My Russian Family

by Lilia Sariecheva

  The average Russian citizen understands all of this and, with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, they know that this was the rotting foundation that led to the implosion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. No one discussed these various events openly. However, behind closed doors it was a different matter.

  A group of eight or ten boys and girls from my class would get together to talk, play guitars, and spend time together. During the spring and autumn we used the local park, but the cold winters drove us to use either the Komsomol room or the radio room, which was actually a school broadcasting center. The radio room was a feature of most schools, used to distribute information of all sorts ranging from governmental announcements on space vehicle launches to local chess tournament results. The room had a loudspeaker system connected to all the rooms for school announcements, reading poems, music for special events, and so forth.

  In 1966, the year I turned 16, my good friend Shurik who was an excellent singer and guitar player had responsibility for the daily organization of our school’s radio room. Our group needed a protected location for our group discussions as they were becoming increasingly political. Our thinking was becoming clearer to us as we continually sharpened our minds against each other.

  One of the topics that preoccupied us was the shortage of goods induced by World War II that had continued after the war through the 1950s and into the 1960s. A harsh example involves a southern city called Novocherkassk with over 100,000 people near the Sea of Azov. A severe food shortage and the empty state stores in the late 1950s led to a strike in a plant that spread into the community, and many people were vocally protesting. The government ministry officials from Moscow should have traveled to the city to sort out the crisis or at least sent some food to the beleaguered city. Some areas of Russia did have food. For example, at that time we lived in Kasimov and food was available there. In any case, the Moscow officials were afraid to face the strikers so they stayed in Moscow and dispatched Soviet Army troops to quell the disturbance. As the strikers and troops faced each other, a verbal order was issued to fire a round over the striker’s heads to make them disperse. Unfortunately, apparently unknown to the troops, the trees and rooftops contained curious young boys. As dead and wounded boys fell to the ground, the strikers surged angrily forward and the panicked troops opened fire directly upon them. The resultant massacre included large numbers of men, women, and children. As the incident was hushed up, the exact numbers of dead were unknown and people were afraid to talk about it. I only learned of this many years later from my father-in-law who lived in that city at that time. Some say that the BBC and Voice of America carried the story, but the Russian radios and TV stations certainly did not.

  I can remember another food shortage incident in 1963 in Ryazan. My mother and I went to a grocery store in Theater Square. We took two or three steps inside the store and stared in amazement, as the only item for sale was vodka. The front of the store was full of glass vodka bottles. Since there were no other customers, we immediately left. Later that scene became frozen in my brain. When I asked my mother about it, she said, “We can live through this food shortage if only there is no war.” The American equivalent would be, “A bad peace is preferable to a good war.”

  That seemed to be a prevalent attitude in Russia because everyone vividly remembered World War II. They were willing to do just about anything to avoid another war. Hunger would be a small price to pay to escape war! I came to understand that sentiment. Thirty years later, in 1991, I told the same thing to my son.

  Brezhnev at first was a welcome change in 1964 compared to Khrushchev, as a new abundance of goods characterized his early rule. As salaries increased, citizens built up savings in the banks. By then, it had become obvious that only essential goods were available. Luxury goods such as TV sets, perfume, automobiles, large apartments, expensive clothes and jewelry, caviar, and good chocolate could not be found. In the words of a widely used proverb, “You could not find it in the daytime with a flashlight!” Other comments became common: “Why have money? You will live poor and die with a huge bank account.” And “Why work? Who needs this worthless money?” It looked then as though we would truly have to “put our scarves on inside out!”

  The essential goods that were available were of poor quality. For instance, antiquated equipment yielded inferior shoes. Panes of manufactured window glass allowed the factory an increase in output with less glass and thinner and thinner windows. The glass was so thin and brittle that several panes would typically be broken accidentally during the process of installing them. Only the defense industry had first class material with the latest engineering and design.

  Then it was revealed that Brezhnev had financed these expenditures by selling off environmental treasures like oil, gas, lumber, diamonds, and gold at low prices. He sold valued goods like caviar, furs, the best fish, raw cotton, and so on to other countries. Consequently, Russians became furious. We knew the world price and could not understand why he would sell our goods at such a low price and squander our oil reserves. Russians felt that oil was the main yardstick; if the oil income was acceptable, then the whole economy was all right. Our hearts turned cold against Brezhnev. Actually, Brezhnev was not a bad man. He was a conservative and did his duty as he saw it, but destiny placed him in the wrong chair. He is comparable to Tsar Nicholas II in that he loved his family and was a decent person, but he was simply not up to the demands of his job.

  Lilia in waist length braids with parents, 1967.

