up in places exhibiting hardly anything inspiring and cuddly. Some ended up in the deep forests of the middle Russia, others in the desolate East Siberian taiga or even amidst the turbulent and frigid waters of the White Sea – a gateway into the Arctic Ocean – brrrr. But we did have a lucky one in our brave ranks – Slava Strelnikov. Aptly renamed Plyush (velvety stuffed toy) for his soft facial expressions and propensity to have a heavier than necessary appearance, he really scored with his military career. They must have really liked his peach fuzz visage, sparing him of tundra and Afghanistan. After all, there were nice warm spots even behind the Iron Curtain.
Following an initial shipment to some obscure Ukrainian locale for boot camp purposes, Plyush was informed that his next port of call was to be a motorized infantry battalion stationed near the beautiful city of Prague. Plyush was delighted. With his trimmer, post boot camp, statute, he was ready for an exemplary stint with the glorious battalion that had distinguished itself on a number of glorious occasions. One such occasion happened back in 1968 when the intrepid battalion had to roll over a few nasty protestors. They thought that waving a few flags and screaming some chants would get them western pensions, trips to Paris and a strange societal force called democracy. No, the battalion really thought otherwise, the heady days of glory distinctly marked by deficits of socks, cheese and underwear were to persist for some time to come.
Fast-forward just about twenty years and a lot had changed. The intoxicating winds of Perestroika were sweeping the guarded Communist world. People were getting ever more optimistic about their economic and political prospects that penetrated even the thick armour of the battalion mentality. No longer every passing day meant anything too technical like polishing tank treads or too fundamental like brushing up on the Communist manifesto. Now everyone was really bent on getting their very personal and very economic needs met first, end of story. It seemed that the great exercise in collective happiness was winding down, giving way to the icy winds of individual success. Icy and yet promising, they were. Plyush, like hardly anyone else in the battalion, felt the need to brace up against the acute elements. And while most of his cohorts did not expect much more than a few scattered memories, some foreign trinkets and lingering taste of Czech beer; Plyush, troubled by his energetic nature, could not simply succumb to such eventuality.
Truth be told, our dear Plyush was a different kind of fellow who frequently did not subscribe to well-established stereotypes. He always stood out, for one reason or another, I never knew for sure. It could have been his upbringing in a tiny one room 16th floor apartment sized at about 400 sq. ft. There, together with his brother of rather rebellious personality, he learned to put up with the inadequacies of Soviet life in just about all of its forms, ranging from the utmost lack of privacy to his father’s propensity for strong alcohol. At times one had to wonder how Plyush managed in school where he persisted in getting sort of high-ish marks. Plyush was clearly smart and sometimes even fearless, calculatingly so. Once upon entering his apartment I was struck by a terrifying and yet surprisingly serene scene of Plyush quietly reading a book while sitting on the thinnest of window sills with nothing but 150 ft. of free fall behind him. I could not do it even with a 15ft. gap between myself and the window but Plyush seemed entirely impervious to the madness of vertigo, Sir Isaac Newton notwithstanding.
After that window episode, I knew that there was something in Plyush that I could not always count on reasoning with. In short, there was something a bit zanily extreme about the dude. None was manifested abler than his prodigious ability to hold liquor and inhale packs of cheap Soviet cigarettes. It typically took at least a couple of us to match his strokes in the partying department otherwise there was no such thing as an even playing field. Plyush was just head and shoulders, or rather liver and lungs, above your average Ivan. And yet a ray of reason was not a stranger in his larger than regular cranium. So just a few days before his first date with the boot camp, Plyush weighed his chances and figured that cigarettes were going to kill him faster than drink. He had to have either but he could not do with none. So he quit, absolutely cold turkey. In one fell swoop he went from two packs to none - from that day on the only chemical fumes he inhaled were those of the Ukrainian industrial landscape. Unfortunately though, his adventurous body required an equal amount of excitement caused by various chemical agents regardless of his wilful decisions. So instead of a decent balance between cigarettes and alcohol, he had to resort to larger amounts of booze to compensate for any nicotine deficiency that befell his turbulent system.
The glorious Red Army could have cured some of it had the task fallen on someone less resistant but our colourful friend was not content to sit in the barracks and let the world go by. After a few sober weeks of relative mental inactivity he was becoming restless. Now in the confines of the battalion, right on the outskirts of the city that boasted a thousand spires, Plyush was devising an angle. It had to be there and he found it on his very first outing into the beautiful Prague. When others marvelled at the Charles Bridge, royal castles and other visually pleasing distractions, Plyush was most enthused by the commercial street activities otherwise known as the black market. Here the places were just teeming with hawkers of glamorous western merchandise in just about any of its forms that could be carried by a human being. What was even more amazing, the police did not seem perturbed one bit by such unbecoming and very non-socialist activities. It could never have been that blatant in the middle of Moscow or Bukhara, but here the free markets reigned unfettered. Plyush saw the opportunities and he could not get them out of his mind back in the dreary barracks. What about some courier assignment, anything to get outside of the heavy red brick walls of the battalion.
His chances did not linger to show up and one day, just few months into his career at the glorious battalion, Plyush was allowed outside on the regular basis. How he got there exactly remains a mystery. However, whatever it was, from that point on he was able to leave the battalion in plain clothes just about any day of the week. The rest was simply a matter of mechanics as well-endowed Plyush took just a few weeks to master some passable Czech and become a fixture on the local black market scene. At first he serviced his less fortunate comrades back at the battalion. With his successes failing to hide, even his senior officers now relied on his ever more fluent Czech and nimble brains to undertake little side commercial undertakings of their own. Within a year, Plyush was running a little smuggling empire with unbelievable results.
While most of our friends were lucky to return from their army stints with a pair of pre-service jeans that still fit. Plyush returned home with two cars. Owning a car in the Soviet Union at that time was a rare privilege usually reserved to well-connected party officials, hard-working chiefs of the industry and few slippery types that managed to get through the cracks of KGB controls. Having two at the ripe age of 21 was unheard of. Plyush was the first truly self-made specimen in our midst, his enviable success was what everyone wanted to emulate.
Czech Visas – Exercise in Thin Air
Misha and I sensed that something had to be wrung out of the perpetually partying Plyush. The time was of the essence as our capitalist Czech marauder was now fighting a war of attrition with all local restaurants. The stakes were high as it either Plyush was going to run out of his liqueur holding capacity or the whole city would just run out of alcohol. Misha and I, the sober lot, did not worry too much about Plyush’s drinking buddies, these were just happy to partake of his expansive largesse and not much more. We did worry about potential losses should Plyush, after losing the all-out war, decide to exercise his free market talents himself. As long as the war ran its course we were safe. The key question was: what services we could provide for our budding super nova. He had a lot of roubles of course, plus his two cars. These were known but there had to be something else up his sleeve. And if his unending partying indulgence was an indicator he would need able agents to do his bidding.
Finally, one morning, reasonably sober Plyush decided to confide in Misha and me. In short he brought back from Prague a whole sheaf of already authorised and stamped Czech visitor invitations. What were these? Well, to any unsuspecting westerner this was a complete mystery but to every aspiring Soviet traveller these pieces of paper were worth their weight in gold at least thrice over. You see, in the west we easily fly, drive, walk and gallop across just about any sovereign border with an infantile innocence. We usually do not need anything but a passport with a reasonably tidy face on it. And even when we need visa to drop on the likes of the cuddly uncle Kim Chen Il or stylish Mr. Putin, it is usually arranged with ease and facility unless we happen to have too close ties with the State of Texas. But forgetting about our drawling neighbours to the South, the world just loves us and our pocket books.
Well, when it came to the poor Soviets of the 1980s, nobody wanted us. We did not have anything but few scrunched up rouble bills that hardly passed for money at home let alone across the border; our appearance was scruffy and our hearts were certainly in the clutches of Leninist propaganda. But these misfortunes were just a small part of the larger problem. After all, the world society at large saw some semblance of humanity in the lesser specimens of the communist race. Consequently, it usually turned a lenient eye and granted visas more often than not.
OK, they could let us in but the bigger conundrum was the one of leaving - a very essential and at times mostly unattainable privilege. No one knows a precise reason. Tempering our envy of the wider world sounds like a good one. There might have been others. But whatever they were, the only way out was either a private invitation or a tour group shtick. And since belonging to a tour group required some kind of a connection, the private invitation was about the only way out for the less endowed. Well not so fast! How, after the decades behind the barbed wire, could one find a friend? That’s where Plyush’s invitation came into play.
This was a true gold mine, the racket was new and in high demand. It seemed that we could charge just about anything. Plyush, still in the midst of his restaurant assault, could not be bothered and let us have 50 of these at 100 roubles a piece, on best efforts basis of course. Otherwise where would we get such a princely sum of 5,000? My father, a doctor, made considerably less in the whole year.
Now all we had to do was dig. The first trick was to fill out the space for each inviting individual. And since we did not have much facility with Czech language or Prague addresses, we had to rely on Plyush who managed to produce a unique array of names and addresses that appeared to permanently reside in his agile mind. He was not just agile; he was creative, looking at the gig as an exercise to invent more distinctly different names and addresses than Rain Man could possibly memorize. Unfortunately, our immediate offering of the fifty pieces of paper was too limited to give any idiot savant a run for his money.
With papers ready, Misha and I plunged into our marketing activities with boundless enthusiasm of the nascent capitalists. We were just like recently weaned puppies enjoying their first real meaty bone, none of those milk drippings. We ruffled through the full rolodex of just about any friend, neighbour and acquaintance. No dusty, however spider web-ridden, corners of our memory banks were left untouched. From start to finish, the operation was turbo-charged, as the travel-starved Soviets did not to have a heart to turn down an official (or nearly so) reason to enjoy the forbidden fruits of the West, Soviet West. We became more adept marketers or liars, if one prefers, as we went on. The sale of these tenuous pieces of paper invariably invoked a barrage of questions relating to the logistics of travel and, of course, to the logistics of profit making. Every sensible card-carrying Commie wanted to experience the elation of easy profits first and foremost. Money was tight and sightseeing had to come second. There was no disposable income to throw around, nothing could be wasted. To address the legitimate concerns we had to invent our own version of “Let’s Go Czech”. This was an especially sparse, communist version, with no restaurants but home-made sandwiches, with hardly any sightseeing but plenty of bazaar tips, with nothing to sleep on but your own version of a sleeping bag.
And since neither of us had a privilege of travelling to the sunny Czech paradise, we made it much up as we went along, with Plyush’s help of course. That is when he was sober and unencumbered by his jolly restaurant friends and sketchy bevies of girlfriends to boot. Sometimes we had to skip school as mornings, about noon, were about the only time to catch up with Plyush degrise’. When successfully snagged, he proved to be a true oracle and a well of information, deep with all sorts of Czech knowledge. He knew just about all right answers to soothe any buyer’s remorse. After attentive listening sessions with our convivial friend, we acquired many a skill through his incisive and yet calm discourse. It would typically go like this.
“Toock, toock” I hopefully rapped at the door of his 16th story apartment safely delivered by a decrepit elevator that was no stranger to victimizing the locals with empty shaft fakes. Calling ahead was useless as Morning Plyush did not like any early disturbances. He simply yanked the cord from the jack if you tried.
Silence. Deafening silence. Suddenly, a ray of hope crept through the door jamb. Shuffling, slow nonagenarian steps. Last two strides have a bit of a fresh jump. My face shines and the lock creaks. A ray of light crosses the landing. The speedily travelling sunlight is aptly chased by something else, something less pleasant – sour hangover fumes that appear to have pitched a permanent tent in the apartment. With barely a moment to adjust, dishevelled straw hair and ruddy pimpled cheeks rudely thrust into my space – Plyush!
“What do you want this early?” ten o’clock should not have qualified as “early” anywhere outside the entertainment world and Plyush in the midst of his restaurant war. Undeterred I proceeded.
“Plyush, what do we tell them about the money?” It was always an issue with inconvertible roubles as the government would never exchange more than a few meals worth.
“Coffee grinders…” Plyush said with a yawn. He was super laconic in his morning moods. Besides the advice made sense as coffee grinders and personal jewellery were the best foreign exchange mediums.
