MOSCOW, SUNDAY, APRIL 20TH

  A gloomy day dawns in Moscow. Breakfast with the group consisted of hard boiled eggs, a fatty slice of sausage resembling salami, and plenty of tea, marmalade, and bread. Russians were supposedly great coffee drinkers until the war forced them to drink domestic tea from the south. Now it's tea in the morning, noon, and night.

Everyone in better spirits after a good night's rest.

We hopped on the tour bus for a ride to the city's center, the Kremlin. Moscow is the fifth largest city in the world with over eight million legal residents, each of whom must carry a document called a propiska which certifies that they do indeed have-the privilege of living and working here. So great is the desire to live in a city that this restriction is in force in all Soviet provincial capitals. One must have been born in Moscow or have been granted special permission in order to live here, although there are perhaps several thousand without the coveted propiska who shuffle from apartment to apartment and usually lack jobs because the propiska is necessary to obtain employment in the city. These hearty souls run the risk daily of a slow train to Siberia. Others enter into marriages of convenience to a city resident (the going rate is about three thousand dollars- a year's pay for some workers) and quickly obtain a divorce once the propiska is granted.

There is a genuine need for such a restriction. Just as it is in many cities of the West, the housing shortage is very real. High rise apartment construction in all stages of development is apparent in any city. Flats designed for two or three people house entire nuclear families, and as project engineers rush to fill their state quotas, quantity, not quality, becomes the watchword. Good workmanship is indeed hard to come by these days in the Soviet Union. Under the present system one finds it difficult to advance at the workplace unless he/she is an aspiring Party member, knows someone influential, or has the ready cash or goods to bribe the right person, He soon discovers that in the land of zero unemployment (the official position), it is also very difficult to be fired from a job. The frustration that builds contributes to an overwhelming sense of stagnation and apathy among the population especially the young people, fostering the churning out of second rate status quo production in the face of five-year economic plans.

TO BE CONTINUED....hopefully before you graduate!!

next installment....