{"id":494,"date":"1994-05-14T07:20:09","date_gmt":"1994-05-14T14:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2020-07-09T09:55:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T16:55:09","slug":"russia-on-6000-rubles-about-five-bucks-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/1994\/05\/14\/russia-on-6000-rubles-about-five-bucks-a-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia On 6,000 Rubles (About Five Bucks) a Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jeffrey Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Westmoreland News, May 14 1994<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor and photographer (because there was nobody else to do those things). Best of all the paper’s editor, Lynn Norris, gave me the freedom to write whatever I wanted – way more journalistic and comedic freedom than anyone should rightly give a know-it-all 21-year-old writing for a weekly in the deeply rural Northern Neck of Virginia. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRussia on 6,000  Rubles (about five bucks) a Day,\u201d or \u201cMoscow Does Not Believe in Decent Chinese Food\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Jeffrey Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having traveled to Russia last summer, I was asked to write up a brief guide for those intrepid souls who might wish to visit there themselves.  This is fine with me, because it\u2019s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn\u2019t want to live there.  The following is a listing of basic \u201cDos\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019ts\u201d for visiting \u2013 a condensed version of \u201cEverything You Wanted to Know about Going to Russia but Realized You Don\u2019t Know How to Ask the Locals.\u201d  And if you\u2019re as incurably American as I am, you\u2019ll have a lot of questions.  Good luck, happy trails, and don\u2019t forget to write if the economy over there gets work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Rule<\/strong>: Have a good time.\u00a0 All of the sarcastic little attempts at humor aside, it\u2019s a wonderful place.\u00a0 The people are friendly, conversational, and generally kind.\u00a0 Saint Petersburg is the most beautiful city I\u2019ve ever seen, and the \u201cWhite Nights\u201d in June \u2013 when the sun never fully goes down \u2013 are gorgeous.\u00a0 Moscow\u2019s \u201cStalinist Gothic\u201d architecture is breathtaking.\u00a0 Leggy Russian girls stroll by that would make heads spin in any country of the world.\u00a0 Georgian Champagne is excellent and cheap.\u00a0 And, being an American, you know that you\u2019re automatically the coolest<\/em> person within a 50-yard radius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Leigh
Friends at St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, 1993<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Second Rule<\/strong>: The domestic Russian beer tastes like WD-40 motor oil.  Try to avoid it if at all possible; if you\u2019re in a major city, there will probably be plenty of nicer bars or pubs run by foreigners, set up specifically for (comparatively) money-laden travelers like yourself.  Not that alcohol can\u2019t be bought anywhere: when I was there, Stolichnaya vodka could be bought for about 1200 Rubles (95 cents) per liter at any kiosk along the street in Moscow or St. Pete\u2019s.  Absolut Vodka, imported from nearby Sweden, could be bought for about four bucks per liter.  And the most expensive vodka \u2013 costing eight dollars a bottle, or about half the average Russian\u2019s monthly wage of 15,000 Rubles \u2013 was Smirnoff, which is bottled in exotic Hartford, Connecticut.  If you\u2019re looking for Jack Daniel\u2019s, you aren\u2019t seeing any until you get back on the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while we\u2019re on the topic of sin and its accomplices, American cigarettes are cheaper in Russia than they are here.  Marlboro or Lucky Strike brands \u2013 the<\/em> status symbols among younger Russians \u2013 go for about 90 cents a pack.  The cheapest native Russian cancer sticks, called Byelomorkanal<\/em>, cost about four cents a pack.  They are fat, stubby, and filterless, and taste like you\u2019re smoking plutonium.  Considering that some of the tobacco probably comes from around the Chernobyl area, you probably are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third Rule<\/em><\/strong>: Bring your own Ny-Quil. The only time I really feared for my life was when I caught a cold, and the Russian family I stayed with decided to suggest their favorite home remedies.\u00a0 The mother of the family was a chemist, and the father was a physicist.\u00a0 And their respective cures for congestion were warm milk and inhaling steam, and vodka. I half expected them to pull out a small reserve box of Red Army-issue leeches with multiple warheads.\u00a0 So bring your own medicine, unless you happen to be particularly fond of the vodka cure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jeffrey