Why coffee grinders? This is a good question. You see, our central planners had a special affinity for grinding coffee even though there was hardly any coffee to grind. While typically stingy offerings of underwear, sausage and cars persistently eluded the Soviet market, grinders were plentiful. Some astute central planner must have predicted the impending overwhelming conversion to coffee drinking – amazingly prescient. While grinders were fast approaching the magic 2 to 1 ratio (two grinders per capita) the underwear supply stubbornly stayed at 1.5 –Kremlin did not expect a strong improvement in the hygiene habits, I guess.
“Plyush, what do we tell them about the hotels?”
“Coffee grinders…”
Plyush, what about the food and entertainment?”
“Canned fish and coffee grinders…”
Great, I think we had all necessary tools for successful tour guiding. Who cares about Fodors’ or Rick Steeves when you have Plyush and coffee grinders!? Finally, the shackles fell hopelessly to the floor and we were free to act in the best modernist traditions. With Plyush’s advice and guidance it was hardly an issue. Armed with a couple of old and slightly crumpled post cards from the a-spired city we breathed forth pure imagination. For the first time in my life I felt like a poet or at least like a book reviewer. Even if for the most utilitarian purposes, I was finally involved in shaping somebody else’s dream. Maybe I am wasting my time by not selling vacation time shares to the unsuspecting public now.
In my increasingly colourful imagination, hearty and cheap meals garnished with the famed Czech beer serenely waited side by side with clean and affordable hotels that inevitably bordered on the most valuable real estate – public markets. The Charles Bridge and royal palaces could wait. Our subjects were typically the most interested in the pursuit of their mercantile ambitions first and foremost. This was not about the best vistas or the most exciting excursions. Those things they could learn elsewhere. “Where can I sell a coffee grinder?” was always the most pressing question, period.
Frequently our prospects marvelled at our grasp of the key details. I fancied myself to have already travelled to the mystic Prague, as we unrolled the mesmerising and irresistible views in front of our prospective clients. Our sales pitch gradually became so smooth that my poetic inclinations felt almost physically satisfying. It was addictive and I was almost ready to do it for free. Alas, we arrived at the end of the joyous ride with the last of Plyush’s creations dutifully distributed to the hungry public. The time had come to find something else to do…
Having earned my father’s annual salary couple of times over in just three months it was the high time to enjoy the winnings. Since my Jewish genes played a predominant role in my otherwise rather uninspiring personality, I ended up depositing most of my earnings into the old staid Soviet savings bank. The rest was going towards the purchase of few necessities that attested to my commercial prowess – a pair of shiny second grade American sneakers was the most prized item. I did not care that these sneakers were not called Nike or Reebok, I did not care that they were most likely made in Thailand despite the Miami Beach label. I just loved the look, which heavily contributed to my new merchant persona of an emerging street capitalist. This, in addition, was complemented by a pair of irresistible striped pants. English seemed to be the only remaining touch that needed some further work.
Chasing the Capitals
After our Czech visa adventure, Misha and I continued indulging in further commercial transactions of various dubiousness. We were OK with money for the fourth-year students. So with it plus extra time to kill before the start of the new school year, I turned to local travel. Prague could wait and besides I could always find out from my past clients. For now, I was going to one just as exciting locale - Moscow. This was still very cheap and easy, no visas or passports. For only 21 roubles ($2 USD) I flew Moscow to enjoy the historic and culture gems at virtually no other costs to speak of – God bless the centrally planned economies!
I enjoyed my first three-day stay immensely. Taking in much faster and ever more chaotic pace of the capital I much indulged in some superb shopping, Soviet style of course. It is probably a better topic for another time as it has hardly anything to do with any foreign language. However, it wouldn’t out of place to mention that if a marathon runner is a better metaphor for North American shopping, a rugby player is definitely more apropos for the Soviet equivalent. Here is the West, all one has to do is count – styles, sizes, colours and ultimately miles. In the USSR, there was not much to count at all as the multitudes rushed the pearly gates of any shopping establishment that dared selling anything of high demand. We all, just like a herd of hypopotatamus in the best rugby traditions, charged towards that luring white ball. Shoulders, ankles, perfectly healthy livers and chests with fast-beating hearts – all were sacrificed on the altar of material deficits.
Once when returning to my friend’s place after one of these battles for a pair of new shiny shoes, I was struck by an ad placard promising a head-to-head contest between the storied Dynamo Moscow and Washington Capitals of the NHL. Such meetings were rare even for Muscovites since the Soviets with a thinner regular season schedule and a perpetual thirst for hard currency played just about all of their NHL campaigns on the other side of the pond. Luckily, the hopefully mild winds of Perestroika schlepped forth its hockey fruit with Capitals willing to play for a rouble paying crowd. I was elated – here was a spectacular chance to see a real professional hockey game with the storied NHL content. This was particularly amazing since my youth was spent in the hockey desert of Ukraine with the most essential education having to come through our old black and white TV. Up to that point I had seen only one other professional hockey game live when on a school break in St. Petersburg. I thoroughly enjoyed the initial experience and this one was not to be missed.
The game was taking place the following week, and in order not to annoy my friends any further by staying one more time so close together, I had to pull up my Rolodex of other contacts. Fortunately, one such contact was just ready and available to play host. So next week I was going to witness some of the best hockey one could ever see – marvellous!
Week later, upon entering the famed Luzhniki Ice Palace I felt a due sense of awe. No surprise here as this was the true hockey shrine. And unlike the NHL where Joe Louis Arena competed with Madison Square Garden and Chicago Stadium, Luzhniki’s supremacy in Europe was absolutely indisputable. This was where the epic 1972 series was played. This was where the NHL came to rude reckoning in the monumental power struggle. And, alas, this was where Paul Henderson won the final game with a fluky goal.
The walls adorned with pictures, banners and other memorabilia brought to life some of the most exciting moments so far experienced only through camera lenses. My head was beginning to spin. As if wandering in a daze I almost forgot the second most important reason of my visit – practice my English. Naturally, I expected a stalwart fan compliment even to the lowly Washington Capitals. I was not disappointed when rounding my first bend on the outer perimeter of the arena I noticed folks who could not possibly be my compatriots. They were wearing out-of-this-world white sneakers, Levi’s jeans and much lipstick. None of them, of course, missed a chance to don the uniform of their luckless Capitals and they all appeared to be the paragons of fashion and contentment for the sight-starved Soviets like me. But the most intriguing feature of this folk was their age, pensionable age to be exact. They all, just about unfailingly, exhibited white curls, whiskers and perfect plastic smiles.
“What the heck? Where are the young people?” I puzzled. The idea of an average American chasing his dream picket fence by the sweat of his brow was still a perfect unknown. Only later I learned that when exchanging one’s time for dollar signs there was usually not all that much of time left to dilly-dally around the world even if it had to do with hockey. The only people capable of such frivolities were my happy retirees on state pensions and Medicare.
Well, age was not the worst impediment. Few hundred of my younger compatriots were. Crowds were swirling around my cheerful seniors. Just like small and yet very snarly pests these clung and clawed, cutting the very valuable access to the freedom of English and commerce. Everybody, deprived of just about anything but staples, seemed to be clamouring to trade for anything made outside our glorious planning system.
Sneakers, jeans and beloved Capitals jerseys would have been in the most immediate danger of disappearing had it been not for the heavy militia presence. Most of the Russians, including proud Muscovites, were so desirous of some basic life joys such as a pair of white Nike sneakers that even trading one’s soul did not appear all that sacrilegious but even necessary. At first intrigued my pensioners were happy to deal if not for sneakers than surely for pins and hats. Unfortunately, problems of value started cropping up almost immediately. The truth was that hardly any of us, save for a happy couple in a possession of tattered Dynamo Moscow jerseys, had anything of any value that could even qualify for a USA-made undershirt let along anything with colour or beads. The holes in our economic system were just too large and obvious. With no goods and barely any English, their mighty American ship fit for the high seas passed our lost and tiny dingy with no major uproar or acknowledgement.
After the initial agiotage, the life resumed as only a couple of well-prepared Dynamo supporters had good enough pins to trade with shrewd grandmas. I think that since most of them were the retirees from the DC area, a goodly portion of them must have been with either CIA or FBI. Maybe this could explain their reticence to appreciate the sparse joys of Soviet consumer goods. Undoubtedly, they were up on the latest security briefings…
Bolstered by my recent Hungarian experience and the crowd retreat, I gingerly approached the tightly knit bunch to practice my English. This was the first time I had a chance to meet a real American. My first entreaty consisting of a simple “Hello” and “How are you” was more or less successful since it was understood, apparently. However, further proceedings unleashed a series of disheartening events. Their replies and few follow-up questions, instead of entering my ears, made a complete 180 in mid-air and bounced right back. Few more attempts delivered the same results, as my proud English vocabulary was completely snubbed by my, nearly total, inability to cut through the strange and slurred thicket of the American pronunciation. The more I tried to annunciate, the stupider I felt, as they mocked me with that ever-thicker, gurgling river raging past their open smiles and perfect white plastic teeth. I had to beat a retreat.
Reeling, I noticed, from a corner of my eye, those rare Dynamo supporters in jerseys. The lucky bastards were swapping their wares with a couple of adventurous pensioners. Failing to appreciate the subtlety of the exchange, I charged to the scene in hopes of a crucial break-through – maybe there was something for me. First I attempted to offer some basic pins for anything of theirs. It did not work. Not to be outdone, I ploughed further with some additional offerings of my personal Komsomol documents “These must be of some worth to these haters of Communism” I thought Snubbed again! In a growing sense of desperation, I threw in my trump card – the military watch. But satiated rich American bastards waived even this off. I felt entirely defeated. My English failed to break the impregnable thickness of the American defences and my proud entrepreneurial instincts encountered the all too rational fair value driven grandmas on their healthy but fixed income.
I was determined to take my revenge on the ice and I was disappointed as Dynamo drove the smug NHL millionaires into submission, proving that even in tattered sweaters we still boasted better and livelier hockey. Our team led by Golikov brothers pounded the proud Capitals something like 9 to 4. Even the heroics of Dino Ciccarelli did not help. He was also handily deterred by jeers as his name sounded precariously close to something very offensive in Russian. Good for us! The only inconvenience was the absence of a replay board that I hardly missed since I did not suspect that such existed in the first place.
At the end of the game I snuck into a post-game press conference. After my cheap seat behind the goal I could not imbibe enough of the atmosphere of this rare event. The press conference was open to the public and I went in early to claim a prime seat. Not bad, as in a matter of minutes the room was filled with numerous reporters of all stripes.
Some in crumpled grey suits sported tattered notepads and old portable recorders sized as large boom boxes. Others, in hip jeans and glitzy wing-tipped shoes, lugged portable typing machines and even early generation computers! To me, some of these dudes looked just like aliens minus antennas and funky face masks. The more laborious kind was not wasting their time typing frantically to deliver the breaking news of not so pivotal hockey game. Time was money, so was news, I guess. The press conference proved soothing since I was able to comprehend most of what was said – a much needed therapy after my fiasco with the curly grandmas. With my day mostly victorious, my English wounds partially healed I felt asleep to pre-natal dreams on the friend’s couch. Life was becoming ever more exciting and another day was just few hours away.
Potato Farmer
The return to school was smoothed by a three-week work break in the failing agricultural sector. As more and more rural folks had found their passage to the urban paradise over the years, the worse situation in the countryside had become. Nobody, of course, could fault the people for abandoning the land that did not belong to them in the first place. Aside from small private lots, everything was owned by everybody and consequently by none at all. The life was hard, brutish and short. Stalin even denied the peasants internal passports and thus the freedom of movement, save for few kilometres outside of their respective domiciles. If there have ever been a second class citizen in the workers’ paradise, the peasant was it. After the Great War, the country folk had enough and decided to take their revenge on the city by just simply moving in. Sure, the cities offered suffocating chemical fumes instead of air and concrete boxes instead of houses but at least there was some entertainment, underwear for sale and easier jobs that invariably paid better than back-breaking toils of the countryside.
