Women are not always unhappy to lose jobs which are stressful and poorly paid and where they often have to wait months to receive their salaries. I knew many women who welcomed redundancy as a chance to devote more time to housework, childcare and earning a living. The transition to the market economy has for many been a return to a subsistence economy. Dachas are the key to survival and an added burden for women. These are not the luxury villas of former party bosses, but kitchen gardens with wooden sheds in one corner.
Women do most of the cultivation.
In September, female energy pours into the labor-intensive task of preserving fruit and vegetables for the long winter. If not for their efforts, the transition to a market economy would have resulted in mass starvation and complete social breakdown. Life abroad may not fulfill expectations, but women hope it will be an alternative to intensely hard work, low status and life with a drunken husband. During my year in Samara I felt the cultural gulf yawn wide over the question of marriage. I could never understand the desperation of so many fascinating and capable women to form alliances with hopeless men.