Word: good
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...plenty. Cooperatives and private farmers here had more varieties of meats to offer than you could usually find in Moscow. The bountiful scene seemed to deny reports filtering into the Soviet capital about food shortages in the provinces. Certainly, no one was starving in this land of the good black earth...
Soft-spoken and unassuming in private, Victor Shinkaretsky is a bulldog on the job and on the air. Appearing several times a week on Good Evening, Moscow!, a prime-time television show that specializes in covering everyday headaches in the capital, Shinkaretsky is the Ralph Nader of the U.S.S.R., the champion of consumers in a country with precious little to consume. Though his persistence in uncovering agriculture shortcomings has earned him the nickname "Tomato Joe," he quickly points out, "I also expose the problems of sanitation, transportation and theft...
...translator for the Foreign Ministry before switching to journalism in 1972, Shinkaretsky joined Good Evening, Moscow! three years ago. "I decided to use glasnost to the hilt," he recalls. Today he is often recognized on the street, and he is peppered with questions. At the store where he checked for nitrates, a stooped old woman approached him and asked, "Can you do something about the lack of toothpaste...
...daily life infuriates Shinkaretsky. "We shouldn't have to put up with these things," he says, tightening his jaw in anger. "And our society should recognize that it is we who are to blame. Instead of being consumer-minded, many people are parasites. They expect to be given good food, good roads and good education, but they don't want to push for anything themselves. This is a revolution, and no one will do your revolution for you." Bidding a quick goodbye, Shinkaretsky is off again, this time to visit one of the city's vegetable depots. Film...
When Andrei Fedorov ran a state-owned restaurant in Moscow, he made 190 rubles ($304) a month even if no one came to dinner. "I didn't care if we had customers or not," he says with a shrug. "I didn't care if the service was good." Two years ago, he started his own now popular bistro, Kropotkinskaya 36, just off Sadovaya Ring Road in the Soviet capital. Fedorov pays himself about 850 rubles ($1,360) a month, nearly four times the average Soviet salary. But he works twice as hard as he ever did as a government employee...