So that’s how the predominantly agricultural society of the 1920s became staunch city dwellers by 1980s. To exacerbate the economic matters, the countryside was further disadvantaged, as the state poured most of its efforts in the grave undertakings of nuclear weaponry, rabbit fur hats and demanding automobiles that required just as much time under as in of their devout enthusiasts. By the time I arrived on the scene, the countryside could barely manage to feed its dwindling own let alone the whole state; the grain was routinely purchased from the bitter enemy, the USA; and the best one could do to salvage the crops, those that still managed to spring up, was to conscript the pliable student labour in the times of need. We learned this early on as from about grade 8 we would regularly spend few weeks in the fragrant fields picking tomatoes, cucumbers and anything else our central system managed to eke out.
Now this was in the summer, in the fall the fields were beset with university students. After all, the high schools could not spare their time spent in the hard drudge of essential education. The country was still in need of people who could “add, multiply, divide and subtract” (President Bush on No Child Left Behind policy). When in came to Calculus and Theoretical Mechanics the case appeared far less certain. So there we went, into the muck of vast potato fields of the Soviet breadbasket that was Ukraine – at least we had something to gather…
To my surprise, mid-fall in the country side was not at all that dreary as on most of the days we were visited by the radiant, post-Chernobyl, sun and caressing, almost evocative, steppe winds. It even was fun at times, as feeding the hungry city people seemed worthwhile and noble. Usually ready at the proverbial crack of dawn, we, having just scrubbed the nightly gooey off our faces, boarded an old rickety country bus to head for the fields. A short, ten minutes at the most, ride was always an adventure since the unpaved earthly ruts did not provide much of a dozing option. Quiet could not prevail and telling loud and sometimes indecent stories was the order, the one especially tantalizing given our colloquial co-ed arrangements. No particular tact was required, we all were equal and our collective appearance hardly betrayed any reference to sex. You see, the Soviets not only neglected to develop the timeless art of Haut Couture. They also omitted to spice up their work wardrobes.
In the fields we had to two options – one to pick potatoes by the bucket and the other to empty the bucket on the truck. The second task was more strenuous and yet more desirable since it, at least, kept your fingernails clean. I always jumped at the opportunity to load since standing on the truck also gave me a chance to open an English page or two in order not to loose any valuable time. And with all that fresh air, the brain worked particularly well. Alas, the loading was not my permanent occupation so frequently I shared in the task of traversing the mud burrows in search of valuable crops. Here our daily dose was measured in buckets picked. So, when feeling especially lazy, I would hard-tamp half of my bucket with fresh dirt so in order to collect another bucket-point all one had to do to pick just a half – anything to amuse oneself rather than inflict harm on dear collective farm, really.
After usually spending about five hours of work we returned to our barrack-like accommodations to a hearty lunch and well-deserved nap. I really needed it since my light night sleep was frequently interrupted by much more permanent co-habitants of the windy barracks – mice. These playful creatures usually stayed quiet at daytime but at night it was their time to exercise. Snoring or stuffing your ears with cotton were the only possible options. I eschewed either, tossing and turning on my metal-mesh bed, hoping to keep the races off my bedspread. I succeeded sometimes but only sometimes.
The later part of the day was entirely ours and I enjoyed it to the fullest taking my daily jogs along the local fields and cow barns. It was magic. The air was filled with singing bucolic solitude; the early October weather was warm and dry; fragrances of newly harvested grains filled one with freshness unknown to an industrial urbanite. The exercise, exhilarating country air and well-prepared organic meals provided so much energy and zest that certain privations of one’s privacy were blissfully forgotten. Who cares about industrialization, I should have been an English squire instead…
With entertainment dearth only other alternative was to visit a neighbouring farmer’s house. This dude not only had a TV but also an enigmatic VCR machine that showed all sorts of western wonders, illicit and otherwise. He was a venal sort of fellow as the word “free” was not in his vocabulary and yet for a small fee we could indulge our senses way past the vast potato furrows yonder. Sometimes, given the poor film dubbing, my English came handy in explaining the intricate differences between “What’s up” and “How are you” to my unilingual cohorts.
My promising homecoming, burdened by a couple of hefty potato sacks, was overshadowed by rather painful news - my grandfather succumbed to a significant stroke. At first he looked to be recovering quite well with his speech slowly returning and his thinking clearing up. However, the less than vigilant Soviet medical system was all too ill-equipped to handle ongoing issues such as repeating strokes through the usage of such banal means as blood-thinning drugs. As a result, he must have experienced a series of further undetected strokes that contributed to his ultimate demise a couple of years later. In any event these were the last days to enjoy his company in the best sense as he was gradually sinking deeper and deeper into the morass of senility and feebleness.
Being a rather motivated type, I tried to shake off my personal loss by enjoying my studies at the university. Up to this point, a bulk of my time in the evenings was spent at the university basketball practices. But this year was different. I must have been maturing. Some youthful non-pragmatic ideals were giving way to something more concrete and tangible. Coming upon my third year trying to make the starting line up, I began to realise that my emulations of Larry Byrd were not likely to result in anything meaningful triumph. I was short, stocky and white - deathly attributes for a NBA career. Hence, I chose to trade my three-point shooting workouts for additional English classes.
The Soviet educational system was free and generous. They even paid us a stipend, which was typically sufficient to keep one fed with barely nutritious and yet survivable grub. It was also accessible when wanting to attend classes for no credit. If one cared to audit additional courses, you could just approach a course instructor, obtain his permission and voila. So I did just that, obtaining an access to the English faculty evening classes. This time I got to take my classes with people, who chose English as a teaching career. The level of knowledge, intensity and speed was markedly higher than any of my previous experiences. The increase in academic hours was playing its part and I started noticing very quick and meaningful progress. The mumbling Hungarian and Moscow hockey encounters were becoming a distant memory and I was scaling new heights. Few months later, bored by the classes in labour safety and some other mind-numbing bunk, I started taking day classes at the English faculty. I took a bit of work convincing but at the end I managed to weasel into the class of Mr. Solovov.
Mr. Solovov, the American
As the promising 1980s were melting fast to a close, any societal promises of collective Nirvana were dribbling into historic oblivion. Comrade Gorbachev and his Perestroika were clearly not going to cut it for everybody. Alas, somebody had to be a loser. Nobody wanted to be that. We all wanted to be winners; we all wanted to be Americans. Not one for miles around was more American than Mr. Solovov, a prof with the University English department.
Mr. Solovov was very unorthodox for a Soviet professor. He was a tall, gangly type that sported thick-rimmed glasses perched on the intelligent face criss-crossed with a few friendly wrinkles. The arrangement was permanently topped by a bunch of messy straw coloured hair. The genius was complete with a perpetual pair of stone-washed jeans, crumply blue cotton shirt and white basketball sneakers. If in doubt of further attributes think Bill Gates; they could be mistaken for a brotherly pair.
Mr. Solovov’s imposingly lumbering frame and deep voice could have made him a first rate Soviet bureaucrat in a crumpled Polish-made polyester suit. Sad for the party as this one was lost to the treacherous land of the most libertarian foreign influences and it showed, as Mr. Solovov stridently eschewed any formality, pomp and circumstance, traits so common among the Soviet wizards of foreign tongues. Instead he always appeared relaxed, approachable and enjoyment-ready. There was a sort of a 1960s aura about the dude with his unshakable serenity of countenance and his beloved guitar that he dragged anytime to anywhere. Forgetting any hefty suitcases befitting his academic rank, he would always open a class with a song or two, some of his own making, even. Imagine that, behind the iron curtain!
His classes lacked any traditional routine of pomp and forced learning. It was always sort of a free-for-all. Such rebellious deviations from the norm made him a huge success. The whole town spoke of Mr. Solovov. He not only added much needed colour to the very intelligent but bleak Soviet academia, but he also offered what not many around could – he taught exclusively American English. Of course, the Queen’s tongue was still in high demand, but with America rising as the only remaining superstar of all post-Soviet hopes, less and less of us were looking to get entangled into the heavy jewel studded folds of the royal language.
We thirsted for freedom and the gurgling American seemed just so unfettered in its universal appeal. To no one’s astonishment Mr. Solovov’s doors were coming unhinged under the weight of the desirous. Solovov with his guitar and scuffed-up sneakers was an incredible propaganda success for the American version. His teaching style, freewheeling and intuitive was just the ground that the fertility of our young minds longed for. The amazing part was that he did it all without first hand experience – he had never been to the States. Whatever he lacked in firsthand knowledge though, he picked up through various contacts, radio, songs and colloquial dictionaries. He typically taught without resorting to boring grammatical texts. He deliberately strayed from deep theoretical discussions. Instead his grammatical explanations moved right to the point of practical application through some hilarious drills of his own design.
All was made sound easy, playful and enjoyable. Mr. Solovov did not separate grammatical drills from reading or speaking, he blended it all in one continuous and colourful array. In this fashion the language stuck naturally, as if it were taught in a native environment. There was always a lot of joking and horsing around - never a simple task one had to really strain to stay within the party guidelines. To make matters even more detached from the grey reality, all had to assume western nicknames and behave as if we had the First Amendment. Mine was Rocky. I did not know whether it had anything to do with my Stallone-ic hair or bench-pressed chest, but it stuck forever. It did take a bit of getting used to but after a while I wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, Rocky handily beat my high school sobriquet of Boris, hands down.
The key part of almost any class was a group chat. Free for all, on nearly any imaginable topic, these were the most fun. The pace required a certain degree of alertness, wide vocabulary and some wit. Mr. Solovov loved to throw his own two bits in a low mumbling voice peppered with obscure slang expressions. It was a challenging and exciting derby and having my horses coming last was not appealing. At first, it was challenging as I was not an English major. But after a few months of determinate toiling I was becoming really decent at it and at times even out-slugged all those Cindies, Robbies and Janes.
Mr. Solovov’s local fame and appeal extended far beyond the school walls. In the late 80s, the country was opening up and more and more people were seeking basic foreign language skills. A great number of locals also enjoyed fewer restrictions on immigration. The floodgates opened and some lucky Soviets dispersed throughout the world, searching for better life. Israel, Canada, Australia were becoming staple destinations. The US always remained the most coveted. Mr. Solovov could work 24 hours a day if he wanted to. His famed methods attracted people from far and wide. Eventually, he quit the University altogether, opening his own full-blown private school that has been enjoying much success for more than fifteen years now. The bulk of the workload has apparently been picked up by Mr. Solovov’s former students to allow more time for the master to spend on honing his guitar/singing skills that have apparently graduated to CD publishing levels.
Although our paths have not crossed for years, I will always be grateful to this funny, unorthodox, at times awkward and indiscernible, but always colourful man for helping me in mastering my American. My Jewish rooted self is especially grateful considering that I did not need to put up a penny for my experience.
Georgian Intermezzo
Whenever having all that much fun one is always well-advised to consider the flip side. The Bible in fact is quite clear about it when Jesus proffers his preference for the house of mourning and not the abode of joy. Alas, for many of us, the awakening arrives a tad too late. So when faced with something tragic we stand naked in our unprepared innocence. The death of my grandmother and my father in a close succession was just such a moment of belated reckoning. In my case, the fate had hard time convincing the one who had barely burst from the uncertain shell of the dodgy adolescence and into the firmer pastures of the adulthood. So just a month or so after my grandmother’s demise, I could not resist an opportunity to take a jaunt with Misha and our Czech visa money to the mountainous paradise of Georgia, the Soviet Republic. No ability to know the future, however close, was surely a blessing since leaving my father, who had only few weeks to live, at home did not seed any remorse in my callous youthful heart.
Why Georgia? A year or two prior, Misha went on a Komsomol junket to coalesce with other youth leaders in the glorious confines of our great capital Moscow. This was a neat occasion to hobnob with ideologically sound and unabashedly ambitious. In the midst of the festivities, Misha got particularly attached to the Georgian delegation. These folks were fun. All dressed up to the nines with their leather jackets, aquiline noses and almond complexions they were just all too irresistible. They handily conveyed that elusive sense of the economic affluence and the intellectual prowess. They all came from the historically aware Tiflis and all exuded their warm southern charm. When meeting they even kissed one another regardless of gender or rank. Misha was smitten.
