My friend's letter from Russia

Dear friend,

whenever I would travel to some distant country (and not an ordinary, empty vacation next to some salt water), the first thing that always interested me was their people. I would be interested in how they live, what they think. I would ask myself, "If by any chance I was born right here - how would I live? What would I think about the world? Would I think and believe everything they believe in?"

Back in 1976, the trip to Eastern Europe was not my first trip abroad, but it was impressive and in many ways remembered for all time because we visited all over the country. The trip was a traditional excursion of the final year of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. It was traveled by train - which also had a strong impact. It was organized down to the last detail ... and it was up to us to just relax - and enjoy.

We went via Hungary to the Soviet Union where we stayed for about nine days and visited Moscow and Leningrad (respectively), and then passed through Poland where we spent two days in Lodz (the second largest city in Poland) and then two days in Prague and one in Budapest.

The first surprise was entering the USSR. At the very border, the entire train composition is lifted into the air, normal assemblies with wheels of the European standard range are pulled out from under the composition, and new, Russian (significantly wider) ones are placed underneath. At the same time, Soviet customs officers had enough time to dedicate to each passenger. They were interested in whether we were carrying any Western, subversive material (Beatles LP records, for example, could be sold there for dry gold). They were especially afraid that we would bring them some "pornographic" material (they confiscated it). You can't just corrupt the honest Soviet people just like that.

We then continued on that wide track, very comfortably surprised that the train was no longer rattling at all. Vast expanses awaited us. A plain without end. The poor (?) Nazis complained that if they took a hundred kilometers - every day would be the same - because there were countless thousands more waiting in front of them. As if they had not taken a step forward.

I was hungry with my eyes swallowing new landscapes that I had never seen before and I was already trying to read how people live here. We passed through numerous, scattered, distant villages with miserable log cabins from half-ruined houses ... Then we passed through Kiev with countless churches that overshadow the view with their golden domes. It was immediately apparent that misery and indescribable wealth stood side by side in astonishing contrast.

The Soviet Union, we saw it soon (and at every turn) was an unusually powerful state - with poor people.

In Moscow, we stayed at one hotel. It was on the edge of a park. The jungle. I was convinced that it was not only at the end of Moscow but at the beginning of Siberia too. I was just waiting for wolves to appear behind the messy bushes and trees. The front door of the hotel was some barely folded planks that my grandfather from my native village would be ashamed to have in his shed. They closed "automatically" with some rusty, ordinary springs.

The rooms were neat and clean, spartan. The maids immediately surrounded us asking if we had things to sell.

One of my friends, who was there a year earlier (with his generation) prepared me for this scene. Before the trip, he bought me a huge box of chewing gum packages. Not any chewing gum. Each pack (and there were 50 of them) looked like a box of cigarettes and each one had ten chewing gums also shaped like cigarettes.

I will never forget how, surprised, handing me that big package, he said to me: "Well, you can carry this there. For every package you will - without bargaining, you will get laundry. You don't believe me? Here - I'm giving you this for now. I've never chewed gum in my life - but if you don't drown them, as I tell you, I'll return them all to chew them for the rest of my life. "

Typically his type of humor ... But that's exactly how it was. The maids first (from everyone in the group) picked up boxes of chewing gum and then went on a safari for other things ...

Ah, I know, I crashed. You don't care what happened in 1976 ... but without that contrast, my story about the recent visit won't make sense ...

A maid who came into my room asked me what else I had for sale. I showed her a sweater of a wonderful ocher, pastel color. Moher - that's what my friend told me (adding that they like bright red - just like their proletarian flag). I didn't believe him there.

"Nu kakii eto cvjet?" the maid asks.

"Yes, bass is a color like a flower" I answer (legendarily) stupid me because I had no idea that "flower(cvjet)" means "color" in Russian.

"Come on," the maid replied almost reluctantly and gave me a pile of rubles. Then he looked at my shoes and asked, "How much is it?" Extremely stunned, I tell her "How can I sell you shoes? How can I go barefoot in Russia?"

I understood that she replied that her son would be overjoyed to have such shoes (made in Yugoslavia) and I can buy shoes tomorrow in their CUMAG (Central Magazine) or GUMAG (General Magazine) ...

Of course, I didn’t sell it to her, but such scenes kept recurring. For example, in the center of the wide Leningrad Avenue, a Russian stopped me, he pulls on the hem of the jeans I was wearing and asks, "Well, how much is that?" Still shocked, I ask "How can I sell you pants in the middle of the city?" To which the Russian replies that we will enter a side street. He will take off his pants, we will exchange and he will give me money.

