Word: homely
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Estonia -- or the Soviet Union, for that matter -- has not been the same since that night of April 13, 1988. Certainly, life changed dramatically for Marju Lauristin, 48, a journalism professor who had watched the show at home in the university city of Tartu. Inviting other activists to her apartment, she helped write the founding declaration of the Estonian Popular Front. Less than three weeks later, local party officials gave the group guarded approval to organize...
Sukachev, who remembers having to beg for money to ride the subway, makes more than 3,000 rubles ($4,800) a month from concerts, nearly 15 times the Soviet average wage and more than twice the take-home pay of Mikhail Gorbachev. (Says Sukachev: "If I had his house and his car, he could have my 3,000.") Still, success has its problems. "It's really dangerous when people start to praise you for doing the things they used to slam you for," he notes. The band now risks losing the special edge to its sound that developed from...
WANT SOME RUBLES CHEAP? Since the Soviets do not permit their money to be freely converted into dollars or other currencies, the rubles Westerners earn in the U.S.S.R. have dubious value. Foreign companies cannot send their rubles home or even calculate their earnings accurately because there is no accepted exchange rate. While Moscow says the ruble is worth about $1.60, the currency fetches as little as 10 cents on the black market. Some U.S. firms have got around the problem by persuading Moscow to allow the companies to export what they produce with Soviet partners for dollars rather than rubles...
...inspection team from Moscow has now finished its work and will be returning home, " I said. "We have seen a great deal and have talked a lot about perestroika. We promise you that we will come back to see just what you have accomplished...
...name is Mikhail, and I'm an alcoholic," says the next speaker. Sober only a short while, Mikhail, 41, stayed home from work on his last birthday out of fear that his co-workers would insist on celebrating the event with a bottle. "I don't want to talk about my drinking tonight. I just want to thank you for the chance to express myself honestly. Until I came here, I had never done that before...