You see, in the Soviet lore like in any other multicultural aquarium, there have always been majorities and minorities with their racists tensions and preferences. The Soviet folklore was just bursting at the seams with rationally charged jokes to address various disequilibria. Chukchi (Soviet Eskimos) were always derided for their lack of European sense aggravated by the misfortune to live on the edge of the civilization. Jews were picked on for too much rationality and self-deprecating wit, while Georgians paid for their citrus-fed riches. With the Soviet agriculture failing for decades, the peasants usually substituted their earnings with sales of personally grown crops at the city markets. None ranked higher in profitability than lemons and oranges of Transcaucasia. This, and not petrol and gas, made many relatively wealthy folks from the Caucuses with their flashy clothing, fast cars and comically abrupt mannerisms a butt of copious Soviet jokes. Add some spicy accents and the Soviet Sicilians were ripe for perpetual ridicule. But underneath all this was old green envy. We envied their cars, jewellery and even their accents. The fathers of perspective brides wished for a Georgian prince with Lada in tow; engineers and doctors wanted to trade their dreary incomes for a personable citrus plantation; and wives were always a prey to the darts of the southern eyes in the latest jeans and leather.
Not surprisingly, our upwardly agile Misha found them hip and cultivated the connection with abandon. The warmest ties developed were those with Mary who, despite her soft velvety dark eyes, induced exclusively (for once!) platonic feelings in the amorous heart of our friend. They kept in touch for a while. She invited him for a visit and I gladly joined in. A trip to the very heart of the Soviet Eldorado – the capital Tiflis, or Tbilisi as it was known then – looked too good pass up.
Our timing in the early March was just perfect. With winter still raging in our backs, we looked forward to something more palatable and were not disappointed. The day of our arrival was announced with glorious sunshine that bronzed the steep cascading banks that precipitously plunged the city towards the raging waters of Kura. The views were just fabulous, fitting this ancient seat of the Georgian nation founded back in the 5th century. Surrounded by snow capped peaks of the mighty Caucuses one could smell the national historic pride ripe with economic and cultural successes that visibly smoothed the scenery in the harmony of the veritable architectural mosaic. Ancient churches of the Georgian Orthodox Church gleaming in the subdued pink perfectly co-existed next to the surprisingly tasteful modernity that exuded chic and sophistication. This was not just another nameless Soviet city bristling with endless boredom of identical apartment blocks, this was a true magnet, exuberant and brilliant, sure and eternal.
Meeting Mary for the first time gave me another sparkle of intrigue. She, in a stylish silk head covering and tasteful rimmed glasses, looked a spitting image of Benazir Bhutto. All glamour in lipstick and assurance in pose, I immediately thought of the legendary leader, the queen Tamar, who presided over the golden Georgian age some centuries back. Alas, unlike Tamar, Mary did not live in the palace. Instead she shared a three-bedroom affair with her family consisting of her mother, an uncle and a nephew. The place, just few steps away from the main city drag, was great despite the apparent lack of queenly attributes. The street was tranquil and head-spinning mountainous air was filled with an impossible aroma of evergreen cypresses that bedecked the sidewalks. For us, the products of the pollution filled industrial devastation, all looked like a paradise. Accorded a full room with a large bed, all to ourselves, Misha and I endeavoured to explore the magic city.
Predictably, Mary was our steady companion in this undertaking. She, an English University student, was happy to share my affinity for the international tongue. And after exchanging a few dashes of the banal phraseology she determined I was good enough to play a prank on one of her friends. From that point on I was to assume an identity of a Russian-born American who came to visit his friend Misha. I spoke Russian but with a heavy accent, I was from New York or something close and I was to enlighten this specimen, named David, on all intricacies of the lavish American living. This was not all that problematic in my new white sneakers, goose feather coat and striped clown pants that hailed all the way from Finland. David, a slightly younger chap, was all over me. He might have fallen in love had I been of the different sex. Once found I could not escape. At all hours of the day he would show up just to take a peak at the American glories. Frequently I felt too burdened to keep up the role but Mary and Misha’s prodding kept me afloat. I had to make up stories about everything – race relations, gas guzzling cars and cops who were a particular target of David’s fascination undoubtedly fed with many a western thriller. These were widely available in the theatres and on the black market VHS tapes alike. To this day I think that whatever acting juices have ever resided in my head, most of them were exhausted in this shameful ruse. To be frank I do not even remember why Mary needed to play it on David. The only fact that soothes my soul is that he has never found it. Besides, being a Canadian today provides a reasonable degree of eventual legitimacy.
Between the shameful posturing and the glorious cypress aromas, Mary took us on a few culinary outings. The Georgians were the masters of anything that went in one’s mouths, food or drink. The foods were inexorably spicy and non-vegetarian. Huge spicy dumplings that could kill a person from a ten-foot freefall were the ultimate hit. Dripping with all sorts of juices and dipped in fresh yogurt these were scrumptiously incredible. However, nothing could beat Georgian wines. Available in surprising abundance these were too tempting to miss. Here, unlike the rest of the country, one had no difficulty procuring alcohol. While liquor lines were frequently unending in Russia and Ukraine, the places perennially beset by rampant alcohol abuse; here no one had to wait in line to get a bottle. And yet the streets did not produce much in a way of helpless drunks. There was something distinctly more temperate in the local consumption patters. Was it the non-prohibitive abundance, or deeply rooted historic customs, or just plain common sense, I would never know but the temptation to bring some home quickly filled any extra space in our bags.
If streets were bereft of public alcoholism displays, Mary’s family had aplenty to struggle with as her uncle was rather fond of the bottle. So much so that whenever at the family dinner table we had to endure his lengthy and very slurred viewpoints. The difficulty was multiplied since the dude did not speak all that much Russian so one had to dive deep into the sign language to understand anything. Forget English, I had to learn Georgian instead. An old language was certainly not a piece of cake by any stretch. Apart from a cryptic alphabet of more than forty letters one had to learn to scream and roar to replicate the primordially guttural sounds of the tongue. One might think that I am exaggerating but whenever our hosts talked with any degree of passion I had a sensation of an impending murder. And yet it never came even to a simple fist fight. Apparently this was just their tone of a normal dinner conversation.
I asked Mary to give us some languages pointers. She started by giving us, Misha and I, a test to say “Bakhahi Zhali Khihineps” which meant something like “frog is squawking in the water”. What does the frog have to do with anything? Mostly nothing except pronouncing it correctly made my throat really hurt. Misha excelled and I was disqualified. So to prove the point I started on my Georgian alphabet and Misha did his crossword puzzles in Russian.
After few eventful days in Tbilisi we were ready for a three-day junket high up into the Caucuses for my first ever skiing trip. Driving to the resort of Gudauri perching at about ten thousand feet of altitude was truly adventurous. I had never been past four thousand feet let alone ten – wow. Our school friends Shura and Anikei were already there, zigzagging the slopes to their hearts delight. They were really daring, these two. At the times when possessing anything similar to a set of alpine skiing gear was a true miracle, this must have been their third expedition into the snow capped mountains – quite a jump from the sea-levelled Ukraine. Each time, after a couple of weeks on the slopes, they came home with an unbelievable tan and huge hockey bags full of Georgian wine. I did know about two weeks but tasting a bit of the Alpine paradise sounded like an excellent idea. The prospects were all the more exciting since skiing in Gudauri centered around an Austrian-built resort with everything and anything western – ski lift, hotel, restaurants and an indoor swimming pool! We, including Anikei and Shura, had no money in the world to stay at the hotel reserved for people with dollars but at least having a look at the riches sounded like a worthy prospect. Besides, maybe I could practise my English…
The windy ride to the top was a little scare in itself as we navigated in an old beat-up Lada that barely managed to keep about its wits even before we met the snow line. Past the forlorn mountainous villages encircled by wandering goats and climbing grapevines – I had enough distractions at first. Seeing the locals in their woollen head caps, thick ornamented vests and walking shepherd sticks reminded me of the fact that this region boasted one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Here, an impossible Soviet age of one hundred was not unheard of. We had to be careful though as making past our twenties looked precarious once we hit the snow line. Our Lada was sliding in between rocks and precipices like a drunken sailor. I had to hold my breath and count the kilometres. Three, two, one – we arrived in one piece!
The place was just glorious. Above the tree line with tonnes and tonnes of snow it literally soared like an intrepid battleship into the bottomless blue skies. With Shura and Anikei promptly located, we drove to their wood-hewn lodge that was to be our home for a couple of nights. It was Spartan and yet spacious enough to feel secure amidst all this snow and cold. Sure, during the day under the sun it was so warm that some skied in thin sweaters and t-shirts. But with setting sun one had to brace for deep sub-z.
Now I was just itching to try the snow. Unfortunately, the gear for rent was only for dollars and Shura with Anikei were not about to give up their glory, I would have to wait till tomorrow. For now we trudged to the mid-slope section where they had a loud cafeteria with many a personality to feast one’s eyes on. The air was exhilaratingly fresh and short. It just wasn’t enough of it. At first I did not pay attention as just I attributed my panted breath to the lack of hiking conditioning. Besides, one could hardly care with all that technological and natural brilliance around. The real wonder was the speed lift that whisked the lucky pass holders faster than wind. Once on the very top the views were just unendingly inebriating. Throw in some shapely hips, fashionable gear and satisfied western smiles and one could have been on the different planet. “Slam” the door just opened with the whole army of well-tanned Georgian regulars crashing for a quick rest between runs. A couple of low-set sinewy types quickly settled for a bowl of hot soup and a game for elbow-wrestling. Mary, apparently enthused by my impersonating talents and an oversized, tightly bound in a Puma sweater, chest made a quick wager with the soup slurpers – I was to elbow-wrestle.
Now, I have to declare of never been big on anything of wrestling preferring to hide my personal failings behind the camaraderie of game sports. Here I was on the spot, naked as it were. Well, this was no time to waste. I sat down facing my vicious looking opponent with an errant noodle on his cheek and a Popeye-sized forearms. I stretched my arm and strained with my eyeballs thrusting within an easy reach from my opponent’s relaxed visage. “Bam!” my wrestling career was over faster than it began. Cowering in shame, the idea of a friendly après-ski with Anikei and Shura was the most appealing. The feast loaded with wine, meat and whatever else we managed to find in their fridge was a success.
All the more painful was my wake-up. I had high fever, felt disoriented and weak. My first full day on the top of the world was not looking good. Straining to shake the funk, I persevered in mounting on the Anikei’s gear and making some efforts in the deep fresh snow. But instead of a relief I felt like a seagull trapped in the Exxon Valdese spill. Flopping and falling only made my heart race faster than I could count. It was time to check into the local clinic located in the Austrian paradise. By the time I made it, I could hardly walk and felt my worst. No amount of luxury was enough to tease me into distraction.
At the doctor’s office they did not offer much past a tablet of aspirin. Here the universal laws of the Soviet medicine did not seem to apply since the only advice I could get was to go lie down, close your eyes and hope to get better. I clearly couldn’t stay another night. But not willing to be a party pooper I waited for Misha to finish his skiing pleasures. Finally my delirium in the hotel lobby was pleasantly interrupted “Are you ready?” This was Misha with rosy cheeks freshened up by the exercise – the bastard.
We left that promptly. Exhausted, I slept most of the way down. I was so out of it that even the wavy ways of our Lada did not bother me any longer. Once back in Tbilisi, my condition improved by the minute with headache and fever leaving without a trace. Suddenly I realized that this was my first brush with the altitude sickness, a treacherous creature indeed. Happy to be back to my old self, I joyously celebrated with the perpetually smashed uncle. This was a true gift to live another day, another day to act out American dreams, meet new people and celebrate with the old friends. Unfortunately, the time to part came all too quickly. Partially sad with bottles of stuff jingling in my suitcase I was saying good-bye to the brightly lit city streets. Suddenly I saw a sign that read “აეროდრომი”. Right away I knew that it said “Airport” – Eureka, I have not wasted my time!
At that time, the central bookstore in town started getting shipments of relatively freshly published and glossily packaged western stuff. Most of these valuable bundles were cheap paperbacks. Sometimes a classier material managed to seep through the borders too, as one day I even found a copy of the Bible, the New International Version. This was to be my first exposure to the Holy Writ. Alas, my atheistic background hindered my thinking so I had to stop early into Genesis stumbling by the genealogies, lists and strange names. Why did I start at Genesis? Well, I was sort of used to starting most of the books at page one. Besides, thinking that the New Testament was literally just a newer version of the Old Testament did prompt me to start there. A great pity indeed, since I could have learned about Jesus sooner, as such it was not to be for another couple of years.
