Moscow: chaos, crooks, collapse. 1990-1991.

AuthorBaker, Bob
PositionTravel narrative

My job in Vienna was Director of the Regional Program Office. The work carried me to all the ex-Communist European countries to see how our printing, photographic, computer, management, exhibit and library services could help our Embassies. My Russian visit was revelatory and productive. Russia was a world of chaos, crooks and collapse in 1990-1991, but I met some wonderful librarians and thrilled at the energy and spirit of the Russian people.

Crooks in Russia stole most of the USSR's tax money and natural resources after the Communist party collapsed. Some were new "businessmen", some communist officials. Their massive theft left ordinary people without their government pensions and salaries. They simply were not paid for months at a time. As everybody was paid by the government and as nearly all property was owned by the government, it was a truly national disaster. Librarians, old folks, workers in factories, miners, just did not get paid their salaries or pensions. Eight "oligarchs" a fancy word for clever thieves, bribed crooked Communist officials and destroyed Communism's good parts: e.g., low rents, free medicine, free education, public libraries, cultural institutions like ballet, orchestras, etc. They simply stole all the money that supported the good things. Similar disasters followed communist government collapse in other countries.

Ordinary people became desperate. I walked in downtown Moscow passing dumpy, shabby women in bulging coats. They carried string bags with one cabbage, a few potatoes, and rarely, a small, bloody paper packet of meat. They shoved through the crowds on broad sidewalks caught in swirling snow. People hunched against the cold, but a few munched little ice cream cones as they trudged in the freezing wind. Keen-eyed vendors strolled through the throngs downtown, hawking the cones from gray egg cartons held in front of them. The little cones, about half the size of American ones, were stuck through holes where eggs might have rested. I always tried to eat local food, but not this, with icy wind shooting down my coat collar.

The footing on the main streets was uneven. Looking down, I never before saw worn out cement sidewalks, literally worn down by millions of passing boots into small and large depressions, maybe a half inch to a quarter inch deep, pock marking the sidewalks. They were filled with rain or melted snow. Women strongly outnumbered men in the middle of the day in downtown Moscow. Except for the Kremlin, it was a gray world of ugly, endless big buildings huddled along vast boulevards used by a few streetcars, trucks, taxis and cars. Today's Moscow bustles with traffic and people are paid their salaries and pensions under Putin's authoritarian regime.

Everything in 1991 was gray or brown in winter, but the endless motion of the crowds gave life to the desolation. Near the Kremlin, the huge official government department stores with their still controlled low prices, were almost entirely empty of goods and people. Their sidewalks were mobbed with thousands of people standing by the curb and selling bits of their household furniture, cookware, their clothes, anything to make a few roubles.

Mostly women stood almost shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalks selling: a single dining room chair, a half dozen slips, a couple pairs of old shoes, an old bra. It was like an African market deep in the bush where people squatted on the dirt selling single cigarettes. I had never seen such desperate, tiny commerce outside the world's poorest countries. Stolen taxes, no pay and misery followed the end of the communist state for ordinary working Russians. A handful of crooks became billionaires through bribery, clever selling and buying. Seven out of eight "oligarchs" were locals, but were not Russians. Their partners in crime were Russians in government services and some members of the KGB secret police.

Near a crowded Metro entrance, rusty oil barrels, cut in half, and filled with glowing charcoal, smelled wonderful in the icy winter wind. The hawkers reached down into the barrel to pull out packets of roasted cabbage dumplings stuffed with ground beef or chicken. They were delicious. They even included some ground beef or some chicken, for just a couple roubles. Near the barrels, four peasant women in babushkas and swathed in rugs against the cold, sat on little stools behind small stacks of butter in pound cartons, butter in wrappers from Denmark, Italy, France, Germany. The old lady I asked through my guide for butter, recommended the Danish butter as the best. All the packages of butter were marked "Gift of X Country". It was...

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