Introduction:

 The following are a very brief selection of some of my observations on local culture made while living independently in the former USSR.   Still unsure what to call the residents of this new land, I have opted to exchange freely between "Soviets" and "Russians" in this paper.   Other terms may be used, such as "residents of the former Soviet Union",  "Russians, Ukrainians, Kazaks, Belarusians, etc....", but I find these terribly bulky.   For all practical purposes, the old Soviet cultural and economic apparatus still exerted a major influence on the residents at the time of my residency, whatever the case may be now.

 The transliterations of words given follow no official standard (unlike in my other writings where I employ the LOC transliteration standard), but are given to as nearly as possible approximate their actual sound if read and spoken by an American speaker.

On lines:

 Word has it that lines, ocheredi, are a thing of the past in the xUSSR.   Now we have all, it is said, though one might add that the prices are so high the average national hasn't the money for most of it.   So we may say that they save time; there is no more waiting in lines with a growling stomach, the stomach may growl in front of the television now.   But as I attempt here to give my observations on the state of affairs in 1992 and 1993, let us return to that time.

 Having sometimes a little too much disdain for the Soviet way of life, I rarely waited in lines -- unless I had to.   I learned when and where the lines were shortest, and incorporated this into my schedule.   The open market ("rinok") had no lines, only vast crowds, which I could deal with, even enjoyed.   The "commercial shops" and many kiosks had no lines, though again, many crowds.   Though prices were higher at these places, even in hard currency, I was rich and it was worth it.

 Sometimes, however, I had no choice.   Train stations were the worst.   To buy a rail ticket was more than an ordeal, and it sometimes seemed a way of life.   A wait of an hour or two to buy a ticket was usually my limit.   Others waited longer, and could be seen sleeping on makeshift camps, made from piles of God-knows-what in bags on the floor of the vokzal, while taking shifts at the line amongst their group.   Sometimes I would wait for an hour or more only to realize that the window wasn't actually even open, but people were waiting anyway!   Often, a line would have a 30 or 60 minute "delay" in the middle of the wait while the window-person went on break.   Sometimes,  the window would be announced "closed" after a wait of hours, with the weary line-waiters left to fend for themselves in another line!

 I remember a memorable episode in Irkutsk:   I was ready to return to Minsk, and to the USA, after a month at Baikal, and a year in the USSR.   I arrived at the ticket office early, just after the noon hour lunch closure had begun.   Thought I'd have an easy time of it, I did, being good and early.   This was my first mistake; my second was in assuming that even if I was "first" in line that this would really matter to anyone.   As it turned out, there was already about 30 people waiting on the large concrete entryway to the office.   Over the next hour we were joined by perhaps a hundred others.   As the fateful hour approached, the crowd gathered closer to the door-in no particular order-in anticipation.   I got scared.   At one o'clock, the crowd was an amorphous mass of drab clothing, sweat, and flesh, pressed to the double entry doors.   I stood nearby.   At about ten after, I saw the one we had waited for:  an old woman appeared from the interior of the office, walking slowly­and with more than a touch of trepidation­toward the door.   She carefully removed the steel pipe blocking the door movements and promptly ran in the opposite direction.   The crowd at first sort of quivered-they were stuck in the opening like hair in a clogged drain.

 Then they were free.   They were as a flood; a truly frightening sight, and flowed violently toward the ticket counters.   To reach these, it was necessary to go approximately 15 meters inside the building and around a couple corners and doorways.   This was sufficient time for the thugs (including several tough young women) to reach the front at the expense of the old, the weak, and the slow, who separated to the back of the crowd.   This was not at all a smooth sifting; it was accomplished by shouting, pushing, shoving, running, and grabbing.   I saw several people go down.   I waited until the violence had abated before going in; it just wasn't worth it.   When inside, there were various shouting and pushing matches going on for places within each of the eight ticket-window lines.   Old women bickered over who was before whom, while others merely regained their composure or breath.  "You're all crazy!", I said to myself in English.

 There is a particularly irritating trait of some line-waiters to stand alongside ill-defined lines and gradually "ease up" toward the front.   They try to do this as slowly as to be unnoticed.   Sometimes they are quite in a hurry, and their speed is almost as a slow jog.   Strangely, considering the behavior in the ticket office described above, there was nary a whisper of protest when I observed this on several occasions.   The worst example was at Lenin's Tomb, where one young man and his date "eased away" probably 20 minutes of the 45 minute line.   At Lenin's tomb!   Is nothing sacred anymore?