I typically ploughed through other books with greater success, although at times negating some more difficult parts – they had to wait since I hardly had time to decipher. One of them was Murder in the Catskills. For the longest time while and after reading the book I puzzled over the bewildering fact of whether the cats were the culprits or cat’s skills served as a useful murder weapon. In either case I was not to discover the truth until some years later when living in New York. After all this was not that important as the murder did take place as well-evidenced by the shrilling bright cover that depicted something resembling a murder weapon and a set of handcuffs – very useful for anybody endeavouring to grow all and any American inclinations…
Abridged Story of Plyush
About this time my best friend Misha and I managed to come across a very intriguing business opportunity. Although it hardly had anything to do with English, it did have a lot to do with another foreign tongue – Czech.
When the majority of our school friends left to serve the glorious motherland in the ranks of the Red Army, many typically ended up in places exhibiting hardly anything inspiring and cuddly. Some ended up in the deep forests of the middle Russia, others in the desolate East Siberian taiga or even amidst the turbulent and frigid waters of the White Sea – a gateway into the Arctic Ocean – brrrr. But we did have a lucky one in our brave ranks – Slava Strelnikov. Aptly renamed Plyush (velvety stuffed toy) for his soft facial expressions and propensity to have a heavier than necessary appearance, he really scored with his military career. They must have really liked his peach fuzz visage, sparing him of tundra and Afghanistan. After all, there were nice warm spots even behind the Iron Curtain.
Following an initial shipment to some obscure Ukrainian locale for boot camp purposes, Plyush was informed that his next port of call was to be a motorized infantry battalion stationed near the beautiful city of Prague. Plyush was delighted. With his trimmer, post boot camp, statute, he was ready for an exemplary stint with the glorious battalion that had distinguished itself on a number of glorious occasions. One such occasion happened back in 1968 when the intrepid battalion had to roll over a few nasty protestors. They thought that waving a few flags and screaming some chants would get them western pensions, trips to Paris and a strange societal force called democracy. No, the battalion really thought otherwise, the heady days of glory distinctly marked by deficits of socks, cheese and underwear were to persist for some time to come.
Fast-forward just about twenty years and a lot had changed. The intoxicating winds of Perestroika were sweeping the guarded Communist world. People were getting ever more optimistic about their economic and political prospects that penetrated even the thick armour of the battalion mentality. No longer every passing day meant anything too technical like polishing tank treads or too fundamental like brushing up on the Communist manifesto. Now everyone was really bent on getting their very personal and very economic needs met first, end of story. It seemed that the great exercise in collective happiness was winding down, giving way to the icy winds of individual success. Icy and yet promising, they were. Plyush, like hardly anyone else in the battalion, felt the need to brace up against the acute elements. And while most of his cohorts did not expect much more than a few scattered memories, some foreign trinkets and lingering taste of Czech beer; Plyush, troubled by his energetic nature, could not simply succumb to such eventuality.
Truth be told, our dear Plyush was a different kind of fellow who frequently did not subscribe to well-established stereotypes. He always stood out, for one reason or another, I never knew for sure. It could have been his upbringing in a tiny one room 16th floor apartment sized at about 400 sq. ft. There, together with his brother of rather rebellious personality, he learned to put up with the inadequacies of Soviet life in just about all of its forms, ranging from the utmost lack of privacy to his father’s propensity for strong alcohol. At times one had to wonder how Plyush managed in school where he persisted in getting sort of high-ish marks. Plyush was clearly smart and sometimes even fearless, calculatingly so. Once upon entering his apartment I was struck by a terrifying and yet surprisingly serene scene of Plyush quietly reading a book while sitting on the thinnest of window sills with nothing but 150 ft. of free fall behind him. I could not do it even with a 15ft. gap between myself and the window but Plyush seemed entirely impervious to the madness of vertigo, Sir Isaac Newton notwithstanding.
After that window episode, I knew that there was something in Plyush that I could not always count on reasoning with. In short, there was something a bit zanily extreme about the dude. None was manifested abler than his prodigious ability to hold liquor and inhale packs of cheap Soviet cigarettes. It typically took at least a couple of us to match his strokes in the partying department otherwise there was no such thing as an even playing field. Plyush was just head and shoulders, or rather liver and lungs, above your average Ivan. And yet a ray of reason was not a stranger in his larger than regular cranium. So just a few days before his first date with the boot camp, Plyush weighed his chances and figured that cigarettes were going to kill him faster than drink. He had to have either but he could not do with none. So he quit, absolutely cold turkey. In one fell swoop he went from two packs to none - from that day on the only chemical fumes he inhaled were those of the Ukrainian industrial landscape. Unfortunately though, his adventurous body required an equal amount of excitement caused by various chemical agents regardless of his wilful decisions. So instead of a decent balance between cigarettes and alcohol, he had to resort to larger amounts of booze to compensate for any nicotine deficiency that befell his turbulent system.
The glorious Red Army could have cured some of it had the task fallen on someone less resistant but our colourful friend was not content to sit in the barracks and let the world go by. After a few sober weeks of relative mental inactivity he was becoming restless. Now in the confines of the battalion, right on the outskirts of the city that boasted a thousand spires, Plyush was devising an angle. It had to be there and he found it on his very first outing into the beautiful Prague. When others marvelled at the Charles Bridge, royal castles and other visually pleasing distractions, Plyush was most enthused by the commercial street activities otherwise known as the black market. Here the places were just teeming with hawkers of glamorous western merchandise in just about any of its forms that could be carried by a human being. What was even more amazing, the police did not seem perturbed one bit by such unbecoming and very non-socialist activities. It could never have been that blatant in the middle of Moscow or Bukhara, but here the free markets reigned unfettered. Plyush saw the opportunities and he could not get them out of his mind back in the dreary barracks. What about some courier assignment, anything to get outside of the heavy red brick walls of the battalion.
His chances did not linger to show up and one day, just few months into his career at the glorious battalion, Plyush was allowed outside on the regular basis. How he got there exactly remains a mystery. However, whatever it was, from that point on he was able to leave the battalion in plain clothes just about any day of the week. The rest was simply a matter of mechanics as well-endowed Plyush took just a few weeks to master some passable Czech and become a fixture on the local black market scene. At first he serviced his less fortunate comrades back at the battalion. With his successes failing to hide, even his senior officers now relied on his ever more fluent Czech and nimble brains to undertake little side commercial undertakings of their own. Within a year, Plyush was running a little smuggling empire with unbelievable results.
While most of our friends were lucky to return from their army stints with a pair of pre-service jeans that still fit. Plyush returned home with two cars. Owning a car in the Soviet Union at that time was a rare privilege usually reserved to well-connected party officials, hard-working chiefs of the industry and few slippery types that managed to get through the cracks of KGB controls. Having two at the ripe age of 21 was unheard of. Plyush was the first truly self-made specimen in our midst, his enviable success was what everyone wanted to emulate.
Czech Visas – Exercise in Thin Air
Misha and I sensed that something had to be wrung out of the perpetually partying Plyush. The time was of the essence as our capitalist Czech marauder was now fighting a war of attrition with all local restaurants. The stakes were high as it either Plyush was going to run out of his liqueur holding capacity or the whole city would just run out of alcohol. Misha and I, the sober lot, did not worry too much about Plyush’s drinking buddies, these were just happy to partake of his expansive largesse and not much more. We did worry about potential losses should Plyush, after losing the all-out war, decide to exercise his free market talents himself. As long as the war ran its course we were safe. The key question was: what services we could provide for our budding super nova. He had a lot of roubles of course, plus his two cars. These were known but there had to be something else up his sleeve. And if his unending partying indulgence was an indicator he would need able agents to do his bidding.
Finally, one morning, reasonably sober Plyush decided to confide in Misha and me. In short he brought back from Prague a whole sheaf of already authorised and stamped Czech visitor invitations. What were these? Well, to any unsuspecting westerner this was a complete mystery but to every aspiring Soviet traveller these pieces of paper were worth their weight in gold at least thrice over. You see, in the west we easily fly, drive, walk and gallop across just about any sovereign border with an infantile innocence. We usually do not need anything but a passport with a reasonably tidy face on it. And even when we need visa to drop on the likes of the cuddly uncle Kim Chen Il or stylish Mr. Putin, it is usually arranged with ease and facility unless we happen to have too close ties with the State of Texas. But forgetting about our drawling neighbours to the South, the world just loves us and our pocket books.
Well, when it came to the poor Soviets of the 1980s, nobody wanted us. We did not have anything but few scrunched up rouble bills that hardly passed for money at home let alone across the border; our appearance was scruffy and our hearts were certainly in the clutches of Leninist propaganda. But these misfortunes were just a small part of the larger problem. After all, the world society at large saw some semblance of humanity in the lesser specimens of the communist race. Consequently, it usually turned a lenient eye and granted visas more often than not.
OK, they could let us in but the bigger conundrum was the one of leaving - a very essential and at times mostly unattainable privilege. No one knows a precise reason. Tempering our envy of the wider world sounds like a good one. There might have been others. But whatever they were, the only way out was either a private invitation or a tour group shtick. And since belonging to a tour group required some kind of a connection, the private invitation was about the only way out for the less endowed. Well not so fast! How, after the decades behind the barbed wire, could one find a friend? That’s where Plyush’s invitation came into play.
This was a true gold mine, the racket was new and in high demand. It seemed that we could charge just about anything. Plyush, still in the midst of his restaurant assault, could not be bothered and let us have 50 of these at 100 roubles a piece, on best efforts basis of course. Otherwise where would we get such a princely sum of 5,000? My father, a doctor, made considerably less in the whole year.
Now all we had to do was dig. The first trick was to fill out the space for each inviting individual. And since we did not have much facility with Czech language or Prague addresses, we had to rely on Plyush who managed to produce a unique array of names and addresses that appeared to permanently reside in his agile mind. He was not just agile; he was creative, looking at the gig as an exercise to invent more distinctly different names and addresses than Rain Man could possibly memorize. Unfortunately, our immediate offering of the fifty pieces of paper was too limited to give any idiot savant a run for his money.
With papers ready, Misha and I plunged into our marketing activities with boundless enthusiasm of the nascent capitalists. We were just like recently weaned puppies enjoying their first real meaty bone, none of those milk drippings. We ruffled through the full rolodex of just about any friend, neighbour and acquaintance. No dusty, however spider web-ridden, corners of our memory banks were left untouched. From start to finish, the operation was turbo-charged, as the travel-starved Soviets did not to have a heart to turn down an official (or nearly so) reason to enjoy the forbidden fruits of the West, Soviet West. We became more adept marketers or liars, if one prefers, as we went on. The sale of these tenuous pieces of paper invariably invoked a barrage of questions relating to the logistics of travel and, of course, to the logistics of profit making. Every sensible card-carrying Commie wanted to experience the elation of easy profits first and foremost. Money was tight and sightseeing had to come second. There was no disposable income to throw around, nothing could be wasted. To address the legitimate concerns we had to invent our own version of “Let’s Go Czech”. This was an especially sparse, communist version, with no restaurants but home-made sandwiches, with hardly any sightseeing but plenty of bazaar tips, with nothing to sleep on but your own version of a sleeping bag.
And since neither of us had a privilege of travelling to the sunny Czech paradise, we made it much up as we went along, with Plyush’s help of course. That is when he was sober and unencumbered by his jolly restaurant friends and sketchy bevies of girlfriends to boot. Sometimes we had to skip school as mornings, about noon, were about the only time to catch up with Plyush degrise’. When successfully snagged, he proved to be a true oracle and a well of information, deep with all sorts of Czech knowledge. He knew just about all right answers to soothe any buyer’s remorse. After attentive listening sessions with our convivial friend, we acquired many a skill through his incisive and yet calm discourse. It would typically go like this.
“Toock, toock” I hopefully rapped at the door of his 16th story apartment safely delivered by a decrepit elevator that was no stranger to victimizing the locals with empty shaft fakes. Calling ahead was useless as Morning Plyush did not like any early disturbances. He simply yanked the cord from the jack if you tried.
Silence. Deafening silence. Suddenly, a ray of hope crept through the door jamb. Shuffling, slow nonagenarian steps. Last two strides have a bit of a fresh jump. My face shines and the lock creaks. A ray of light crosses the landing. The speedily travelling sunlight is aptly chased by something else, something less pleasant – sour hangover fumes that appear to have pitched a permanent tent in the apartment. With barely a moment to adjust, dishevelled straw hair and ruddy pimpled cheeks rudely thrust into my space – Plyush!
