Dachas are not only a pork for the elite. According to official statistics, at least 20 million families have little plots of land in the country; perhaps more than half of Russia’s population have access to summer homes. Many are exceedingly simple, without heat or running water, but even the crudest wooden shack gives Russians a chance to soak up the fresh air and sunshine. Many people supplement their diets with produce from their kitchen gardens. Mushroom picking is a national ritual.
The Moscow metro is the capital’s jewel. Last year nearly 2.6 billion passengers rode the Moscow subway. The fare amounts to about half a U.S. cent. Built in the 1930s, the older stations are real works of art; dioramas depicting peasants happily collectivizing their farms have ceased to be a political outrage and are now just terrific kitsch. There’s no graffiti, and passengers, even at rush hour, rarely wait more than three minutes for a train.
Public bathhouses are more than a place to get clean. The baths are a social event, and some women spend hours lolling about in the hot steam. (Men have their own baths.) Entrance fees are nominal. From a babushka outside, you can buy a swatch of birch branches to whack yourself, enlivening the skin. Strangers scrub each other’s backs. Fancier baths in cities like Moscow offer massages, pedicures and swimming pools. Rosy-cheeked old women emerge from the baths smiling, clapping strangers on the arm and saying, “The steam’s great today!”
Russian bread is cheap, available and delicious. As other foods grow more expensive, many pensioners practically live on it. They could do worse. From the chewy, white baton to the round tough-crusted loaves, Russian bread is nearly a meal unto itself The dark bread that Westerners associate with Russia has virtually disappeared. But there’s something even better: Borodinsky loaves, whose exquisite flavor comes from coriander seeds baked in.
Voters remain committed to the political process. More than 67 percent of those eligible turned out for April’s referendum. In a state that once ensured a near-100 percent turnout, two thirds of the voting public may not seem like a lot. But it surpasses the turnout in the United States. (And they vote resoundingly against communism whenever they get a chance.)
The Russian language is a national treasure. Russians themselves worship it, cultivate it and take tremendous pride in it. Musically bewitching, grammatically complex and rich in vocabulary, Russian daunts the casual student and rewards the faithful. Many Russians who learn poetry in school can still recite it from memory decades later. Classical literature is sacred to Russians. Words carry spirituality. The new press is full of fine prose.
Concerts are a pleasure. Audiences know the music, wear their best clothes and seem to regain some of the courtliness that socialism knocked out of them. They actually smile in public, a rarity in Russia. Russians are among the few peoples in the world who can shout “Bravo!” and not sound phony.
Telegrams are speedy, effective and cheap. They can reach many regions of Russia that are too remote (or too poor) to have telephones. Each word sent via telegram costs a fraction of a penny. The Russian postal system is totally unreliable and the phones are so fickle that sometimes you can’t make a call across Moscow, but you can get a telegram delivered there in less than an hour.
The shelves are full again in Russian stores. Supplies are most bountiful in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where shoppers can find everything from Tampax to lemons to four-foot-tall stuffed lions. Even in outlying regions, food and consumer goods are generally more available now than at any time in living memory. Russians complain that the goods are too expensive for most ordinary people. True enough. But even if babushkas can’t afford bananas and the many other newly available foodstuffs, at least hopeless look of Russian grocery stores is, for the most part, a thing of the past.
Nostalgia softens the hard edges of history. The past is alive here, and historical events and characters, re-examined in retrospect, turn progressively kinder. All of Russian history has been scarred by enormous suffering, and the present is no exception. But even the present will take on rosy tints when it recedes into the past. No matter how bad Russians claim things are now, in 10 years they’ll say to one another, “Remember how much better things were back in 1993?”
