Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 2, No. 2 | My Russia: One Reporter's View of Life After Communism, page 2

By September, the Baltic republics were free. In December, Yeltsin joined the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine in a forest outside Minsk to sign the Soviet Union’s death warrant, proclaiming its dissolution. The uncertain situation that followed took a toll on the economy: store shelves were stripped and Russians began to wonder about the promises of a new life. Gorbachev, president of a nonexistent country, resigned on December 25, tearing Western journalists from their imported Christmas turkeys in a race to gather the reactions of Russians, most of whom were more concerned with finding enough food for their New Year’s celebrations.

Yeltsin became the main leader of the ex-Soviet Union, the embodiment of Russian democracy, and very soon a symbol of all its birth pangs. “Shock therapy” measures instituted in January 1992 by his team of young economists freed prices from state control and gradually filled stores but quickly emptied bank accounts. The Slonims’ combined income from their respective jobs as a geo-mechanic and biochemist, which was more than adequate in Soviet times, turned overnight into an amount as low as the equivalent of $10 U.S., depending on the rate of inflation and ruble devaluation. It was barely enough for the couple to support themselves and their young daughter, but they pressed on, taking cover from the chaos in their comfortable two-bedroom apartment next door to a movie theater with an ideologically correct name, Hanoi, and in their singing.

Tamara channeled her passion for alternative medicine and herbs into a way of supplementing her family’s diet and warding off illnesses. There was no point in relying on Russia’s failing health care system at a time when shortages of medical supplies meant not even bribes were enough to buy quality care and many doctors had to moonlight as gypsy cab drivers to survive.

The couple tried starting a clothing label based on Tamara’s knitwear designs. Over several years, Misha opened a café at the institute where he worked, became a Cadbury chocolate distributor, tried his hand at the fledgling securities market and earned enough for family vacations to Turkey, Prague and London. Then, in the mid-1990s, a business deal gone sour saddled him with a $100,000 debt that he is only now close to paying off.

Russia went through similar ups and downs. In 1993, Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on the White House, which had been taken over by hard-line legislators rebelling against him, turning it into a blackened shell. Soon, a bloody war would begin in Chechnya and Yeltsin would grow increasingly incoherent and infirm.

Every Russian, including Misha, received slips of paper, “vouchers” meant to be their share in the privatization of state enterprises. Most people sold them off at a pittance or kept them as souvenirs. In the lead-up to Yeltsin’s desperate bid for re-election in 1996 against a Communist Party contender, a small group of top bankers gave loans to the government in exchange for shares in the leading industries. They privatized the companies after the government defaulted on the loans and later became the oligarchs who controlled most of Russia’s economy and were accused of manipulating Yeltsin’s presidency as he descended into drunkenness.

By 2000, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, would be president. He would restore the Soviet anthem, promise to rid Russia of oligarchs, score grand-slam approval ratings approaching 80 percent and lead an unprecedented warming of relations with the United States. His friendship with U.S. President George W. Bush was cemented, both have said, by a shared Christian faith and a common battle against a new enemy: international terrorism and an Islamic fundamentalist foe cast in evil-empire terms eerily reminiscent of the Cold War.

Over time, August 1991 and the events it unleashed took on tragicomic coloring. A top Russian pollster,VTsIOM, found in 2001 that only about 10 percent of respondents thought the coup was “a democratic revolution that put an end to Communist Party rule.” One-quarter considered it “a tragic event with destructive consequences for the nation and the people.” Sixty-two percent told VTsIOM they weren’t sure which side was right.

Despite the shifting sands of public opinion, it is still clear that enormous changes have taken place. Today’s Moscow, for example, is a city of sleek, upscale boutiques, 24-hour supermarkets and a 250-store, Ikea-anchored mega-mall. Gigantic Christmas decorations herald the mad shopping rush that unofficially kicks off on the November 7 holiday known as the Day of Reconciliation and Accord, formerly Revolution Day. On the newsstands, glossy lifestyle magazines hawk luxury penthouses, safaris in the Serengeti and skiing vacations in Switzerland. Gorbachev’s granddaughter recently made headlines for her appearance in a Christian Dior gown at the Crillon debutante ball in Paris. In the city’s numerous theme cafés, Soviet memorabilia are displayed like nostalgic memories. McDonald’s restaurants are popping up at most subway stops, so are homeless people and beggars. Drug dealers and addicts trawl the city’s rougher housing projects.

Moscow is a city of uniquely Russian contrasts and mind-bending combinations, exemplified, perhaps, by the sudden proposal, in September 2002, of Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow’s populist mayor, that “Iron Feliks” be restored to his pedestal, an idea he had previously opposed.

Luzhkov didn’t explain his change of heart, saying only that he thought the statue was “a beautiful architectural and artistic composition,” but critics, who viewed the monument to Dzerzhinsky as a symbol of Soviet-era atrocities, were astonished. They accused the mayor of trying to please Putin on his approaching fiftieth birthday in the same way politicians have adopted the president’s favorite sports, judo and skiing, thinking he would be pleased. The Kremlin, however, said the idea of restoring Dzerzhinsky was untimely. A leading banker and an aging ex-pop star turned Communist parliamentarian have both offered to buy the deposed statue.

Such a cacophony of symbols was not quite what Misha had envisioned. “If big changes had been made right away, then the question of restoring Dzherzhinsky wouldn’t stand,” he says, speaking of the failure to abolish Communism. Yeltsin’s attempts to ban the party ultimately failed and consequently, never resulted in the sweeping Nuremburg-like tribunals many had wanted—and many had feared.

The Communist Party of Russia has regularly drawn one-quarter of the vote in the past decade and reconsidered some of its ideological pillars. Communists participated recently at a conference at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, underlining their allegiance to the Russian Orthodox Church. At about the same time, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov praised Jesus Christ as “the first Communist” and called for restoration of Volgograd’s old name, Stalingrad, to mark the 60th anniversary of the epic World War II battle. Legislators in Penza, in Russia’s so-called Communist Red Belt, approved a new regional flag with a startling symbol: an icon of Christ. Putin was runner-up.

Misha thinks that the different motives of the many anti-Communist “defenders of the White House,” as they came to be known, were too divergent to set Russia on a coherent course. They included, after all, everyone from idealists, to aspiring yuppies, to neo-fascists and even a young man named Shamil Basayev, soon to become Chechnya’s most famous rebel field commander and wanted terrorist.

Jazz and Ikea: The Makings of a Middle Class?
Social scientists and market researchers gathered recently in St. Petersburg to discuss an elusive subject: Russia’s middle class. Some said it’s tiny, some said it’s growing, others said it’s more a state of mind, a question of values, or even a spiritual condition rather than a question of money. One Russian jazz-pop singer said recently, “When jazz becomes popular we’ll know there’s a middle class.”

Next page: The Tabaks’ biggest fear is the lack of affordable, quality medical care in a country where, technically, it’s still free, but everybody pays something.

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