“What do you want this early?” ten o’clock should not have qualified as “early” anywhere outside the entertainment world and Plyush in the midst of his restaurant war. Undeterred I proceeded.
“Plyush, what do we tell them about the money?” It was always an issue with inconvertible roubles as the government would never exchange more than a few meals worth.
“Coffee grinders…” Plyush said with a yawn. He was super laconic in his morning moods. Besides the advice made sense as coffee grinders and personal jewellery were the best foreign exchange mediums.
Why coffee grinders? This is a good question. You see, our central planners had a special affinity for grinding coffee even though there was hardly any coffee to grind. While typically stingy offerings of underwear, sausage and cars persistently eluded the Soviet market, grinders were plentiful. Some astute central planner must have predicted the impending overwhelming conversion to coffee drinking – amazingly prescient. While grinders were fast approaching the magic 2 to 1 ratio (two grinders per capita) the underwear supply stubbornly stayed at 1.5 –Kremlin did not expect a strong improvement in the hygiene habits, I guess.
“Plyush, what do we tell them about the hotels?”
“Coffee grinders…”
Plyush, what about the food and entertainment?”
“Canned fish and coffee grinders…”
Great, I think we had all necessary tools for successful tour guiding. Who cares about Fodors’ or Rick Steeves when you have Plyush and coffee grinders!? Finally, the shackles fell hopelessly to the floor and we were free to act in the best modernist traditions. With Plyush’s advice and guidance it was hardly an issue. Armed with a couple of old and slightly crumpled post cards from the a-spired city we breathed forth pure imagination. For the first time in my life I felt like a poet or at least like a book reviewer. Even if for the most utilitarian purposes, I was finally involved in shaping somebody else’s dream. Maybe I am wasting my time by not selling vacation time shares to the unsuspecting public now.
In my increasingly colourful imagination, hearty and cheap meals garnished with the famed Czech beer serenely waited side by side with clean and affordable hotels that inevitably bordered on the most valuable real estate – public markets. The Charles Bridge and royal palaces could wait. Our subjects were typically the most interested in the pursuit of their mercantile ambitions first and foremost. This was not about the best vistas or the most exciting excursions. Those things they could learn elsewhere. “Where can I sell a coffee grinder?” was always the most pressing question, period.
Frequently our prospects marvelled at our grasp of the key details. I fancied myself to have already travelled to the mystic Prague, as we unrolled the mesmerising and irresistible views in front of our prospective clients. Our sales pitch gradually became so smooth that my poetic inclinations felt almost physically satisfying. It was addictive and I was almost ready to do it for free. Alas, we arrived at the end of the joyous ride with the last of Plyush’s creations dutifully distributed to the hungry public. The time had come to find something else to do…
Having earned my father’s annual salary couple of times over in just three months it was the high time to enjoy the winnings. Since my Jewish genes played a predominant role in my otherwise rather uninspiring personality, I ended up depositing most of my earnings into the old staid Soviet savings bank. The rest was going towards the purchase of few necessities that attested to my commercial prowess – a pair of shiny second grade American sneakers was the most prized item. I did not care that these sneakers were not called Nike or Reebok, I did not care that they were most likely made in Thailand despite the Miami Beach label. I just loved the look, which heavily contributed to my new merchant persona of an emerging street capitalist. This, in addition, was complemented by a pair of irresistible striped pants. English seemed to be the only remaining touch that needed some further work.
Chasing the Capitals
After our Czech visa adventure, Misha and I continued indulging in further commercial transactions of various dubiousness. We were OK with money for the fourth-year students. So with it plus extra time to kill before the start of the new school year, I turned to local travel. Prague could wait and besides I could always find out from my past clients. For now, I was going to one just as exciting locale - Moscow. This was still very cheap and easy, no visas or passports. For only 21 roubles ($2 USD) I flew Moscow to enjoy the historic and culture gems at virtually no other costs to speak of – God bless the centrally planned economies!
I enjoyed my first three-day stay immensely. Taking in much faster and ever more chaotic pace of the capital I much indulged in some superb shopping, Soviet style of course. It is probably a better topic for another time as it has hardly anything to do with any foreign language. However, it wouldn’t out of place to mention that if a marathon runner is a better metaphor for North American shopping, a rugby player is definitely more apropos for the Soviet equivalent. Here is the West, all one has to do is count – styles, sizes, colours and ultimately miles. In the USSR, there was not much to count at all as the multitudes rushed the pearly gates of any shopping establishment that dared selling anything of high demand. We all, just like a herd of hypopotatamus in the best rugby traditions, charged towards that luring white ball. Shoulders, ankles, perfectly healthy livers and chests with fast-beating hearts – all were sacrificed on the altar of material deficits.
Once when returning to my friend’s place after one of these battles for a pair of new shiny shoes, I was struck by an ad placard promising a head-to-head contest between the storied Dynamo Moscow and Washington Capitals of the NHL. Such meetings were rare even for Muscovites since the Soviets with a thinner regular season schedule and a perpetual thirst for hard currency played just about all of their NHL campaigns on the other side of the pond. Luckily, the hopefully mild winds of Perestroika schlepped forth its hockey fruit with Capitals willing to play for a rouble paying crowd. I was elated – here was a spectacular chance to see a real professional hockey game with the storied NHL content. This was particularly amazing since my youth was spent in the hockey desert of Ukraine with the most essential education having to come through our old black and white TV. Up to that point I had seen only one other professional hockey game live when on a school break in St. Petersburg. I thoroughly enjoyed the initial experience and this one was not to be missed.
The game was taking place the following week, and in order not to annoy my friends any further by staying one more time so close together, I had to pull up my Rolodex of other contacts. Fortunately, one such contact was just ready and available to play host. So next week I was going to witness some of the best hockey one could ever see – marvellous!
Week later, upon entering the famed Luzhniki Ice Palace I felt a due sense of awe. No surprise here as this was the true hockey shrine. And unlike the NHL where Joe Louis Arena competed with Madison Square Garden and Chicago Stadium, Luzhniki’s supremacy in Europe was absolutely indisputable. This was where the epic 1972 series was played. This was where the NHL came to rude reckoning in the monumental power struggle. And, alas, this was where Paul Henderson won the final game with a fluky goal.
The walls adorned with pictures, banners and other memorabilia brought to life some of the most exciting moments so far experienced only through camera lenses. My head was beginning to spin. As if wandering in a daze I almost forgot the second most important reason of my visit – practice my English. Naturally, I expected a stalwart fan compliment even to the lowly Washington Capitals. I was not disappointed when rounding my first bend on the outer perimeter of the arena I noticed folks who could not possibly be my compatriots. They were wearing out-of-this-world white sneakers, Levi’s jeans and much lipstick. None of them, of course, missed a chance to don the uniform of their luckless Capitals and they all appeared to be the paragons of fashion and contentment for the sight-starved Soviets like me. But the most intriguing feature of this folk was their age, pensionable age to be exact. They all, just about unfailingly, exhibited white curls, whiskers and perfect plastic smiles.
“What the heck? Where are the young people?” I puzzled. The idea of an average American chasing his dream picket fence by the sweat of his brow was still a perfect unknown. Only later I learned that when exchanging one’s time for dollar signs there was usually not all that much of time left to dilly-dally around the world even if it had to do with hockey. The only people capable of such frivolities were my happy retirees on state pensions and Medicare.
Well, age was not the worst impediment. Few hundred of my younger compatriots were. Crowds were swirling around my cheerful seniors. Just like small and yet very snarly pests these clung and clawed, cutting the very valuable access to the freedom of English and commerce. Everybody, deprived of just about anything but staples, seemed to be clamouring to trade for anything made outside our glorious planning system.
Sneakers, jeans and beloved Capitals jerseys would have been in the most immediate danger of disappearing had it been not for the heavy militia presence. Most of the Russians, including proud Muscovites, were so desirous of some basic life joys such as a pair of white Nike sneakers that even trading one’s soul did not appear all that sacrilegious but even necessary. At first intrigued my pensioners were happy to deal if not for sneakers than surely for pins and hats. Unfortunately, problems of value started cropping up almost immediately. The truth was that hardly any of us, save for a happy couple in a possession of tattered Dynamo Moscow jerseys, had anything of any value that could even qualify for a USA-made undershirt let along anything with colour or beads. The holes in our economic system were just too large and obvious. With no goods and barely any English, their mighty American ship fit for the high seas passed our lost and tiny dingy with no major uproar or acknowledgement.
After the initial agiotage, the life resumed as only a couple of well-prepared Dynamo supporters had good enough pins to trade with shrewd grandmas. I think that since most of them were the retirees from the DC area, a goodly portion of them must have been with either CIA or FBI. Maybe this could explain their reticence to appreciate the sparse joys of Soviet consumer goods. Undoubtedly, they were up on the latest security briefings…
Bolstered by my recent Hungarian experience and the crowd retreat, I gingerly approached the tightly knit bunch to practice my English. This was the first time I had a chance to meet a real American. My first entreaty consisting of a simple “Hello” and “How are you” was more or less successful since it was understood, apparently. However, further proceedings unleashed a series of disheartening events. Their replies and few follow-up questions, instead of entering my ears, made a complete 180 in mid-air and bounced right back. Few more attempts delivered the same results, as my proud English vocabulary was completely snubbed by my, nearly total, inability to cut through the strange and slurred thicket of the American pronunciation. The more I tried to annunciate, the stupider I felt, as they mocked me with that ever-thicker, gurgling river raging past their open smiles and perfect white plastic teeth. I had to beat a retreat.
Reeling, I noticed, from a corner of my eye, those rare Dynamo supporters in jerseys. The lucky bastards were swapping their wares with a couple of adventurous pensioners. Failing to appreciate the subtlety of the exchange, I charged to the scene in hopes of a crucial break-through – maybe there was something for me. First I attempted to offer some basic pins for anything of theirs. It did not work. Not to be outdone, I ploughed further with some additional offerings of my personal Komsomol documents “These must be of some worth to these haters of Communism” I thought Snubbed again! In a growing sense of desperation, I threw in my trump card – the military watch. But satiated rich American bastards waived even this off. I felt entirely defeated. My English failed to break the impregnable thickness of the American defences and my proud entrepreneurial instincts encountered the all too rational fair value driven grandmas on their healthy but fixed income.
I was determined to take my revenge on the ice and I was disappointed as Dynamo drove the smug NHL millionaires into submission, proving that even in tattered sweaters we still boasted better and livelier hockey. Our team led by Golikov brothers pounded the proud Capitals something like 9 to 4. Even the heroics of Dino Ciccarelli did not help. He was also handily deterred by jeers as his name sounded precariously close to something very offensive in Russian. Good for us! The only inconvenience was the absence of a replay board that I hardly missed since I did not suspect that such existed in the first place.
At the end of the game I snuck into a post-game press conference. After my cheap seat behind the goal I could not imbibe enough of the atmosphere of this rare event. The press conference was open to the public and I went in early to claim a prime seat. Not bad, as in a matter of minutes the room was filled with numerous reporters of all stripes.
Some in crumpled grey suits sported tattered notepads and old portable recorders sized as large boom boxes. Others, in hip jeans and glitzy wing-tipped shoes, lugged portable typing machines and even early generation computers! To me, some of these dudes looked just like aliens minus antennas and funky face masks. The more laborious kind was not wasting their time typing frantically to deliver the breaking news of not so pivotal hockey game. Time was money, so was news, I guess. The press conference proved soothing since I was able to comprehend most of what was said – a much needed therapy after my fiasco with the curly grandmas. With my day mostly victorious, my English wounds partially healed I felt asleep to pre-natal dreams on the friend’s couch. Life was becoming ever more exciting and another day was just few hours away.
Potato Farmer
The return to school was smoothed by a three-week work break in the failing agricultural sector. As more and more rural folks had found their passage to the urban paradise over the years, the worse situation in the countryside had become. Nobody, of course, could fault the people for abandoning the land that did not belong to them in the first place. Aside from small private lots, everything was owned by everybody and consequently by none at all. The life was hard, brutish and short. Stalin even denied the peasants internal passports and thus the freedom of movement, save for few kilometres outside of their respective domiciles. If there have ever been a second class citizen in the workers’ paradise, the peasant was it. After the Great War, the country folk had enough and decided to take their revenge on the city by just simply moving in. Sure, the cities offered suffocating chemical fumes instead of air and concrete boxes instead of houses but at least there was some entertainment, underwear for sale and easier jobs that invariably paid better than back-breaking toils of the countryside.