 Tempers run high in the lines, especially on hot days or in a crowded shop or public office.   Boredom is the main feature of a queue and the faces of its members, occasionally anger or violence.   But more often than crudeness, I noticed certain acts of formalized civility in the lines.   There is, for example, the standard act of asking "kto posledni" when joining a new line, so as not to commit the vulgarity of "cutting" in line.   One may usually leave the line to take care of other business, such as looking at other merchandise.   One need only state "Ya seichas pridu" to explain the absence.   And, of course, it's always the possibility of making new friends while queuing

On books and the post-Soviet reader:

 Great Rus is a nation of readers.   One who has eyes will see this evidenced every day, in all locations.   The metro stations may be considered as underground halls of living sculpture, there on display are countless strangers, heads buried, each as stoic as limestone, granite, or bronze.    In the hands are copies of translated cheap western paperbacks, scientific and technical works by soviet authors, Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta, sex tabloids, personal letters, bibles, manuals on dacha construction; gardening; or business, Russian and World literature, to name a few variants.   Do not assume that everyone reads; this is not the case, though those who do make up for the others in zeal.

 A good place to see the mechanics behind this is at the used book store.   I, too, am a lover of books, and found the acquisition of them to be a great source of diversion, challenge, pleasure, even therapy.   I came to frequent several establishments in Minsk on a regular basis.   "Regular" means two to four times per week, often more.   "Bukinisticheskaya Kniga", on Prospekt Skoryini, was my main haunt.   There I purchased everything from atlases to encyclopedic reference volumes, literature, cookbooks, and more.   "Vyanok", in the historic district, was my second favorite.   It specialized more in art books, literature, and encyclopedias and dictionaries, though other books were often had as well.   There were several others in Minsk specializing in used books, and at each I was known as a regular.   Each one was unique; each one was an island of civility.   The stores were usually crowded.   Patrons examining, reading, comparing, discussing, and buying books might have appeared to the uninitiated as chaotic, but such was the thrill involved.
 The driving force behind much of this was the book buying area, normally located in a separate area of the building, where suitable books were bought from people who brought them in.   Again, there was usually a crowd, equal to the one inside buying books.   I never checked, but I wonder if some of those selling went afterward to the buying area of the stores.   Certainly there was an equilibrium between buying and selling.   I attribute this constant selling of books to the need for continually greater income in the unraveling economy, but this factor cannot account for the constant buying of books.   The turnover of books at the shops was amazingly rapid.   For this reason I deemed it necessary to visit the second-hand dealers regularly, as mentioned above.   A particularly desirable book, which may include large atlases, dictionaries of all kinds, foreign-language editions, literature volumes, and others, may be sold within a matter of hours, or even minutes, of being placed on display.   When I saw, for example, the large Atlas SSSR on display in the window of Bukinisticheskaya, I knew that I must act immediately.   Cost: 20¢.

 On numerous occasions after purchasing certain books,  I recall being asked to show the book to others in the store, or even in the metro or on the street!   The 2 volume Krasnaya Kniga SSSR, one of my greatest treasures, drew particular interest, as did several books on cooking, animals, and technical subjects.   Little attention was given when I purchased the repair manual for the diesel locomotive û¸ë-7 (yes, that's right, the repair manual for a diesel locomotive).   Each time I went to the store, even on the same day, I would see numerous "new" books on display, many more I am sure I did not see before they went to new homes, and this I am sure I dwell upon too much...   Rarely a visit to the second-hand bookstore did not net me several new finds, all at bargain prices, of course.   Dictionaries and literature sets fetched the highest prices, as well as newly available subjects, such as poorly translated mystery and romance novels, Aubrey Beardsly and other books of an "erotic" and sexual nature, Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard, and curiosities such as the encyclopedic Pistoleti i Revolveri, seen regularly at increasingly high prices.   Thankfully for me, books of a geographic and natural sciences slant were apparently less valued on the resale market.

On the trains with communism:

 The best place to see real communism, in a microcosm, is on the trains.

