1df8ca99   
   XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   XPost: soc.culture.nordic, soc.culture.baltics   
   From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com   
      
   In article   
   ,   
    holman@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:   
      
   > In article , David Friedman   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   > > In article   
   > > ,   
   >    
   > >   
   > > I read the book _The Russians_, written, if I remember correctly, by a   
   > > U.S. reporter (or two reporters?) who had been Moscow correspondent for   
   > > the New York Times.   
   >   
   > The author was Hedrick Smith. I've had a few beers with him when he was   
   > visiting Helsinki.   
      
   ...   
      
   > As a reporter who tried to understand the USSR by going native to the   
   > extent that was possible, he learned how the USSR worked at the grassroots   
   > level. Quite differently than a western country, but efficiently enough to   
   > provide most of its citizenry with a guaranteed lower middle-class   
   > standard of living if they played along and did not rock the boat.   
      
   I don't think that fits the book's description as I remember it. It   
   sounded as though most of the USSR, outside of Moscow, was closer to   
   India than to the U.S. in terms of standard of living--for instance,   
   dentistry without anaesthetics, very limited range of foodstuffs   
   available. It was a picture of a first world elite--poorer than the   
   average American, but not radically poorer--in a third world country.   
      
   ...   
      
   > The   
   > experience demonstrated to me that even people living in a "dictatorship"   
   > ­ if the USR was that any more in 1989 ­ are people, with the same   
   > everyday concerns and problems that people have everywhere else.   
      
   Not surprising.   
      
   Thanks for the stories.   
      
   I have one, although it's second hand, from my parents' visit to the   
   USSR a fair while back. At one point they had a taxi driver who spoke   
   English. He told them that he was a student, studying English at school.   
   They asked him what he planned to do after he graduated.   
      
   His answer: "They haven't decided yet."   
      
   --   
    http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
    Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.   
    Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)