So that’s how the predominantly agricultural society of the 1920s became staunch city dwellers by 1980s. To exacerbate the economic matters, the countryside was further disadvantaged, as the state poured most of its efforts in the grave undertakings of nuclear weaponry, rabbit fur hats and demanding automobiles that required just as much time under as in of their devout enthusiasts. By the time I arrived on the scene, the countryside could barely manage to feed its dwindling own let alone the whole state; the grain was routinely purchased from the bitter enemy, the USA; and the best one could do to salvage the crops, those that still managed to spring up, was to conscript the pliable student labour in the times of need. We learned this early on as from about grade 8 we would regularly spend few weeks in the fragrant fields picking tomatoes, cucumbers and anything else our central system managed to eke out.
Now this was in the summer, in the fall the fields were beset with university students. After all, the high schools could not spare their time spent in the hard drudge of essential education. The country was still in need of people who could “add, multiply, divide and subtract” (President Bush on No Child Left Behind policy). When in came to Calculus and Theoretical Mechanics the case appeared far less certain. So there we went, into the muck of vast potato fields of the Soviet breadbasket that was Ukraine – at least we had something to gather…
To my surprise, mid-fall in the country side was not at all that dreary as on most of the days we were visited by the radiant, post-Chernobyl, sun and caressing, almost evocative, steppe winds. It even was fun at times, as feeding the hungry city people seemed worthwhile and noble. Usually ready at the proverbial crack of dawn, we, having just scrubbed the nightly gooey off our faces, boarded an old rickety country bus to head for the fields. A short, ten minutes at the most, ride was always an adventure since the unpaved earthly ruts did not provide much of a dozing option. Quiet could not prevail and telling loud and sometimes indecent stories was the order, the one especially tantalizing given our colloquial co-ed arrangements. No particular tact was required, we all were equal and our collective appearance hardly betrayed any reference to sex. You see, the Soviets not only neglected to develop the timeless art of Haut Couture. They also omitted to spice up their work wardrobes.
In the fields we had to two options – one to pick potatoes by the bucket and the other to empty the bucket on the truck. The second task was more strenuous and yet more desirable since it, at least, kept your fingernails clean. I always jumped at the opportunity to load since standing on the truck also gave me a chance to open an English page or two in order not to loose any valuable time. And with all that fresh air, the brain worked particularly well. Alas, the loading was not my permanent occupation so frequently I shared in the task of traversing the mud burrows in search of valuable crops. Here our daily dose was measured in buckets picked. So, when feeling especially lazy, I would hard-tamp half of my bucket with fresh dirt so in order to collect another bucket-point all one had to do to pick just a half – anything to amuse oneself rather than inflict harm on dear collective farm, really.
After usually spending about five hours of work we returned to our barrack-like accommodations to a hearty lunch and well-deserved nap. I really needed it since my light night sleep was frequently interrupted by much more permanent co-habitants of the windy barracks – mice. These playful creatures usually stayed quiet at daytime but at night it was their time to exercise. Snoring or stuffing your ears with cotton were the only possible options. I eschewed either, tossing and turning on my metal-mesh bed, hoping to keep the races off my bedspread. I succeeded sometimes but only sometimes.
The later part of the day was entirely ours and I enjoyed it to the fullest taking my daily jogs along the local fields and cow barns. It was magic. The air was filled with singing bucolic solitude; the early October weather was warm and dry; fragrances of newly harvested grains filled one with freshness unknown to an industrial urbanite. The exercise, exhilarating country air and well-prepared organic meals provided so much energy and zest that certain privations of one’s privacy were blissfully forgotten. Who cares about industrialization, I should have been an English squire instead…
With entertainment dearth only other alternative was to visit a neighbouring farmer’s house. This dude not only had a TV but also an enigmatic VCR machine that showed all sorts of western wonders, illicit and otherwise. He was a venal sort of fellow as the word “free” was not in his vocabulary and yet for a small fee we could indulge our senses way past the vast potato furrows yonder. Sometimes, given the poor film dubbing, my English came handy in explaining the intricate differences between “What’s up” and “How are you” to my unilingual cohorts.
My promising homecoming, burdened by a couple of hefty potato sacks, was overshadowed by rather painful news - my grandfather succumbed to a significant stroke. At first he looked to be recovering quite well with his speech slowly returning and his thinking clearing up. However, the less than vigilant Soviet medical system was all too ill-equipped to handle ongoing issues such as repeating strokes through the usage of such banal means as blood-thinning drugs. As a result, he must have experienced a series of further undetected strokes that contributed to his ultimate demise a couple of years later. In any event these were the last days to enjoy his company in the best sense as he was gradually sinking deeper and deeper into the morass of senility and feebleness.
Being a rather motivated type, I tried to shake off my personal loss by enjoying my studies at the university. Up to this point, a bulk of my time in the evenings was spent at the university basketball practices. But this year was different. I must have been maturing. Some youthful non-pragmatic ideals were giving way to something more concrete and tangible. Coming upon my third year trying to make the starting line up, I began to realise that my emulations of Larry Byrd were not likely to result in anything meaningful triumph. I was short, stocky and white - deathly attributes for a NBA career. Hence, I chose to trade my three-point shooting workouts for additional English classes.
The Soviet educational system was free and generous. They even paid us a stipend, which was typically sufficient to keep one fed with barely nutritious and yet survivable grub. It was also accessible when wanting to attend classes for no credit. If one cared to audit additional courses, you could just approach a course instructor, obtain his permission and voila. So I did just that, obtaining an access to the English faculty evening classes. This time I got to take my classes with people, who chose English as a teaching career. The level of knowledge, intensity and speed was markedly higher than any of my previous experiences. The increase in academic hours was playing its part and I started noticing very quick and meaningful progress. The mumbling Hungarian and Moscow hockey encounters were becoming a distant memory and I was scaling new heights. Few months later, bored by the classes in labour safety and some other mind-numbing bunk, I started taking day classes at the English faculty. I took a bit of work convincing but at the end I managed to weasel into the class of Mr. Solovov.
Mr. Solovov, the American
As the promising 1980s were melting fast to a close, any societal promises of collective Nirvana were dribbling into historic oblivion. Comrade Gorbachev and his Perestroika were clearly not going to cut it for everybody. Alas, somebody had to be a loser. Nobody wanted to be that. We all wanted to be winners; we all wanted to be Americans. Not one for miles around was more American than Mr. Solovov, a prof with the University English department.
Mr. Solovov was very unorthodox for a Soviet professor. He was a tall, gangly type that sported thick-rimmed glasses perched on the intelligent face criss-crossed with a few friendly wrinkles. The arrangement was permanently topped by a bunch of messy straw coloured hair. The genius was complete with a perpetual pair of stone-washed jeans, crumply blue cotton shirt and white basketball sneakers. If in doubt of further attributes think Bill Gates; they could be mistaken for a brotherly pair.
Mr. Solovov’s imposingly lumbering frame and deep voice could have made him a first rate Soviet bureaucrat in a crumpled Polish-made polyester suit. Sad for the party as this one was lost to the treacherous land of the most libertarian foreign influences and it showed, as Mr. Solovov stridently eschewed any formality, pomp and circumstance, traits so common among the Soviet wizards of foreign tongues. Instead he always appeared relaxed, approachable and enjoyment-ready. There was a sort of a 1960s aura about the dude with his unshakable serenity of countenance and his beloved guitar that he dragged anytime to anywhere. Forgetting any hefty suitcases befitting his academic rank, he would always open a class with a song or two, some of his own making, even. Imagine that, behind the iron curtain!
His classes lacked any traditional routine of pomp and forced learning. It was always sort of a free-for-all. Such rebellious deviations from the norm made him a huge success. The whole town spoke of Mr. Solovov. He not only added much needed colour to the very intelligent but bleak Soviet academia, but he also offered what not many around could – he taught exclusively American English. Of course, the Queen’s tongue was still in high demand, but with America rising as the only remaining superstar of all post-Soviet hopes, less and less of us were looking to get entangled into the heavy jewel studded folds of the royal language.
We thirsted for freedom and the gurgling American seemed just so unfettered in its universal appeal. To no one’s astonishment Mr. Solovov’s doors were coming unhinged under the weight of the desirous. Solovov with his guitar and scuffed-up sneakers was an incredible propaganda success for the American version. His teaching style, freewheeling and intuitive was just the ground that the fertility of our young minds longed for. The amazing part was that he did it all without first hand experience – he had never been to the States. Whatever he lacked in firsthand knowledge though, he picked up through various contacts, radio, songs and colloquial dictionaries. He typically taught without resorting to boring grammatical texts. He deliberately strayed from deep theoretical discussions. Instead his grammatical explanations moved right to the point of practical application through some hilarious drills of his own design.
All was made sound easy, playful and enjoyable. Mr. Solovov did not separate grammatical drills from reading or speaking, he blended it all in one continuous and colourful array. In this fashion the language stuck naturally, as if it were taught in a native environment. There was always a lot of joking and horsing around - never a simple task one had to really strain to stay within the party guidelines. To make matters even more detached from the grey reality, all had to assume western nicknames and behave as if we had the First Amendment. Mine was Rocky. I did not know whether it had anything to do with my Stallone-ic hair or bench-pressed chest, but it stuck forever. It did take a bit of getting used to but after a while I wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, Rocky handily beat my high school sobriquet of Boris, hands down.
The key part of almost any class was a group chat. Free for all, on nearly any imaginable topic, these were the most fun. The pace required a certain degree of alertness, wide vocabulary and some wit. Mr. Solovov loved to throw his own two bits in a low mumbling voice peppered with obscure slang expressions. It was a challenging and exciting derby and having my horses coming last was not appealing. At first, it was challenging as I was not an English major. But after a few months of determinate toiling I was becoming really decent at it and at times even out-slugged all those Cindies, Robbies and Janes.
Mr. Solovov’s local fame and appeal extended far beyond the school walls. In the late 80s, the country was opening up and more and more people were seeking basic foreign language skills. A great number of locals also enjoyed fewer restrictions on immigration. The floodgates opened and some lucky Soviets dispersed throughout the world, searching for better life. Israel, Canada, Australia were becoming staple destinations. The US always remained the most coveted. Mr. Solovov could work 24 hours a day if he wanted to. His famed methods attracted people from far and wide. Eventually, he quit the University altogether, opening his own full-blown private school that has been enjoying much success for more than fifteen years now. The bulk of the workload has apparently been picked up by Mr. Solovov’s former students to allow more time for the master to spend on honing his guitar/singing skills that have apparently graduated to CD publishing levels.
Although our paths have not crossed for years, I will always be grateful to this funny, unorthodox, at times awkward and indiscernible, but always colourful man for helping me in mastering my American. My Jewish rooted self is especially grateful considering that I did not need to put up a penny for my experience.
Georgian Intermezzo
Whenever having all that much fun one is always well-advised to consider the flip side. The Bible in fact is quite clear about it when Jesus proffers his preference for the house of mourning and not the abode of joy. Alas, for many of us, the awakening arrives a tad too late. So when faced with something tragic we stand naked in our unprepared innocence. The death of my grandmother and my father in a close succession was just such a moment of belated reckoning. In my case, the fate had hard time convincing the one who had barely burst from the uncertain shell of the dodgy adolescence and into the firmer pastures of the adulthood. So just a month or so after my grandmother’s demise, I could not resist an opportunity to take a jaunt with Misha and our Czech visa money to the mountainous paradise of Georgia, the Soviet Republic. No ability to know the future, however close, was surely a blessing since leaving my father, who had only few weeks to live, at home did not seed any remorse in my callous youthful heart.