The author sits atop a ZSU-23 at the Artillery Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1993<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fourth Rule<\/strong>: Bring your own Won Ton soup.  I went to every Chinese restaurant in Moscow and St. Petersburg (three).  It seems that even though they had both been Communist nations for a long time, the Russians and the Chinese never got along, because apparently none of the Chinese stayed around long enough to explain how to make a decent egg roll.  In my mind, an advanced civilization is marked by the availability of good Chinese food.  There may be some somewhere in Russia.  Elvis may also be working in an Iowa laundromat.  But there is very little evidence for either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The native Russian food is actually quite good, but due to a poor availability of supplies (a national tradition), the basic menu repertoire almost always stays the same.  I mean, I like beets as much as the next guy, but after the fifteenth serving of borscht and black bread (judging by the taste, it is made just like regular bread, but the wheat in the recipe is replaced by dirt), you can be ready to kill people for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which brings me to the slow infiltration of American food into the Russian culture.  Since last year, I have been told that the number of McDonald\u2019s in Moscow has increased from one to three, and in St. Petersburg from zero to one.  But it isn\u2019t quite the same: there are two hamburgers on the menu: the \u201cBeeg Makh,\u201d<\/em> and the hamburger.  There is one size of fries (small), and one size of Coke (small).  And don\u2019t worry about telling them to only put a little ice in the drink \u2013 nobody in Russia puts ice in anything<\/em>.  Lunch in McDonalds will run you about three bucks, or what was then about 20 percent of the average Russian\u2019s monthly wage.  There is also a Pizza Hut in Moscow (they\u2019ll deliver before the next ice age or it\u2019s free) and a Baskin Robbins in St. Petersburg.  Thankfully, not one of the 33 flavors is \u201cdouble-dip vodka borscht fudge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make a long story short (probably too late), after five weeks in Moscow and St. Petersburg, I had a horrible desire to go home \u2013 not for Democracy, or Home, or Freedom or the Statue of Liberty \u2013 but for American food and my girlfriend.\u00a0 And don\u2019t tell my girlfriend, but I could have delayed coming home even longer if someone had brought me a bucket of Extra Crispy chicken from KFC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Friends
Friends in Moscow, 1993<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fifth Rule<\/em><\/strong>: Don\u2019t hang around the hotels too much.  For one thing, you miss out on the real Russia.  For another thing, the foreign hotels are ridiculously expensive, and you still probably can\u2019t get ice in your drink.  The Russian hotels are cheap, but are decorated like the Waldorf-Astoria after a limited-scale nuclear war, and the staff is hindered by the fact that apparently nobody in Russia has realized that a \u201cservice economy\u201d has something to do with \u201cservice.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first night we stayed in Moscow, one of the other students on the trip and I were up late.\u00a0 Wondering what to do, I realized the only proper thing for a journalist to was to go drink in the hotel bar.\u00a0 My friend ordered a screwdriver and was greeted with blank looks that seemed to say, \u201cthe poor American fool thinks he\u2019s in a hardware store.\u201d\u00a0 No one had heard of the drink because the Russians had plenty of vodka but apparently\u00a0orange juice just doesn\u2019t grow on trees there.\u00a0 His bar tab was itemized: four dollars for the vodka, and ten for the orange juice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixth Rule<\/em><\/strong>: Learn a little Russian before you go.  Specifically, learn \u201cnyet,\u201d<\/em> or no<\/em>.  Practice saying it frequently, and in a loud voice with a stiff-arm gesture and a menacing sneer that says, \u201cWe won the Cold War, so back off.\u201d  As soon as you are recognized as an American \u2013 which usually takes about three seconds \u2013 you will be approached by everyone from wizened old pensioners to tiny Slavic versions of the Little Rascals, trying to sell you anything from \u201cgenuine Soviet military pins\u201d to \u201creal American baseball caps,\u201d bearing the logo of the Cleveland Redskins or the New York Cowboys.