  A group of us in the 1980s learned of the problems the British coal miners were having as their government shut down coal mines in a new energy policy. We collected money and sent it to them and were happy to do so. A still popular slogan at that time was “Workers of the World, Unite.” We strongly believed that and wanted to help it come true. Years later, when Russian coal miners were experiencing severe problems, I saw no money coming back from England. (There might have been and I just knew nothing of it.) I decided to forgo helping foreign workers. A Russian will help someone several times but if the favor is not returned it will stop.

  Everyone in our student group thought that the Soviet military budget greatly exceeded logic and we watched it grow larger every year. Too many people were working for military programs. The same arguments held for the space program; it was excessively large. A small space program was desirable but not a massive one that swallowed up billions of rubles. Too many bosses, too much bureaucracy, and too many rules that produced nothing, just consumed space, time, and money with no benefits to the people.

  We, its citizens, felt that Russia had a great number of financial problems. For this reason, we did not live all that well in the 1970s and 80s. We supported not only our own republic, but also 14 other republics from which we received little in return. Our government spent too much money supporting new governments around the globe. It seemed like any revolt in the world produced a leader who talked as if he favored socialism so, of course, our government felt obligated to support this group even if they did not move toward socialism. It was like pouring our money down a rat hole!

  We also spent much money supporting the countries around us just to keep them friendly—like Iraq, Mongolia, and Korea. Of course, none of this money ever came back to us. Numerous small communist parties in various countries around the world would report that they supported communism, so we would in turn support them financially. Later years confirmed our suspicions that many of these leaders were con men; they were just lying and living well with no benefit to Russia. Some of the groups consisted of just two or three people who falsely reported thousands of members! At the height of this folly, we were supporting 90 to a hundred foreign communist parties with a reported 22 million American dollars annually. The true figures spent are unknown.

  Oddly enough, the Americans had many of the same problems and complaints. There are numerous similarities between Brezhnev’s record and the later performance of George W. Bush.

  Our small d
iscussion group in school had numerous other topics. We saw many workers forced into retirement when they reached the maximum retirement age of 60 for men and 55 for women. Many of them were in good health and wanted to keep on working but the government would not allow it. There were a few exceptions but even these working people took a 50 percent reduction in their retirement payments. Maybe it was right, but we did not like it. This policy later changed to permit full retirement pay for workers who elected to keep on working after the retirement age. Although not legal, many people wanted to work a second job. They felt that working only eight hours was not, for them, financially beneficial. Vacation payments would not carry over into the following year, so it was use it or lose it.

  Our school principal was a strong beautiful woman who could speak seven languages and was a highly respected administrator. She did not want to retire nor did the staff or students want to see her go, but she had no choice in the matter so we lost her when she turned 55.

  Officials within the socialistic system would say, “We are the servants of our people!” Ordinary citizens would ask in return, “If that is true, why is it that our servants live 100 times better than we, the lords of the servants?” There is nothing inherently wrong with socialism; numerous countries use different forms of socialism very successfully. The Russian problem was that our socialist leaders led us down a wrong path, to the place where we had to “turn our scarves inside out.”

  Many students just could not deal with the stressful competition to pass the entrance exams for colleges and universities. Officials often denied them entrance even though they were serious students and their parents were willing to pay their costs of education. Officials should have allowed more students to have the advantage of a higher education but the government continued to pay for all higher education costs while limiting enrollment. Many young people felt that this was wrong. The medical community was in the same boat, the government paid all the costs even though many people were willing and capable of paying at least a small amount.

  Even sugar turned into a hot-button topic. Russians use kilos and kilos of sugar. We like to hold a cube of it in our mouth while we drink copious amounts of tea. We also use it to convert fresh fruits into storable fruit preserves. The high energy in sugar helps us keep warm in the long winters. Sugar is a staple in our life. Sugar beets in Russia are plentiful and they can be processed into high-quality sugar.

  Russia financially supported communist Cuba for a long time. In fact, when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba had a hard time surviving and she still struggles with shortages. However, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, shortly after the Cuban Revolution, we were receiving huge amounts of Cuban sugar derived from sugar cane as a trade product in exchange for Russian goods and rubles. This sugar was not as sweet as beet sugar but it still sold for the same price per kilo as Russian beet sugar. Russian citizens went off on a tangent and refused to buy the Cuban sugar. The officials retaliated by making only Cuban sugar available in the Russian state-controlled stores. Some women complained but some said that we had to support the Cubans.

  Years later, as I traveled to different republics that comprise the Soviet Union, the local women claimed that sugar from sugar beets was always available. These women also expressed doubt about the food famine in the Republic of Russia in the early 1960s, which was very real and painful to Russians who lived through it. They usually had heard of it, of course, but they did not believe it as they themselves, in their own republics, had no such shortage of food, thanks to shipments from the Republic of Russia.

  Even now I smile as I remember when mother and I made a trip in 1963 to visit relatives living in Tukums, Latvia. One of the memorable events was the abundance of food supplies in the local stores. The first morning there, Mom and I visited a small local store and purchased large amounts of our favorite foods that we had not seen for many, many months. When aunt Shurra arrived home from work she was dumbfounded at our extravagant purchases.

