First Hand Experience

Steve,

I have been to your "freedom" page and re-read some of your older articles to refresh my memory and read some for the first time that I had missed. Your 12 conclusions are very good and I agree with you point-by-point.

The specific article from the NY Times regarding "The Russian Bear is Sick" was like re-reading the prediction cables I wrote and others I helped to draft to send to Washington in the mid 80's.

It saddens me personally to see the rapid decline, not of an ancient empire, but rather the decline of a proud and productive people. I could relate to you so many instances wherein I ran face-to-face into medical events/crisis that shocked me to the core.

If we could sit side-by-side by a fireplace I could spend hours telling you of personal events and memories regarding my sad "glimpses into the future" that occurred during my time there. And I can imagine you gravely nodding your head in empathy and comprehension.

I know that you, unlike most of my fellow Americans who have travelled little and who tolerant nothing they have not experienced themselves, would understand the respect and affection I developed for the Russian people during my time "fighting the cold war on the front lines."

My heart aches with their current plight and I wonder when the individual American will finally understand that "if our brother suffers we must help him." And yes, these were our brothers-in-arms during WW2. The Russian people, from soldat to child, paid a tremendous price in the world's fight against fascism.

They paid a price that most comfortable Americans could not now dream of being asked to pay, must less paying it with a willing heart as the Russian people did.

One of the major obstacles to American understanding is our mass ignorance. Our public school system does not require that students learn, simply that they "regurgitate" facts upon demand. So our youth do not learn the human motivation behind history, only the political and geographic results.

I fear for the future of America, not so much from outside threat as simply from inside decay. From the pre-occupation Americans seem to have for instant self-gratification, the media-driven obsession with material gain to excess, personal self-indulgence to the extreme (one example: look at our rates of obesity and drug abuse) and the dying curiosity in "the average America" for true, factual, well-rounded knowledge.

I could go on and on, of course, as this is a subject on which I have given much thought. Instead, I will simply list out some examples, a very few here out of the whole, of personal events witnessed/experienced by me during my time in Russia. I think each of these further illustrate the article's point.

1. While I was in the old "Soviet Union" from 1981-1988 you could not purchase aspirin in an apothecary shop. It was simply unavailable. You could purchase mustard plasters and you could, for a few rubles, obtain the address of a practitioner of "cupping", but no aspirin or other "wonder drugs" that we in the West take for granted.

2. I was close to a Russian woman whose new-born niece died a few days after birth because of an infection in the stump of the umbilical cord. There were no antibiotics available to the average citizen. This woman was well-educated and had travelled to the West a few times. I truly believe her grief was intensified because she KNEW that a small dose of antibiotics would have surely saved her niece, and that it was readily available elsewhere outside of her homeland. She also knew that it was available to high-ranking members of the Party.

3. During my time there, I had three separate fellow workers require emergency appendectomies. The surgical expertise shown was superb. All three then suffered from post-surgical infections because of the lack of antiseptic care in the hospitals. I was personally appalled at the lack of basic understanding of the importance of sterilisation in these hospitals, and keep in mind that these were the "premiere" hospitals to which only foreign diplomats or high-ranking Party officials had access. The pretzel logic of the time was that you could not be released from the hospital except in two cases, cure or death. Because of this, we had to proceed with diplomatic intervention in each case to obtain the release of these patients so that we could medivac them to Finland or Germany for emergency care.

4. My greatest fear during my pregnancy with my eldest child was that I would go into labor early and have to deliver in a Soviet hospital. I made the Embassy doctor swear to me that he would do the delivery himself in the Embassy clinic, no matter what the outcome, rather than be subjected to the Soviet system of care. My concern was so great that I left the country a month before my due date and stayed in a hotel in Helsinki until I delivered.

(An additional note on the Finnish health care situation: the Finnish hospitals were so immaculate and well-run that they made the American hospitals I had personally experienced seem dirty and shabby.)

5. I saw myself the results of the privation and suffering experienced by the population in general during WW2. Adults who were in their growth years during that time suffered physical proof of malnutrition with apparent stunted growth and other long-term physical maladies. Also, in a society that was restricted in travel, offered little entertainment that was not "state-approved", and was over-packed into stacked block housing, the only "escape" and acceptable form of "rebellion" was alcoholic consumption. And during my time there the state subsidised the production of vodka, making it cheap and readily available. The societal thinking was that a man's only avenue to "prove" his manhood during this time was through showing the amount of alcohol he could consume. My own opinion was that this was again part of the Party's plan to keep the masses controlled...through addiction. Alcoholism was rampant and each spring, during the thaws, we were frequently subjected to what was sarcastically known as "snow blossoms" -- bodies of frozen drunks found beneath the plowed snow piles along the roadways.

6. In this "world power" women were provided with no means of birth control other than abstinence. (This, in part I would surmise, was due to the fact that the powers in charge hoped it would encourage the birth rate to rise.) Women were not even provided with the basic feminine hygiene products available here in America for over seven decades. Women were, however, provided with abortions upon demand. So the plan of the system backfired on itself as it was found that women who had multiple abortions, sometimes as many as ten in less than five years and often in less than hygienic conditions, became unable to bear children to a healthy delivery. Another factor in the decline of the birth-rate. What is sad is that the Soviet post-WW2 baby boom, also experienced in the United States, came to no fruition in the next generation.

The declining age of death in Russian society has in itself brought about the demise of the very thing that might have helped most: national pride. By the '80s, many, if not most, of the veterans of WW2 were starting to succumb to the ills of ageing and poor medical care. I'm sure this was accelerated through the upheaval of the '90s. So many times I was approached on the street and glad-handed, hugged and patted by ageing Soviet veterans who reminded me that we were allies during "The Great War".

To them there was no doubt that I was an American. I was well-fed, well-dressed and usually smiling -- the last a sure sign of an American visitor. These old warriors, both male and female, would rush up to me and tell me that we must find peace between our countries and work as brothers again, just as we had done during WW2. The pride they exhibited in retelling the victory over fascism, their personal pride in having participated and their national pride for being part of a country that suffered so deeply "for the cause" was evident. And it was also evident that they lived for these retellings.

In the meantime, I witnessed that the youth were becoming more and more dissatisfied with their own hobbled lives. Hope for a better tomorrow was dying. I think there was a resurgence of hope accompanying the celebrations during and immediately after the downfall of the Soviet system, but soon political corruption, lack of organisation and resulting shortages brought the end to that brief glimmer of hope. The majority of Russian people, living far from the large cities (where goods are more available), now suffer similar hardships as their peasant ancestors. And now, unlike during the Soviet regime, there is no social welfare system to provide them with a bit of ease and structure in their pension years.  

I do not have any answers.  I do have observations based on first-hand experiences.    Watching the decline of a great people can be very upsetting, but I cannot choose to turn my back and pretend I do not care.  

Thank you for sharing your thoughts in your web site on events such as these, which are not merely shadows of the past...they are events that shape our future as well.    Please continue to do so.  I believe there is an audience who appreciates not only the "joke and tickle" and the interesting visual tricks but also the serious subjects to which you have obviously given much thought.   I think the variety helps us, as the reader, understand and appreciate you as a three-dimensional, multi-faceted person. 

Chey D