Life in Moscow; Communism and now
Publisher: Lulu
Published: 13 October 2012
Place of publication: USA
Language: eng
Format: E-book
ISBN-13: 9781291112504
Description: The book is a collection of short stories about what it was really like to live in Moscow, USSR in the mid-1980s. The focus is on different aspects of everyday life, such as shopping, reading books and newspapers, going to work, church, cinema, watching movies and TV etc, shedding light on some of the frequently bizarre problems we faced. This book is written from a first person perspective, with me being the main character. The first part of each story is narrated in a very personal and emotional style, and there are elements that can be sad, funny, ironic, optimistic or pessimistic. The conclusion of each story is written in a scientific style by way of an update of how matters have progressed in the last 25 years, i.e. up to the present time, to find a picture quite different from the official party line as well as common Western perception. The book will appeal to the broad Western public with an interest in aspects of Russia and other Communist or developing countries.
Table of contents: title: Preface; title: How to Fix a TV Set; title: Are THEM Russians at All?; title: The Soviet Movie Making Machine; title: Let Us Go to Church; title: Newspapers and Magazines; title: Shopping for Things; title: Shopping for Food; title: Shopping for Books; title: End of One Archipelago; title: Learning a Foreign Language; title: Everyday Marxism-Leninism; title: Getting a Flat; title: You Buy Vodka, But You Drink Vodochka!; title: No Tea – No Communism!; title: To a Lght Steam!; title: Flowers in the Swamp; title: A Minute of Silence; title: Fear; title: Cold; title: Career Pyramid; title: Is the KGB Omnipresent?; title: It’s off to Work We Go; title: It Was All About Money, Wasn’t It?; title: A Cossack Village; title: Shabashka Friends; title: Going West; title: Life-String; title: Trajectory and Epilogue