My Russian Family

by Lilia Sariecheva

  After the 18-year reign of Leonid Brezhnev, the next head of state from 1982 to 1984 was Yuri Andropov who lasted only two years and accomplished little, due to ill health. Konstantin Cherneko, who had trained as a party propagandist, followed him. He was in charge of agitation and propaganda (agitprop) in Moldavia at one point. Also plagued by deteriorating health, his election was an interim measure and, upon his death in 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev replaced him.

  It was almost the end of the century. This General Secretary named Mikhail was ruling the country like a tsar. Russian people consider all general secretaries, who were the political leaders since the revolution of 1917, the same as a tsar because their power and authority was identical to the tsars. A future tsar took the power either by birth from royal blood, if any were available, or from a backroom election held by a small group of nobles. The common people had virtually no say in the matter. The general secretaries were also elected to office by “nobles,” in the sense that the nobles of the tsars’ day were killed by the Red Guard, who then became the new nobles. Any difference between a tsar and a general secretary was merely an illusion.

  Gorbachev was thus a tsar, but a good tsar! Many people later called him the first president, which in a sense was also true, but a committee elected him, not all the people. The prophecy became true and complete a few years later when Boris Yeltsin, in an open and countrywide election, was proclaimed President of the Russian Federation, a brand new job title for a politically brand new country. Mikhail Gorbachev thus became the last tsar of Russia.

  Gorbachev did many good things for people and he was widely respected. Russian people knew that food and goods were more available and that one could talk more openly and honestly. Many small businesses had started up and there were strong feelings that life was better. A few people called him just a big talker, but these few pessimists are always around like a bee around honey. The hard-core communist also had little love for this reformer.

  Red Square.

  Central planning was one of the corner stones of Communism and it developed into an Achilles Heel. To understand why, it is necessary to examine their history. The Bolsheviks had seized power without any clear notion as to how to manage an economy. Karl Marx had asserted that a socialist country would operate the economy for the common good. The Communist society would have no money, no profit motive; it would be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” N. I. Bukharin wrote in 1920, “As soon as we deal with an organized national economy, all basic ‘problems’ of political economy, such as price, value, profit, etc., simply disappear… for here the economy is regulated not by the blind forces of the market and competition but by the consciously implemented plan.”

  During the 1960s to the 1980s, the majority of the world’s countries including the USSR and the United States managed their economies with a national economic plan. Then an economic crisis and unemployment gave the public great doubt in the ability of governments to control the economy. This led to increased use of the laissez-faire approach in the West, which in its purist form, allows market forces to determine the speed, direction, and the nature of economic evolution. The only goal is to maximize the shareholder’s profit. However, the Soviet Union and its satellites continued with central planning. The rigidity of the Soviet economic system contributed to the implosion of Communism.

  Two of Stalin’s identical skyscrapers

  During the late 1980s most state institutions suffered personnel and budget cuts, as the Soviet government and economy were crumbling with bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption. The Communist Party and the KGB both endured similar problems even though they had formed the backbone of power in the Soviet Union.

  Continuing through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Gorbachev’s perestroika, or restructuring, and the demokratizatsiya, democratization, ushered in fundamental changes in the political and governmental structures in the USSR. Gorbachev also implemented glasnost, or openness. When these reforms started in the late 1980s, life changed from good to better for citizens. There were public discussions on future and past problems, which were open to the media and the international community. Later in the early 1990s, life was not as good as it could have been and it was generally concluded by many citizens that Gorbachev’s efforts were being sabotaged by the older, hard-line Communists.

  It is not surprising that Sweden presented the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize to Gorbachev. He had democratized an oppressive system, ended Communist rule in the USSR and Eastern Europe, and helped end the Cold War.

  These political thoughts swirled around my head on one spring night in 1990. I had an intuition that disturbed me, possibly triggered by the earlier realization that the prophecy of Gorbachev was true and if he was the last tsar then some very large changes were in the works-possibly not for the good, as is typical with change. Something bad was coming. I started to stockpile goods such as sacks of salt, sugar, rice, and tea; boxes of canned meat and canned fish; soap, toothpaste, bags of thread, socks, and so on. My mom and dad asked me if I was crazy. They laughed at my premonition and at my advice to stock up. My friends giggled at me rather than heeding my advice because times were good; there were no shortages of daily consumer supplies and no reason to expect that there ever would be. My underground storage space near my apartment building filled up and overflowed to part of my apartment that was full of bags and sacks. These supplies later kept my son and me going for several years. A few of the items like tea, sugar, and soap lasted a very long time.

  My son finished high school in 1990 at the age of 16. He was still growing and his feet were too large even to wear his father’s shoes. When his own shoes became worn out and too small the following spring of 1991, he had to keep on wearing them anyway. There was nothing available in Russian stores and it was probably the worst time in my life. I had plenty of money but I could not buy my wonderful young son a pair of shoes. I felt useless. As a comparison, one of my cousins who was divorced and supporting a teenager was a supervisor in a local factory and she made 5,000 rubles per month. This salary was sufficient to comfortably support herself and her boy. My salary for teaching handicapped children was six times what my cousin made and neither of us could buy shoes, even on the black market.

