lhbernhardt

Uh, indeed. You need to head off to Kazakhstan. I remember being in Ukraine in 1990 with a US masters cycling team. We were there to race in the Russian national masters championships in a small town called White Church (Biela Cherkov, or Biela Cherkva, in Ukrainian). Russia was still very poor back in those days. you went into the typical corner grocery. There's a counter opposite the front door, running from one wall to the other, and a guy (the shopkeeper) behind the counter. Behind the shopkeeper were empty shelves, with maybe three cans of mackerel for sale. Typical store in those day. Anytime you saw a lineup on the street, you'd want to get in line. Didn't matter if you didn't know what was being sold, you would want it. You didn't have to worry about finding the black market; the black market would find you, especially if you were from North America and carrying US dollars. We went to Kiev on a free day with a Russian interpreter. We had lunch for about 10 people for a total of about $16 US. We stopped at a snack bar and had some juice. Some of us had to wait until the first ones there had finished their drink and given back their glasses so they could be washed...

No, Communism did not work, that's for sure. I'd always wondered what would happen if you took some poor Ukrainian from that time and whisked him off to the USA and put him in some Safeway anywhere in the US. He'd probably think he'd died and gone to heaven. It's just incredible how much stuff we've got...

I would imagine things are much better now, though.They'd have to be.

- L.