  She said, “What are you going to do with all this caviar? Look at all that sausage; we cannot eat all that. Why did you buy all this? The refrigerator is so full I can hardly close the door!”

  Mother listened to her sister in surprise and then tried to explain, but no one seemed to believe us when we talked about the problems with food scarcity in the Russian republic. When people lose weight from a shortage of food, it can be considered a serious problem. We later came to understand that Russia kept the other republics well supplied as a technique to keep them loyal to Mother Russia. It was a case of straight-out bribery!

  One day, after a vigorous secret political debate at school with my mates, the social problems we had discussed moved me passionately. With the fervor of a young firebrand I began a debate with my mother Marieka that evening. She was aghast. “My dear and darling daughter,” she responded, get away from those topics and never return to them again. You and your friends will be in serious trouble. You have to think clearly about this. It is no laughing matter. If your father knew of this he would have a heart attack.”

  Lilia with friends, 1972.

  The ferocity of her outburst against my newly found intelligence took me aback and I yielded to her superior strength. Upon reflection, it was obvious that we understood the danger but despite our earnest efforts to stay away from politic subjects, they kept creeping into our conversations. Those in our group knew without saying that we would not willingly betray each other.

  Our group’s knowledge was limited, as we had little access to information from the rest of the world. Still this did not stop us from speculating. Some information did occasionally trickle down to us. Some people had access to an illegal book or could receive BBC or Radio Free Europe on an illegal crystal radio set but usually the KGB would block these transmissions. A few years later, I remember reading a newspaper article concerning a student group comparable to ours which received prison sentences after a brief public trial! Prison was more acceptable to us than exile, as exile under Brezhnev was forever.

  A strange event occurred during my first year in University that gave me some insight about my dad. It was 1968 and the national defense strategy required all young people to pass numerous physical tests such as running and skiing. The official slogan was “Be ready to work and be ready to defend your country.” This slogan was even on small badges we were given to wear on our shirts.

  One of the required skills for university students was the ability to shoot a rifle. We were bussed out to a local shooting range, given some basic instruction, and then moved to the firing line with live ammunition. The instructors observed us carefully as we concentrated on this new task. After the order “cease fire,” our paper targets were given to us and my instructor expressed pleasure at my tight grouping of bullet holes. I knew that I had excelled and I felt very full of myself, especially when the boys saw my results. My instructor called over the range boss who looked at my target sheet, looked at me and said, “What’s your name?”

  “Sariecheva.”

  He studied my face for a few seconds. “Are you related to Mikhail Ivanovich Sariechev?”

  “He is my father.”

  “Well that explains it,” he said with a satisfied smile.

  “Explains what?” I answered completely mystified.

  “Don’t you know that your father was the champion pistol shot of the whole Ryazan area?”

  I was flabbergasted, I knew nothing of this. That evening after dinner I caught my dad alone in the living room and showed him my target. “Daddy, look at what I did today.”

  “Yes, Lilia, that is very good shooting.”

  “They invited me to return for more training, but I refused. I didn’t want it.”

  “Why not? Your results are quite good. Maybe you will be a champion and everyone will be proud of you.”

  “Daddy, you are a champion pistol shot and you didn’t even tell me. Why not?”

  He chuckled as he responded, “If y
ou know too much, you will get old too fast!”

  I first heard the devastating news that Russia, with no advance warning, had invaded Czechoslovakia one day in 1968, when I was 18. The authorities turned on the propaganda machine, as they understood that they could not hide this event. We students could not believe our ears! Some time later, the Czechoslovakia hockey team defeated the Russian team. I remember talking about this to a classmate nicknamed Fedot who noted, “We beat them with the cannon and they beat us with the hockey stick.”

  The silent and overwhelming consensus of student opinion was support for the Czechs, although we never conveyed this to our teachers or parents. Most of our parents who had survived World War II talked like my mother, who felt betrayed by the Czechs. She argued vehemently, “Russia freed them from fascists and supported them for years and now they have turned against us! We need the Czechs on our side as a bulwark against the capitalists. Is this how they repay us and show their loyalty?”

  Mother was a strong, clever, intelligent woman, but in her later years, she just could not absorb the changing flow of politics. The generations before us were different. Their war experiences gave them a perspective from which they perceived events differently. They mostly kept their noses clean. We did not!

  We, the “boomer generation,” became stronger as the political and social situation slowly changed over time. It is revealing that when we were in our late 30s and early 40s, the communist government fell apart. We were of an age when humans tend to rise above the stupidity of youth but have yet to fall prey to the conservatism of old age. Ours was the generation that prepared the platform which led to the fall of the corrupt and inefficient house of the illustrious Union of Soviet Socialists Republics.