  My son Andre was attending a military driving school sponsored by the state. This was a long-term national defense effort to provide skilled workers for natural or man-induced emergencies. It was a free six-month school. He was also working in a hospital laboratory at my behest. This was a sorting out time, as he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a medical surgeon. I was not sure of this choice since I knew firsthand that it was a difficult life with too much work and too little home life. Of course, Andre loved the medical laboratory and he went on to become a surgeon, but that is another story.

  Lilia and her “Lapushkas,” 1990s

  St. George Monument in Ryazan.

  Coupons for goods arrived at work places and eventually the shoe coupons arrived at school where I worked. Everyone was very happy. This school had approximately 50 employees and the allotment we received was ten coupons for men’s shoes only. We organized a lottery as usual to determine who would get the coupons to buy shoes. Each coupon was for one pair of shoes of a given size. I found out that only two of the ten coupons had my son’s shoe size. He needed size 9.5, which is the most popular men’s shoe size in Russia. I wanted those shoes very much, as did my son. Driving a truck and working in a medical laboratory required good shoes that fit properly. Furthermore, it was still wintertime and his old shoes provided only limited protection from rain, snow, and icy slush.

  The night before the shoe lottery I had a vision of these coupons. A fragmentary mind picture that came to me included a view of a ticket with a number eight on it. The next morning I told my son, “Do not worry. We will get a new pair of shoes for you.”

  He responded with a look of disbelief, “How do you know that?”

  “I saw the n
umber of the ticket that we want in a vision last night!”

  My son laughed at me, “Sure, I believe you, ha-ha-ha.” “You will see. You will see,” I replied with the confidence of inside knowledge.

  This particular lottery was organized with 50 tickets; 40 were marked “no shoes” and ten were marked “shoes.” The 50 employees each blindly grabbed a ticket out of a large bowl and I got a “shoe” ticket. Next, ten numbered tickets were laid out on a table. The underside of each ticket gave the shoe size. Color and style were unimportant.

  The organizing teacher asked, “Who is first to pick out a number?”

  I immediately declared, “I am! I will go first!”

  I scanned the numbers and quickly found number eight, the number of my vision. Rapidly I grabbed it and turned it over and there it was, Size 9.5.

  When I arrived home, my son was already there. Usually I would ring the bell and Andre would let me in. This time I used my door key to enter the apartment. I was barely inside when he came bounding in. He immediately saw the large package under my arm. We rapidly opened the package and I proudly pulled out the new shoes. Andre’s eyes got big and sparkled. He said “Ahhh,” his hands went way up and then he slowly bowed down to his knees in a salute.

  The shoes were black and shiny, strong and beautiful, graceful and enduring. We spent several minutes praising the new wonderful footwear.

  My son still has these shoes and I recently examined them. They are still in good condition thanks to Andre’s efforts but they are just a simple pair of common shoes that no one would look at twice. The best that one could say of them is that they are strong and functional. My son and I still enjoy reliving this shoe memory.

  Shortly after that, in June of 1991, Election Day arrived. Elections in Russia are always on a Sunday and it is a joyful day full of celebrations, entertainment, dancing, and singing. Amateur musicians and entertainers abound as they work free in exchange for some public exposure. Everything is cleaned and decorated. The voting place might have high quality beer and sausage that was not available in the local shops to ensure that citizens turn out and vote. Banners proclaimed, “Live in Peace with Your Stomach Full.”

  Voting in earlier days was a simple matter. Each office would have a single candidate nominated by those in power. People can enjoy voting even if there is only one candidate. However, by 1991 voting had become more interesting and there was a large turnout. Voters received an ornately decorated paper with the names of the candidates on it and they would cross out whoever they did not like and place the paper in the ballot box. This election was for the first elected President of Russia, so it was a huge event.

  Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush senior were both running for reelection in their respective countries. One could say they were both very popular outside their own countries in the international community but the economic problems at home defeated them both.

  Back in 1985 Gorbachev had appointed Boris Yeltsin to clean out corruption in the party organization. A year later Yeltsin criticized Gorbachev and the slow pace of reform so authorities forced him to resign in disgrace from the Moscow party leadership in 1987. The typical simple Russian had little respect for the Communist Government. It was not talked about out loud, but it was there. There was also a lack of trust in Communist Government leaders. So, many people felt that if the government was against Yeltsin, he must be a good man. Yeltsin even quit the Communist Party. This is how Yeltsin staged what was the most remarkable comeback in Soviet history by winning a seat in the new Soviet parliament. Then in June of 1991, amid great unrest and a mandate for economic reform, he beat out Gorbachev to win the presidency of the Russian Republic (not the 15 Republics comprising the Soviet Union, which Gorbachev still headed). However, life for simple people immediately became worse; the optimistic feeling vanished and many people came to regret their vote.