 Once I rode first class ("luks"), but all it got me was a job, and no communism.   The other person in the 2-bed compartment was Ludmila Prisakova, from Moscow, now living in the USA and working with Larry Schiller and Norman Mailer on their various schemes.   If one knows the attitude attributed to Muscovites, and adds this to one who now lives in the USA, makes decent money, and hob-nobs with the stars, one can not imagine railway communism in the same thought.   We rode to from Moscow to Minsk on train  ï2, and all I can remember of the trip is that I wished I was with a real  Russian, and we discussed her gift from her daughter (a student at an expensive American college): a pocket electronic memo-pad by Casio.   Several days later I was approached at my door by one Aleksandr "Sasha" Batanov, recruiting me as a writer for Norman Mailer...1

 The standard way of travel is in the "kupò" wagon, with 4 to a compartment, 2 top, 2 bottom.   Usually it's relatively clean, with decent futon-type mattresses, and I always sleep quite well, thank you, on the trains.   It's best when those in the compartment are all strangers, because then there are only new friends to make.   About 30 minutes after leaving the station, depending on trip length, time of departure, etc., the passengers (who may be tired and hungry from their traveling activities) will usually eat.   There is but one table in the compartment, and it is from this table that the revolution is staged, nine times simultaneously in each 36 passenger wagon.

 One example of this which lends itself to my theory follows.   Late for the train (as always), I hurried onto the car and found my place on the bottom left "mesto".   With me on this trip was a young man going to visit relatives and an old woman and her husband returning from the same.   As is customary, I traded my lower bunk to the woman for her upper bunk, and promptly fell into slumber.   On the platform near the train I had bought as many bottles of Pepsi as I could fit into my bag, planning on drinking them liberally on the train (for I always become parched on the trains).   The others, however, after several kilometers began to take food from their bags and place it on the table.   The young man worked at a sausage factory, and had samples2  to share, as well as fish caught recently.  The old couple had cucumbers, cheese,  bread, and other items.   For a while I was quiet on the top mesto, reading and looking out the window, but after a short while I was invited to share their feast.   I had only the Pepsi, but it was my contribution, according to my means, and I was an equal at the table.  It is very possible to make a very nice dinner from the fragments brought with each comrade.   Following dinner and conversation we rested.   After an unexplained three hour stop somewhere in southern Ukraine, we reached Chernigov, where the three comrades of mine quietly exited the car and my life while I slept.   When I awoke as the train left the station, I was aware of my new companions:  two of the most ill-mannered and unpleasant, though generally harmless Soviet youths I have met.   Lithuanians.   They were on the way back to Vilnius, after "biznis" (buying) in Chernigov.   They were tired from a day of biznis, and ready to drink.   They apparently thought I was too, as they continually offered me some of their "harelka" (which as far as I know is an alternative work in Belarusian and Ukrainian for vodka, and must be a borrowed word in Lithuanian as well).   They proposed I come to visit them in Lithuania, meet their local women, etc.   As we traveled further from their boarding point, likewise did they become more intoxicated, and the amount of alcohol on their breath was positively volatile.   Repeatedly, I was offered harelka.   I was an equal.

 The next class of wagon down is called "plotzkart", with an open carriage, additional bunks, and a total capacity of 54 or 56 passengers.   I had heard it to be unpleasant from Soviet acquaintances, but actually found it strangely appealing.   One time I took this type wagon to Moscow from Orøl.   Luckily I had a single bunk near the aisle and a window.   In the plotzkarte, you may see and hear all your traveling companions quite well.   Sometimes there are attractive women; more often there are houligani and other thugs.   I admit with some regret that I sometimes made judgments too hastily, though it is necessary.   Nearby, a group of several scruffy men and women occasionally looked at me.   I did my best to give menacing looks back.   At last they began a series of "nightcaps", and shortly thereafter asked me to join them.   I politely declined, thinking "Ah-ha!, they're trying to get me drunk, so as to facilitate my robbery during the night!"   They persisted, and after some time I gave in.   As it turned out, they were civil, friendly, and interested only in saying hello, with a Russian slant.   I had a small amount of drink with them, but the morning checked my things nonetheless: undisturbed.   We bade farewell in Moscow, we were comrades.

