JULY 7. Today is the end of my Aeroflot hassles: I found friends who can help me get a ticket. And I won’t have to pay double, in the usual way now. As the saying goes, it’s better to have a hundred friends than a hundred rubles. It’s a strange life, where money has lost its significance; you can’t buy anything with it. Of course, you might try if you have millions, but the only thing our honestly earned hundreds are good for is a couple of trips to the market for vegetables. And people are expected to work hard!
I sometimes think that the best way to survive in our country is to give up all earthly desires and comforts and simply stay in bed and read. Many of my friends are envious of my travels. If they only knew how much effort, time, and health the prepara-
tions for these trips can take. I think this one is the record, though.
JULY 10 . I feel like a real capitalist; I have $320 in my wallet. If I were to change them at steep black-market rates, I’d have 6,000 rubles or more. I could live for several years without working. It’s just a question of how well I’d live. But over there this money will evaporate in just a few days. So how can you explain to an American what a ruble is worth and what it can buy? That’s the first thing they ask: How much is it in dollars? When you tell them that a plane ticket from Moscow to Leningrad costs the equivalent of $23, they get confused. The point is that the ruble is worthless. So inside the country there is a currency and prices that have no relation to the rest of the world.
Things went very quickly at the bank. I was almost crushed at the entrance, though. The veterans and invalids decided to push their line forward. I’m terrified of crowds and started screaming and pushing everyone away. I got out with a scare and no broken bones.
It’s time to start my own little business—advice for foreign travelers. It will start like this: “Soviet citizens planning to take a private trip abroad must have the following qualities: athletic build, great physical strength to fight off the desperate and angry crowd, iron nerves and inhuman patience for endless lines, inventiveness and quick thinking for instant snap decisions. The absence of the above can be compensated by the presence of several hundred thousand rubles, or even better, a million. The lack of both will make your trip almost impossible. Reading
these instructions will be then of no practical benefit. However, for readers in this category, I offer instructions on preparing for preparations for a trip. Recommended time for fulfilling all requirements: one year.” I think it sounds good, in the best traditions of Soviet nomenklatura literature.
JULY 14. Today is Bastille Day, and I had a great victory, too. I bought or, using Sovietese, I got a plane ticket. It was like a mystery novel. At the appointed hour I came to the courtyard of the building where the airline counters are. I was told to walk around near the yellow door and wait for a young woman in blue jeans and red blouse. Mama was walking in the next little yard, watching through the bushes, just in case (I don’t know what case). There was some guy hanging around, too, but we pretended not to notice each other. After twenty minutes I decided I had the wrong door. I found another door and nervously ran between the two of them. No one came out. Then I decided to call. It turned out the girl in jeans had forgotten about it (I’m not giving her name to preserve the conspiracy). Ten minutes later I was in the room. In another fifteen I had a ticket. I counted out the money once more (I had never held so much money at one time before; it was eight months’ salary for me) and gave it to the cashier. Hurrah! I couldn’t believe it. Moscow-New York-Moscow, leaving in two weeks.
JULY 20. The day of departure approaches, and I’m more and more uncomfortable. Instead of packing, I’m mooching around the apartment, going through useless trifles, gabbing on the phone for hours. And yesterday they did a horrible job at the beauty parlor and I have to go to America looking horrible. I can’t decide what clothes to take. Here’s good news. I’ll be living in a good apartment in midtown Manhattan. But that’s the first ten days—and then what?
Katya came by yesterday and said that she’d give half her life to go with me any way she could, in my luggage. Her French fiance must be gone for good. He hasn’t called since he left. If it weren’t for the ring on her finger, you’d think she dreamed the whole thing. Now she’s ready for the crummiest husband from America. But what can I promise her?
Then Dasha came and told me which New York museums to go to, where to “stretch,” and gave me a few phone numbers of American friends. She said that life in Moscow was getting more interesting—new shows, evenings, exhibits, “scenes” but she wouldn’t mind going to New York, even though she’s not dying of impatience. Her artist seems to have vanished, but she hasn t said anything. Her mood is good. There must be someone new on her horizon. Then the three of us had some French liqueur, Katya and I forgot our anxieties, and Dasha’s mood got even better. Maybe I should just booze until I leave. I won’t even notice that I’m on the plane? As long as I don’t make a mistake and fly to Ulan Bator instead of New York. I’ll be put in a mental institution right away if I do that.
JULY 22. People are strange. An acquaintance called and asked what I was planning to bring back to sell. “A computer is best; VCRs are old hat,” the practical girl recommended. “Once you sell a computer, you can live without a job for several years and travel around Europe,” Larisa went on dreamily.
“Screw the computer, I’m worried about starving over there,” I answered angrily.
Larisa explained that the smart people know where to buy and sell. Didn’t anyone teach me? No, no one did, but it’s too late now. She ruined my mood.
But Larisa is right. That’s how everyone travels nowadays; otherwise you won’t have enough money for the next trip. You come back, sell the stuff, pay for your next ticket and visa. But a trip to America is a special occasion. I don’t mind spending all my savings on it. It’s a dream of a lifetime, a trip to the promised land.
What do I actually know about America? I guess quite a bit, but I can’t really imagine everyday life. I have tons of cliches in my brain. New York, the capital of the world; California, eternal summer, oranges, Hollywood, Disneyland, earthquakes; Texas, prairies, jeans, cowboys, and JLK was killed there; Alabama, blacks are treated badly there; Kansas, the Wizard of Oz; Washington, the White House, Capitol Hill, the Potomac. I can go on and on, but I’ll stop. I also know that Americans are very patriotic about their country, a feeling I don’t know very well. Our love for our homeland is a morbid, decadent sorrow. There is almost no pride left.
To tell the truth, what interests me least right now are the stores with their abundance. I’ve seen stores and have never gone crazy, as actually has happened to a few Soviet tourists.
Fve learned to look at stores on my travels as a type of museum of twentieth-century civilization. If you perceive them as real, everyday life, you lose your mind when you go home. After I got back from West Germany, I avoided stores for the first five days, and then things fell into place.