Thinking Like a Russian
Students from the Moscow Aeronautical Institute. Photo/Pete Valeska.
By Pete Valeska
It was a time of lines and shortages, that summer of 1991. I was in Moscow teaching conversational English to students from Moscow Aeronautical Institute. They had been taking English since the third grade and were already quite adept. But it was Berlitz English. You know, "the pen of my aunt is on the bureau of my uncle" verbiage. Americans don't talk that way, and these kids knew it. They wanted to learn real American jargon.
Now, I lived with them. No special hotel for Westerners. No INTOURIST guide. I was in the heart of "the Evil Empire" without a safety net. They were responsible for my well being, which they took very seriously. Always with me, they stuck to me like a cheap suit on a hot and humid Moscow afternoon. I suspect they had been warned that if anything should happen to me, they would be sent to the GULAG. So, they weren't too happy when I would go off for a walkabout on Moscow's mean streets, looking for food and other necessities. But look at the kitchen table. Not a lot of food there for five strapping Russian lads and a middle-aged American man. And that’s with the refrigerator emptied out. The boys would feed me before feeding themselves. They were adamant. So, I had decided that this would not stand.
I walked and shopped the gray market – old trucks parked down dark alleys, doling out salted fish and Black Sea caviar; make-shift stalls selling bread or cheese, here today, gone tomorrow or within hours, after the goods were gone. And danger lurked in the shadows. You see, in Gorbachev’s “Communism With A Kinder Face,” some free enterprise was permitted, in theory. The reality was MGB (militia) staging periodic raids on a whim, busting things up, and breaking a few heads just to keep everybody on his toes. I knew if I got scooped up in such a sweep, it would take a lot of money to get me back, and there were no guarantees. So, the boys would worry themselves silly and not exhale until I showed up safe at home.
There were shortages of everything. Perestroika wasn't working. So, wearing their clothing, trying to blend in, trying to look like a Russian, when I would see a line of Russians, I would stand in it. Sometimes, the line would lead to bars of soap for sale. Sometimes, watermelon or pea pods. Often, vodka, always a good find and well appreciated. Russian rubles were no good. It was, after all, the gray market. Not quite illegal. Not exactly legal either. They wanted hard currency only. Like American dollars. VALUTA, they called it. It means value. And I had alota valuta.
For such impromptu purchases made on my excursions, I always carried an expandable string bag called an AVOSKA. It means "perchance" in Russian. And I would bring home my treasures to sounds of joy and delight, as worried faces were transformed to all smiles.
There was a long line of silent Russians – faces like masks. So I joined them, and stood inanimate like Mickey-The-Dunce wearing the same mask of resignation, but privately counting those ahead of me, hoping that there was enough of whatever it was to last until I got there. They were doing the same, I’m sure. Steely eyed Soviets stared suspiciously at me, looked away, then stared again. Did they know I was an American dressed in Russian clothing? Would they beat the beans out of me for taking food out of their mouths? I made myself small.
This sortie yielded the greatest prize of all. I scored four rolls of toilet paper. Not the crappy (no pun intended) industrial strength, barb-wire reinforced Russian variety, that feels like sandpaper, but the good stuff, soft and gentle from Finland. For this find, I received the greatest of compliments upon my safe and successful return: "Peter, you are thinking like a Russian."
Now is our time of lines and shortages and the wearing of masks – real ones. If undaunted Russians can stand in line for two hours in an alley in Moscow, I can stand in line for 20 minutes in front of WinCo in Reno. A Russian joke going around at the time, now echoes in memory. Gorbachev is driving down the street, when he sees a line. He jumps out and berates those standing, saying they should all be at work. One brave comrade speaks out: “But Comrade General Secretary, I haven’t had a bite in three days! Please do something!!” So Gorbachev bites him. Would some disgruntled shopper bite my hand, when I reached for the last box of Minute Rice? Bite my head off when I grabbed the last of the toilet paper? By the time I replayed this several times over in my head, we were ushered in.
So now in the year of the COVID-19, I walk the mean aisles of WinCo and Walmart, looking for soap, bread, milk, and toilet paper. I am still thinking like a Russian. Are you thinking like a Russian, too? If you are, think about this. All of the aforementioned has been “swept into the dustbin of history.” This too will pass.
Pete Valeska is a retired high school social studies teacher from Massachusetts. He spent four summers in the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev years. He writes flash nonfiction in the form of mini-memoirs – what he calls postcard stories. He lives in Sparks, Nevada with his wife, daughter, and his cat.
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