 The lowest class of train is "obshe".   This is a plotzkarte wagon, filled with as many people as will fit or are interested in traveling in it.   It is also, of course, cheapest.   The favorite means of travel for students, soldiers, and other poor folk.   One time my train (Minsk-Simferopol) peculiarly did not appear on the platform in Minsk.   having planned my month-long excursion to Crimea for quite a while, I was interested only in getting there, and leaving Minsk immediately, regardless of the method or route.   Briefly, I considered going via Kishinøv, but then I was informed that there was passing through Minsk in several hours the Riga-Simferopol train.   I managed to bribe my way onto the obshe wagon of said train, with promise of a place in kupe in the morning when it became available.   So into the obshe wagon I went, bags and all.   The wagon was so crowded, however, that I was able to get no farther than 3 meters inside the car.   For an hour or so I stood, squatted, and leaned in the entryway, unsure about the quality of fellow passengers and of my safety.   Around me various conversations were going on between other passengers.   Interested in why I was silent, they began talking to me, and found (because I never try to conceal the fact) that I was an American.   That changed everything.   I was treated with courtesy, friendliness, and respect.   I actually found the people on that car, scruffy and rough-looking as they were, to be some of the nicest people I had met.   After several hours, I was amazed to find there was actually a conductor on the wagon, who had emerged somehow from the interior of the wagon.   Though dressed in the remains of what once was a clean new blue conductor's uniform, he looked otherwise similar to the others.   Upon finding I was an American, he cleared miscellaneous pieces of railroad equipment, coal, and junk from his long-abandoned resting compartment, making me a makeshift seat, and presenting this semi-private area to me as if I were a VIP.   Was this communism as well?

 I seldom, if ever, had a compartment-mate on the train who was intentionally unfriendly toward me, and the trains were always the best method of travel.   Never did I travel without interesting conversation and scenery.

On racism in the USSR:

 The Soviet people, as in so many other qualities purported in their constitution and popular politics, frequently exhibited the exact opposite of the "druzhba narodov" principle.   Witness the various civil wars at the moment.

 Upon settling in in Minsk, I reported to a Russian friend that my neighbor was Syrian.   "Oh, it's very bad", she sighed.   African students I spoke with reported being continually insulted and treated as inferior by university officials, Soviet students, and the general population.   Ironically, the most damning information to this effect came from a couple of African "studentki" with whom I had some of the most interesting and intelligent conversation in some time, especially as compared to Soviet studentki.   Similar conversations with other Africans bore this out.   Africans, I found, were some of the best and smartest people; always good, intelligent, and interesting conversation with them.   I wonder if the CMU "Multi-cultural Center" knows anything about this...   Africans, Middle Easterners, and non-Slavic Soviets fare worst for racism.   Western Europeans and Americans and Canadians are seen as "equals".

On the Russian notion of Baikal:

 Mention Lake Baikal to a Soviet, and they'll say either "Ochen krasivwi!" or "Oh, I'd like to go there very much" as an apparently automatic response.   Often this will be accompanied by waxing poetic on the virtues of the lake, as heard from a friend who has been there, stories heard, or, occasionally, experience.   Having spent some time at the lake myself, and having seen examples of  Soviet respect for public property, I can say with some certainty that I am quite glad that relatively few actually have been there.   Baikal looms large in the heart of Russians' sentimental  mentality as a heavenly ideal, as an abstract notion on what nature is,  as a giant not created by socialism, as Baikal.   For most it is enough to know that Baikal is there, in their country, though it belongs to the world.   It is not simply a vaguely known entity, as Lake Superior is to Americans, lost in the mind and insignificant.   Baikal is real and present in the mind of a Russian; the spirit dormant until conjured by mention of the word: Baikal.   Valentin Rasputin represents the individual, stubborn and vigilant, who is a citizen of Baikal.   Most residents of the Baikal area will speak more practically of the lake; of its meter-thick perfectly clear ice in the winter, of its fish, of its seals, of its fragility, of its spirituality.   Many who have been there or live there respect the lake, but I also saw examples of litter, degradation, and shameful disrespect at the lake.   In the mind and soul of a good Russian, however, Baikal is perfect and to be defended.   Baikal belongs to the world, though its keeper is the Russian soul.