Why Georgia? A year or two prior, Misha went on a Komsomol junket to coalesce with other youth leaders in the glorious confines of our great capital Moscow. This was a neat occasion to hobnob with ideologically sound and unabashedly ambitious. In the midst of the festivities, Misha got particularly attached to the Georgian delegation. These folks were fun. All dressed up to the nines with their leather jackets, aquiline noses and almond complexions they were just all too irresistible. They handily conveyed that elusive sense of the economic affluence and the intellectual prowess. They all came from the historically aware Tiflis and all exuded their warm southern charm. When meeting they even kissed one another regardless of gender or rank. Misha was smitten.
You see, in the Soviet lore like in any other multicultural aquarium, there have always been majorities and minorities with their racists tensions and preferences. The Soviet folklore was just bursting at the seams with rationally charged jokes to address various disequilibria. Chukchi (Soviet Eskimos) were always derided for their lack of European sense aggravated by the misfortune to live on the edge of the civilization. Jews were picked on for too much rationality and self-deprecating wit, while Georgians paid for their citrus-fed riches. With the Soviet agriculture failing for decades, the peasants usually substituted their earnings with sales of personally grown crops at the city markets. None ranked higher in profitability than lemons and oranges of Transcaucasia. This, and not petrol and gas, made many relatively wealthy folks from the Caucuses with their flashy clothing, fast cars and comically abrupt mannerisms a butt of copious Soviet jokes. Add some spicy accents and the Soviet Sicilians were ripe for perpetual ridicule. But underneath all this was old green envy. We envied their cars, jewellery and even their accents. The fathers of perspective brides wished for a Georgian prince with Lada in tow; engineers and doctors wanted to trade their dreary incomes for a personable citrus plantation; and wives were always a prey to the darts of the southern eyes in the latest jeans and leather.
Not surprisingly, our upwardly agile Misha found them hip and cultivated the connection with abandon. The warmest ties developed were those with Mary who, despite her soft velvety dark eyes, induced exclusively (for once!) platonic feelings in the amorous heart of our friend. They kept in touch for a while. She invited him for a visit and I gladly joined in. A trip to the very heart of the Soviet Eldorado – the capital Tiflis, or Tbilisi as it was known then – looked too good pass up.
Our timing in the early March was just perfect. With winter still raging in our backs, we looked forward to something more palatable and were not disappointed. The day of our arrival was announced with glorious sunshine that bronzed the steep cascading banks that precipitously plunged the city towards the raging waters of Kura. The views were just fabulous, fitting this ancient seat of the Georgian nation founded back in the 5th century. Surrounded by snow capped peaks of the mighty Caucuses one could smell the national historic pride ripe with economic and cultural successes that visibly smoothed the scenery in the harmony of the veritable architectural mosaic. Ancient churches of the Georgian Orthodox Church gleaming in the subdued pink perfectly co-existed next to the surprisingly tasteful modernity that exuded chic and sophistication. This was not just another nameless Soviet city bristling with endless boredom of identical apartment blocks, this was a true magnet, exuberant and brilliant, sure and eternal.
Meeting Mary for the first time gave me another sparkle of intrigue. She, in a stylish silk head covering and tasteful rimmed glasses, looked a spitting image of Benazir Bhutto. All glamour in lipstick and assurance in pose, I immediately thought of the legendary leader, the queen Tamar, who presided over the golden Georgian age some centuries back. Alas, unlike Tamar, Mary did not live in the palace. Instead she shared a three-bedroom affair with her family consisting of her mother, an uncle and a nephew. The place, just few steps away from the main city drag, was great despite the apparent lack of queenly attributes. The street was tranquil and head-spinning mountainous air was filled with an impossible aroma of evergreen cypresses that bedecked the sidewalks. For us, the products of the pollution filled industrial devastation, all looked like a paradise. Accorded a full room with a large bed, all to ourselves, Misha and I endeavoured to explore the magic city.
Predictably, Mary was our steady companion in this undertaking. She, an English University student, was happy to share my affinity for the international tongue. And after exchanging a few dashes of the banal phraseology she determined I was good enough to play a prank on one of her friends. From that point on I was to assume an identity of a Russian-born American who came to visit his friend Misha. I spoke Russian but with a heavy accent, I was from New York or something close and I was to enlighten this specimen, named David, on all intricacies of the lavish American living. This was not all that problematic in my new white sneakers, goose feather coat and striped clown pants that hailed all the way from Finland. David, a slightly younger chap, was all over me. He might have fallen in love had I been of the different sex. Once found I could not escape. At all hours of the day he would show up just to take a peak at the American glories. Frequently I felt too burdened to keep up the role but Mary and Misha’s prodding kept me afloat. I had to make up stories about everything – race relations, gas guzzling cars and cops who were a particular target of David’s fascination undoubtedly fed with many a western thriller. These were widely available in the theatres and on the black market VHS tapes alike. To this day I think that whatever acting juices have ever resided in my head, most of them were exhausted in this shameful ruse. To be frank I do not even remember why Mary needed to play it on David. The only fact that soothes my soul is that he has never found it. Besides, being a Canadian today provides a reasonable degree of eventual legitimacy.
Between the shameful posturing and the glorious cypress aromas, Mary took us on a few culinary outings. The Georgians were the masters of anything that went in one’s mouths, food or drink. The foods were inexorably spicy and non-vegetarian. Huge spicy dumplings that could kill a person from a ten-foot freefall were the ultimate hit. Dripping with all sorts of juices and dipped in fresh yogurt these were scrumptiously incredible. However, nothing could beat Georgian wines. Available in surprising abundance these were too tempting to miss. Here, unlike the rest of the country, one had no difficulty procuring alcohol. While liquor lines were frequently unending in Russia and Ukraine, the places perennially beset by rampant alcohol abuse; here no one had to wait in line to get a bottle. And yet the streets did not produce much in a way of helpless drunks. There was something distinctly more temperate in the local consumption patters. Was it the non-prohibitive abundance, or deeply rooted historic customs, or just plain common sense, I would never know but the temptation to bring some home quickly filled any extra space in our bags.
If streets were bereft of public alcoholism displays, Mary’s family had aplenty to struggle with as her uncle was rather fond of the bottle. So much so that whenever at the family dinner table we had to endure his lengthy and very slurred viewpoints. The difficulty was multiplied since the dude did not speak all that much Russian so one had to dive deep into the sign language to understand anything. Forget English, I had to learn Georgian instead. An old language was certainly not a piece of cake by any stretch. Apart from a cryptic alphabet of more than forty letters one had to learn to scream and roar to replicate the primordially guttural sounds of the tongue. One might think that I am exaggerating but whenever our hosts talked with any degree of passion I had a sensation of an impending murder. And yet it never came even to a simple fist fight. Apparently this was just their tone of a normal dinner conversation.
I asked Mary to give us some languages pointers. She started by giving us, Misha and I, a test to say “Bakhahi Zhali Khihineps” which meant something like “frog is squawking in the water”. What does the frog have to do with anything? Mostly nothing except pronouncing it correctly made my throat really hurt. Misha excelled and I was disqualified. So to prove the point I started on my Georgian alphabet and Misha did his crossword puzzles in Russian.
After few eventful days in Tbilisi we were ready for a three-day junket high up into the Caucuses for my first ever skiing trip. Driving to the resort of Gudauri perching at about ten thousand feet of altitude was truly adventurous. I had never been past four thousand feet let alone ten – wow. Our school friends Shura and Anikei were already there, zigzagging the slopes to their hearts delight. They were really daring, these two. At the times when possessing anything similar to a set of alpine skiing gear was a true miracle, this must have been their third expedition into the snow capped mountains – quite a jump from the sea-levelled Ukraine. Each time, after a couple of weeks on the slopes, they came home with an unbelievable tan and huge hockey bags full of Georgian wine. I did know about two weeks but tasting a bit of the Alpine paradise sounded like an excellent idea. The prospects were all the more exciting since skiing in Gudauri centered around an Austrian-built resort with everything and anything western – ski lift, hotel, restaurants and an indoor swimming pool! We, including Anikei and Shura, had no money in the world to stay at the hotel reserved for people with dollars but at least having a look at the riches sounded like a worthy prospect. Besides, maybe I could practise my English…
The windy ride to the top was a little scare in itself as we navigated in an old beat-up Lada that barely managed to keep about its wits even before we met the snow line. Past the forlorn mountainous villages encircled by wandering goats and climbing grapevines – I had enough distractions at first. Seeing the locals in their woollen head caps, thick ornamented vests and walking shepherd sticks reminded me of the fact that this region boasted one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Here, an impossible Soviet age of one hundred was not unheard of. We had to be careful though as making past our twenties looked precarious once we hit the snow line. Our Lada was sliding in between rocks and precipices like a drunken sailor. I had to hold my breath and count the kilometres. Three, two, one – we arrived in one piece!
The place was just glorious. Above the tree line with tonnes and tonnes of snow it literally soared like an intrepid battleship into the bottomless blue skies. With Shura and Anikei promptly located, we drove to their wood-hewn lodge that was to be our home for a couple of nights. It was Spartan and yet spacious enough to feel secure amidst all this snow and cold. Sure, during the day under the sun it was so warm that some skied in thin sweaters and t-shirts. But with setting sun one had to brace for deep sub-z.
Now I was just itching to try the snow. Unfortunately, the gear for rent was only for dollars and Shura with Anikei were not about to give up their glory, I would have to wait till tomorrow. For now we trudged to the mid-slope section where they had a loud cafeteria with many a personality to feast one’s eyes on. The air was exhilaratingly fresh and short. It just wasn’t enough of it. At first I did not pay attention as just I attributed my panted breath to the lack of hiking conditioning. Besides, one could hardly care with all that technological and natural brilliance around. The real wonder was the speed lift that whisked the lucky pass holders faster than wind. Once on the very top the views were just unendingly inebriating. Throw in some shapely hips, fashionable gear and satisfied western smiles and one could have been on the different planet. “Slam” the door just opened with the whole army of well-tanned Georgian regulars crashing for a quick rest between runs. A couple of low-set sinewy types quickly settled for a bowl of hot soup and a game for elbow-wrestling. Mary, apparently enthused by my impersonating talents and an oversized, tightly bound in a Puma sweater, chest made a quick wager with the soup slurpers – I was to elbow-wrestle.
Now, I have to declare of never been big on anything of wrestling preferring to hide my personal failings behind the camaraderie of game sports. Here I was on the spot, naked as it were. Well, this was no time to waste. I sat down facing my vicious looking opponent with an errant noodle on his cheek and a Popeye-sized forearms. I stretched my arm and strained with my eyeballs thrusting within an easy reach from my opponent’s relaxed visage. “Bam!” my wrestling career was over faster than it began. Cowering in shame, the idea of a friendly après-ski with Anikei and Shura was the most appealing. The feast loaded with wine, meat and whatever else we managed to find in their fridge was a success.
All the more painful was my wake-up. I had high fever, felt disoriented and weak. My first full day on the top of the world was not looking good. Straining to shake the funk, I persevered in mounting on the Anikei’s gear and making some efforts in the deep fresh snow. But instead of a relief I felt like a seagull trapped in the Exxon Valdese spill. Flopping and falling only made my heart race faster than I could count. It was time to check into the local clinic located in the Austrian paradise. By the time I made it, I could hardly walk and felt my worst. No amount of luxury was enough to tease me into distraction.
At the doctor’s office they did not offer much past a tablet of aspirin. Here the universal laws of the Soviet medicine did not seem to apply since the only advice I could get was to go lie down, close your eyes and hope to get better. I clearly couldn’t stay another night. But not willing to be a party pooper I waited for Misha to finish his skiing pleasures. Finally my delirium in the hotel lobby was pleasantly interrupted “Are you ready?” This was Misha with rosy cheeks freshened up by the exercise – the bastard.
We left that promptly. Exhausted, I slept most of the way down. I was so out of it that even the wavy ways of our Lada did not bother me any longer. Once back in Tbilisi, my condition improved by the minute with headache and fever leaving without a trace. Suddenly I realized that this was my first brush with the altitude sickness, a treacherous creature indeed. Happy to be back to my old self, I joyously celebrated with the perpetually smashed uncle. This was a true gift to live another day, another day to act out American dreams, meet new people and celebrate with the old friends. Unfortunately, the time to part came all too quickly. Partially sad with bottles of stuff jingling in my suitcase I was saying good-bye to the brightly lit city streets. Suddenly I saw a sign that read “აეროდრომი”. Right away I knew that it said “Airport” – Eureka, I have not wasted my time!
