USA TODAY 17.10.90
MOSCOW - Soviets joke that the way the USSR is changing from communism to capitalism is like a nation switching from driving on the left side of the road to me right side - but slowly.
The inevitable result: a multicar collision.
After winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is trying to change the calamitous state of his domestic economy. Tuesday, he announced the fourth version of a plan that would whisk the nation to a market economy.
But the plan has to be debated and passed by the Soviet parliament. In the meantime, residents of this city are putting up with increasing lines-and inreasing disgust - over a system in transition.
Many Soviets are hard-pressed to believe any plan will ever help. "The 500-day plan is a joke," sneers Igor Ugolnikov, a Moscow actor and producer of satirical films for Soviet television. "In the big picture, nothing is happening."
"I am allergic by," to lines, so I pass them jokes Lena Kalinskaya, a sales representative at Krovtex, a joint U.S.S.R.-U.S. roofing.venture. But on the tiny dining table in a room that functions as bedroom, living room and eating area for the Kalinskaya family of lour, there is a veritable feast of salmon, tomatoes, calamari and salads.
It did not come from any fast shopping trip. The salmon, Lena Kalinskaya explains, comes from her brother-in-law in Siberia, who caught and preserved the fish months ago. Tomatoes were offered sale by someone at her office last week. She skirts the question of how she acquired the rest of the meal.
Amid the confusion and hardships, the Kallnskayas show the only way to get by: stay uncharacteristically sanguine. Half the battle here is enduring the psychological wear of a minimum of eight hours a week standing in lines for basic foods.
Economic reform will be a good thing, say the Kalinskayas. It will mean that Michael Kalinskaya eventually can break free of his bosses and take a loan out to buy his taxi cab, "which means he will put the money in his pocket- not in the pocket of his chiefs," says Lena Kalinskaya. Adds her husband: " Speaking honestly, I'd like to live like an American."
The U.S.S.R.'s uncomfortable spot on the economic fence comes with a multitude of paradoxes. Misha Sroola and Natasha Ardashmka were able to open one of Moscow's few private elementary schools two years ago, paying teachers two to three times the state teacher salary and prompting state teachers to threaten a strike when they heard what the competition was offering.
This year, the state says it has other uses for the school's space. It probably will be allocated to a profit-making business, Ardashnika says. "They will give property to people who want to make money, but not to a school," she says. Under perestroika the couple for the first time had the opportunity to open a school. But under the same new openness. Moscow leaders have moved to a fixation with making money, Ardashnika adds. "The authorities see dollar signs now,"she says.
The authorities give mixed signals on many fronts. Although Soviet entrepreneurs have been allowed for several years to sell food in markets that honor no price controls, the government still runs price-controlled state stores.
A visitor to Moscow's Central "Market might wonder what all the fuss is regarding shortages: Plump turkeys, pigs and a warehouse of red meat can be found just minutes away from the state store near Kiev Station. The price of meat at the free-pricing market is 25 rubles to 30 rubles a kilo. State-store prices are more like 2 rubles a kilo.
But there is no meat in the state stores, which sit with 80% of their shelves empty. And even state bread stores that have restocked since the bread lines that made headlines only weeks ago are not exactly overflowing with goods: At store #612 on Tsvetnoi Boulevard, only some shelves go empty and the line inside is short.
But one Soviet, waiting in line to pay for his loaf, says that while things have improved since tae crisis of September, "in the past it was even better than this." He then pays his 25 kopeks to a cashier who is using an abacus.
The dash of the old and new economies takes a toll. Soviets would like to see more Western money come into the country, but Westerners complain that Soviet laws are both contradictory and quickly changing - making it impossible to get a handle on how business best can be done.
The USSR, for instance, is trying to start a stock market while the books still carry laws against speculating. Westerners also grumble that Gorbachev's government has done little to make the ruble a hard currency that can be traded freely for other hard currencies such as the dollar or the Japanese yen. The ruble is worthless outside the USSR.
It adds up to a series of red flags for investors. "We're finding it difficult to get financing,.. particularly from foreign banks," says Donald R. Russell, the American deputy director: of Krovtex, Kalinskaya's employer.
A few lucky Soviets are finding their way through the tog. Film producer Ugolnikov, for example, now earns several times what he did three years ago, when the Soviet theater in stitute prohibited him from moonlighting. "Now I am a free man," he says. Today, not only does he earn his actor's salary, he also gets 5% of the advertising revenue on the TV show OBA-NA!, which airs his one-hour films each month. Nest year, he expects to get 20% of the advertising take.
But Ugolinikov is a rarity. Whether such prosperity can: come to a majority of Soviets depends on a tenuoas combination of legislation, public opinion and luck.
"In my heart there is steel hope," says Ardashnika. "But my brain keeps telling my heart there is no hope." ness, Ardashnika says. "They will give property to people who want to make money, but not to a school," she says. Under perestroika. the couple for the first time had the opportunity to open a school. But under the same new openness. Moscow leaders have moved to a fixation with making money, Ardashnika adds. "The authorities see dollar signs now,"she says.
The authorities give mixed signals on many fronts. Although Soviet entrepreneurs have been allowed for several years to sell food in markets that honor no price controls, the government still runs price-controlled state stores.
A visitor to Moscow's Central "Market might wonder what all the fuss is regarding shortages: Plump turkeys, pigs and a warehouse of red meat can be found just minutes away from the state store near Kiev Station. The price of meat at the free-pricing market is 25 rubles to 30 rubles a kilo. State-store prices are more like 2 rubles a kilo.
