Homestead mailing list

[clhw AT InfoAve.Net (clhw)]

The meat shopping story. And blue jeans.
Natalia is a very attractive, well-educated, highly intelligent Russian.
She, having studied English on her own, and watched a lot of American
movies, spoke English better than any of the other 50 or so Russians we saw
in the 1990s.

She discussed shopping in Russia with me. She said her husband Oleg had to
be the one to go to the meat store because she would get sick if she went.
They watched the signs in the store windows and when there was a notice
that there would be beef on, say, Thursday, Oleg took the day off from work
to shop for meat.

First, he stood in line until he got in the store. Then he stood in line
until he got to the beef ticket counter. He paid for the beef and received
a ticket. Then he stood in line for the beef counter. Usually, before he
got to the counter, a sign went up saying the beef was sold out.

Then, he got back in line at the beef ticket counter and got his money
back. If there was another meat still being sold that he would buy, like
chicken, he went through the whole process again for a chicken ticket.

If you were successful enough to reach the meat counter while there was
still meat you had a ticket for, you handed over your ticket and held out
your hand. The clerk reached below the counter, grabbed a portion of meat
in some paper, (you couldn't see what it was) and slapped it into your
hand. Then you left.

No choice about how much, dark or white, etc., Just meat. Natalia said the
smell in the shop was terrible. Then she said, when you stepped out the
door, you looked to see what you had gotten. She said sometimes it was ok
or good enough to cook and eat. Other times, it was green and smelled bad.
Sometimes it even had worms. If you thought your meat was not edible, you
dropped it right there in the street and went on your way.

Jeans were nothing new. The Russians had made their own. Oleg had been a
machinist (closest English word to describe the term he used) in a
molybdenum combinat. He was a card-carrying Communist (of the head only,
assured Natalia, not of the heart). When he and Natalia "became religious",
they renounced their party membership, gave up their cards, and lost their
right to housing, food allowances, work, medical help, and other things.

So Oleg developed his own cottage industry: he had an industrial sewing
machine in their apartment. He started making blue jeans and coats. The
blue jeans were extremely popular and he could not keep up with the orders.
They lived on the income from the blue jean sales for about 3 years before
getting their visas to leave the CCCP/USSR. The jeans were sold on the
black market.

Next email: black market and other stories.


>I am TOTALLY interested.  That's fascinating!
>Please post all the stories.

snip

>Moscow on the Hudson is a good movie.  I haven't seen it in
>years...might be time to search it out for another view.
>
>Bev