Word: dorofeyev
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Dates: during 1981-1981
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...less an authority than President Leonid Brezhnev has conceded that life for the Soviet consumer is not easy. But just how tough can it be? The Moscow weekly, Literary Gazette, dispatched Correspondent Vil Dorofeyev to Krasnodar, a typical provincial city 735 miles south of Moscow, to find out. Dorofeyev was instructed to take only the clothes on his back and a pad and pencil, and to buy everything else that he needed on the spot. The seemingly simple assignment turned into a soap opera, Soviet-style...
...Dorofeyev noticed that something was amiss when passengers disembarking from the plane carried off bags crammed full of soap, shaving cream and shampoo. Could it be that Krasnodar was the home of the Great Unwashed? Odd, he thought since an announcement during the flight had proudly identified their destination as the home of a large soap factory. Dorofeyev set out to see for himself with a toiletry-shopping tour...
...barber shop." His search for soap took him 65 miles away to Novorossisk, where a few bars had been spotted in stores two weeks before. By the time he arrived Novorossisk was out of soap but did have shampoo-for cars. After scouring shop shelves in both cities, all Dorofeyev could turn up for his trouble was a costly bottle of perfume named Luck and a child's toothbrush, which broke in two the first time he used...
Footsore and filthy, Dorofeyev then discovered Krasnodar's black market. Here at last, he found a wide assortment of cosmetics, underwear, socks, razors-"everything I could not find in the shops"-but all at inflated prices. A bar of Beautiful Moscow soap that sold for 60? when available in state-run stores was going for $2.25. The service on the black market, though, proved as surly as elsewhere. Snipped the soap seller: "Everything costs what it costs. If you don like the price, don't wash." Said a defeated Dorofeyev: "I had to wash, so I paid...
...what about the soap from Krasnodar's much vaunted factory? Following a local tip that he "go to the Black Hole, Dorofeyev found a 10-ft. breach in the factory's brick wall, through which workers peddled pilfered bars of the precious commodity for $7.50 a case. Security at the plant was so lax that Dorofeyev managed to parade right out the main gate, his pockets bulging with ill-gotten goods, without drawing more than an indifferent glance from the guards. The moral of the tale for Soviet shoppers: if you want clean hands, grease some palms...