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[clhw AT InfoAve.Net (clhw)]

The black market. Prices on goods. And medical care.
Post the wall fall, the black market became the main means of public trade
in Russia and its former republics. Ivan, a friend of Oleg's, who lived
with us for 2 years, had a mother in the Ukraine who was an ekonomeest for
a cooking oil combinat. Good salary. She computed the cost of the cost of a
bottle of cooking oil from the seed to plant in the kohlhooz (collective
farm) through the processing of the plant, extracting the oil, and bottling
it.

All part of the 5-year plan. We first ran into proofs of this plan when
Oleg presented my husband with a knife. Very fine knife, small pocket one.
Engraved into the blade was "5 rubles". Of course, all goods are engraved
or marked with the final sales price before they leave the factory.

Anyway, the wall fell. No more 5 year plan and controlled manufacturing.
The cooking oil was still made because it was a necessity of life. But now
Ivan's mother was paid... in cooking oil! How many bottles of cooking oil
does it take to pay the rent for your flat in Chernofsti, Ukraine? How many
bottles of oil can you trade on the black market for clothes, shoes, food,
etc.?

The lady became so distraught, her ulcer acted up. She had to go into a
hospital for treatment. To get a mattress free of bed bugs, you pay a
bribe. In cooking oil? To get a doctor to see you instead of
a...um...medic?, you pay a bribe. To get the medicine the doctor says you
should have, you pay a bribe.

We arranged for a friend to have her relatives in Berlin buy some Maalox
cases. Then it was transported by hand (don't trust the Russian postal
system) into East Berlin, and thence to the Ukraine. With the Maalox,
Ivan's mother was able to go home and back to work.

Ivan's wife, Zarema, became an American citizen and went back to the USSR
to visit family. One relative was a dentist in the eastern end of the
former USSR, in Karbardinskaya Bulgaria. She would do Zarema's much needed
dental care free for some house shoes, bar soap, toothpaste, and
washclothes. Zarema and I went to the pharmacy here and got bottles of
sterile water, of antibiotics (the dentist here gave her an Rx), and a
large box of disposible needles. Zarema had the dentist relative do her
work, using the antibiotics if needed, and she left the rest of the
needles, etc with her. American estimate of dental work: $7,000 in 1990
dollars. Russian work: about $30 for the trade stuff.

Natalia had explained to me that the Russian hospitals had no disposible
needles and she had been given hepatitis B by dirty needles at the hospital
when she had their 4th child.

Zarema also took a suitcase full of American T-shirts. She gave them to
family and friends who were able to sell them for good money. Her son,
Tony, took several pairs of tennis shoes and jeans as well as more
T-shirts. When they left to come back to America, they brought one change
of clothes each besides gifts for people here.

Enough.