That was obviously out of the question. And so, until then, I had over 400 rubles, and the excellent monthly salary of a high-ranking engineer in Russia at that time was around 300 rubles. I still didn't know what to do (what to buy) with so much money. I already felt like never before. Like a rotten capitalist. Like a rude emperor.

I felt the same way in other countries of the Soviet bloc. Maybe that was the intention of the organizers of this excursion ... Now I know that some other my friend (with the medical faculty) also went on a similar tour in Eastern Europe. Thus, various profiles and generations could see for themselves the advantages of the Yugoslav type of socialism ...

I have to tell another anecdote and then I stop bothering you on this topic ...

It was a beautiful, sunny day and they brought us to the destroyer Aurora. We just took a group photo. A Russian jumped into it from somewhere: "Well, how much does it cost?" showing off my (not at all special) sunglasses. They were already seriously going to my ganglia, but I still managed to be in a diplomatic mood and instead of driving him away at three ... I answered sharply:

"Forty (40) rubles."

I thought it was an insane price and that it would just freak me out. Instead, he continued, tapping his glasses:

"There's the glass?"

"Yes, yes, it's glass." I answered ...

"Come on," replied the Russian, and gave me as much as I asked. He goes happy because now he can pretend to be an American in front of the others (probably deep somewhere in the subway) ... And I, when I took a picture next to Aurora, had no idea that I was taking pictures with those glasses for the last time.

I am known to love talking. Impressions from those ancient times are still numerous and very vivid. Remind me (if you are brave enough) the next time you see me and I can tell you about the numerous museums we visited (for example the Museum of the Battle of Borodino, Lenin's Mausoleum, the "Museum of Victory over Space" ...). I can tell you about the celebration of Victory Day in Moscow, the Leningrad White Nights, the building of bridges on the Neva, the Russian Order of Beer ...

Just to round up the story ... I came home with a lot of unspent rubles. Everywhere in the USSR, there were huge (and four floors high) slogans on the buildings. The most popular was: "Glory to Labor." That was very funny to me. It was supposed to mean "Long live work" and in fact, as in Serbian, it meant that work (long ago) died. In one GUMAG, as an example, there was an entire wall filled with Russian hats (made of original fur). I ask the saleswoman "what kind of hats do you have". She answers "We don't have ... No". He's pretending to be crazy ... All right, I see a joke, so I'm pretending to be crazy too. "Come on, come on ..." and show her what I want. I wore it for almost 30 years.

My unspent laundry was "inherited" by my girlfriend, who went on a similar tour with her (Faculty of Technology) the following year.

I am writing this in a hurry - the second day before the trip to Thailand. Typically for me I make things exciting where it shouldn't be so exciting ...

I will try to return to the main topic: Russia today. After all, all the main museums and palaces that I saw a long time ago - I visited again and in the following sequels (after the trip) I will send you pictures of that furious, imperial gold that is still intact in the same place ... Words can't describe it anyway, so I will send zou a lot of pictures ... and when we see each other I'll give you those and all 3,000+ photos I've taken.

I was terribly interested to see that country again, that people. Here (for decades) American newspapers celebrated the downfall not only of the USSR but also of the deep misery into which the Russian people had been thrown. Russian women would come (wrote the New York Times) to America in the last phase of pregnancy. They would give birth there and then give the newborns up for adoption - for a thousand dollars - and then they would immediately (because of a one-time visa) return to misery and hunger.

It is celebrated here that allegedly in Russia the birth rate is catastrophically low, that they die like ants from hunger and AIDS ... The Americans would then send them contraceptives with a big heart and all sorts of American churches started (all this during the drunken jerk Yeltsin) that they are sprouting like mushrooms in Russia ... All this in the hope that every possible future division of the Russian people will open up and deepen.

And here I will now allow pictures to talk because words are (always) powerless to say everything. Here you are traveling with me now. You see Russia today the way I saw it recently - through the eye of my camera ...

We fly over Finland. A bumpy country that looks like Swiss cheese from the air - drilled with lakes and ponds of all sizes. In the middle of summer (maybe in my crazy soul) it looks cold. The huge Helsinki airport is sterile, people are lost in a large space and rare among spacious souvenir shops ... Soon we take off again and in a moment we are above the Gulf of Finland and then, in a very short time ...I'm going to the other end of the planet - to the other reality.

That's it for now. Other sequels follow, upon return - in about a month.