  A few months later in August of 1991 (and a year after my buying splurge), a putsch happened in the Russian Duma (congress). This abortive coup by hard-liners opposed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms led to the collapse of most of the USSR government organizations, the abolition of the leading role of the Communist Party in government and eventually the dissolution of the party itself.

  Some KGB units were found to have participated in this attempted coup against Gorbachev, so the KGB agency was dismantled. The KGB of course evolved and survived. By early 1992, the internal security functions of the KGB converted to the Ministry of Security and then two years later into the FSK or Federal Counterintelligence Service. In 1995 Yeltsin changed the name to Federal Security Service or FSB which it remains today.

  Almost immediately after the 1991 putsch, the prices in stores for soap went up five-fold. Soon, the prices of just about everything else skyrocketed. Meat in the farmers’ market became very expensive. People had to eat, so they paid the exorbitant prices and their extra money disappeared along with many of their dreams.

  The year 1991 was a step backward for Russian citizens. Not only was food in short supply and other goods mostly unavailable, but now everything required coupons. Those who had to work all day and were not able to wait in line at a store received nothing. Waiting in a queue with coupons in your hand was certainly no guarantee that anything would be left when, hours later, you finally reached the counter. I still have some worthless egg coupons from those days. Maybe I am saving them for the next recession?

  The joy of life had flown away! As time went on it became worse. Most of my friends lost their jobs and most citizens lost weight from food shortages. That winter, there were reports of homeless people dying in the streets from malnutrition and exposure. It was not a good time. People’s disdain, scorn, and even contempt for their leaders became common, but typically only in private. We occasionally heard complaints about princelings and petty monarchs.

  On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as Soviet President of the 15 republics and the USSR was formally dissolved. Gorbachev and others including the orthodox communists wanted the republics to stay united to better survive. Surprisingly, the Russian people voted to keep the USSR intact even though it was known that the simple people were tired of financially supporting the other republics and wanted to be free of this burden. Yeltsin seemed to understand that the vote was not an accurate reflection of the situation and, as head of the Russian Republic, he stated that each republic should be independently sovereign. Amid the confusion, the other 14 Republics willingly went their own way. Some of them, following the initial exuberance of independence, want to return to the security of a union with Russia. The simple Russian people have very strong feelings on this. Stay friendly with trade and commerce but avoid any formal union with any of the former USSR members.

  Lilia and son at Ryazan Kremlin, 2000

  Almost 20 years later, it appears that the simple Russian people were correct. Russia is again strong, healthy, and boasts of a strong leader. Most people live relatively well and Russia is friendly with most of the former republics as the republics each make their own destiny.

  Some 18 months after my son obtained his shoes, supply finally caught up with and even exceeded demand at a time when money supplies were somewhat restricted. My son and I took a leisurely day trip on the comfortable commuter train to Moscow with its big soft seats, tea trolleys, and delicious rolls served on silver trays with lacy linen. Our meanderings in Moscow shops brought us to a shoe boutique. At my urging, Andre found a pair of shoes that he liked. I happily paid for them, which was about a fifth of the price we had paid for our car a few years earlier. It was a sweet day that I still remember vividly.

  The mind is an interesting place!

  Epilogue

  The Hawk’s Roost

  English translation:

  Truth does not drown in water and does not burn in fire.

  Meaning:

  The truth will out.

  DURING WORLD WAR II MY FATHER MIKHAIL WOULD occasionally ponder, “Why am I still alive when so many others
are dead?” Many survivors have asked themselves that same question with a touch of guilt.

  More than 60 years have passed since the end of that war. It is the beginning of a new century now. My father turned 90 in 2008. My mother died in 1998. Almost all of my dad’s army and KGB comrades have died. Perhaps he feels that it would have been better if he too had died, like the ancient Vikings who yearned to die young with a sword in their hands, back in the days when courage was the greatest virtue and warfare the most honorable of occupations.

  My father’s hair is gray and he uses a walking cane to protect himself from falls. Both his sight and hearing are impaired and he walks slowly along the path in the park, like a bird with a wounded leg. A favorite worn wooden bench sheltered by large birch trees draws him onward like a magnet. This park is in the best part of town and includes a river with a massive embankment that is a remnant of the old outdated defense system for the city. It is autumn in Ryazan and the overcast sky sheds a gray indirect light on the dead leaves and laughing children in the huge park. Mikhail Ivanovich Sariechev sits down, closes his eyes, and recalls his younger days. The Sariech Hawk has had a long flight.

  Father on the park bench, 2005

  Father in uniform, 2007

  Father by a Birch tree, 2005

  Originally, he was an idealistic man who wanted everyone to be happy and have a good life. “Work hard and succeed. Sacrifice for the future.” His generation bought into that dream. All who knew him considered him a highly successful man and they gave him and his family their respect. Everyone believed that when they got old they would enjoy the fruits of their labor and the success of the system. The benefits would eventually outweigh the pitfalls.