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually you develop a reflex for saying, \u201cNo, thanks, I don\u2019t want any, and sorry, I don\u2019t speak English anyway.\u201d  It\u2019s about that time that you look at the sixty- and seventy-year-old retired women, standing on the streets, selling cigarettes and trying to augment their average 9,000 Ruble (eight dollars) monthly income any way they can.  Their lined, thin faces show a mixture of pride and fear.  Pride in being Russian, pride coming from surviving a life of strife and turmoil, pride which keeps them from begging like so many of their countrymen have been reduced to. And fear that they may not be able to survive a new capitalist age that they neither fully understand or have any real place in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t a smoker, but I bought a pack from an old woman on a street corner in St. Petersburg.  She was selling them for 150 Rubles; I gave her a 200 Ruble bill and as she fumbled through her one and five Ruble bills, I told her, \u201cNyeh nada\u201d<\/em> \u2013 to keep the change.  She almost cried.  \u201cSpaceba, spaceba,\u201d<\/em> \u2013 thank you \u2013 she told me again and again and blessed me.  All for about five cents<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then all your pride in being a Buick-driving, VCR-watching, I-floss-my-teeth-with-small-countries, capital \u201cA\u201d American breaks down.  You realize just how bad things are there: a country that is just ending one of the darkest of dark ages and trying to rejoin a world that feared it \u2013 and left it behind.  They are trying to be reborn as a capitalist economic power \u2013 and it\u2019s a painful \u201cI-was-in-labor-with-you-for-three-weeks\u201d birth.  You don\u2019t feel superior; you just feel sorry for the people who have to live with the bitter fruits of the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I was there last summer, the Ruble exchange rate went from 1,000 to a dollar to 1,300 per dollar \u2013 30 percent<\/em> currency inflation \u2013 in five weeks<\/em>.  It has stabilized much since then, but in many ways the situation is a thin veneer of order over a lot of misery and people who feel like they\u2019ve just moved to a new planet.  Granted, it comes pre-furnished, but it\u2019s still a new planet.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has stayed the same: most of the mid- or lower-level civil servants are still the old Communist \u201capparatchiks\u201d<\/em> who were running things before.  The State still owns almost all of the land (accordingly, most Russians still pay less than a dollar a month for rent and utilities) and almost all of the businesses.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet it has all changed: the main streets and parks are home to countless beggars.  These people have lived their entire lives under a government that watched everything, that controlled everything.  And now their government can barely take care of itself, let alone the people who have always depended on its insulating their world.  It will take Russia a long time to change, and it will involve many sacrifices.  And when you walk past these sacrifices, selling their cigarettes, you can\u2019t help but taste the tiniest part of their pain.  And you become very glad that there is a home to go back to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All things considered, Russia is a wonderful place to spend time.  My friends and I walked along the riverfront of St. Petersburg at two a.m. without any worries \u2013 something you probably shouldn\u2019t attempt in a large city in America without bringing along a Mechanized Infantry batallion.  I had a wonderful time haggling in street markets, making offers in my poor Russian, and getting responses in much better English.  Russia is a country that reads: book vendors were everywhere, and a bound volume of Shakespeare\u2019s tragedies in Russian cost me 55 cents.  You haven\u2019t laughed until you\u2019ve seen \u201cThe Karate Kid\u201d in a movie theater with dubbed-over Russian voices.  And you can go to Russian dance clubs, recycle old dances like the \u201cTwist\u201d or the \u201cMashed Potato,\u201d and everyone will think you\u2019re a disco god. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeffrey Carl Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor … Continue reading Russia On 6,000 Rubles (About Five Bucks) a Day<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,20],"tags":[71,42],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reporting","category-the-westmoreland-news","tag-russia","tag-westmoreland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}