Word: siberians
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...dialogue might have been taken from a sketch titled "The Case of the Frustrated Carnivore." In a blunt exchange of views with officials of a Siberian research institute in late September, Mikhail Gorbachev scoffed at statistics claiming that a typical resident of the city of Krasnoyarsk eats 156 lbs. of meat a year. Chronic shortages, Gorbachev implied, make that figure wholly unbelievable. On the other hand, he went on, anyone who travels to China reports that meat is "always in the shops, unsold...
...into our stores, Mikhail Sergeyevich!" shouted a woman in a crowd that surrounded Soviet Leader Gorbachev last week as he visited the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. "You'll find nothing there!" In the Soviet Union, where shortages of consumer goods are chronic, that complaint was not surprising. Nor were the criticisms voiced by Krasnoyarsk residents of housing, medical care and the Soviet bureaucracy...
...Amur, at Blagoveshchensk, officials are negotiating a deal under which Soviet hydroelectric power will be exchanged for Chinese goods and produce. In April 76 Chinese peasants, accompanied by interpreters, crossed the border at Suifenhe to spend six months demonstrating to Siberian farmers their techniques for planting, growing and harvesting. The Chinese were greeted with a brass band and welcoming banners when they arrived in Pogranichny. The Inner Mongolian town of Manzhouli is talking about a similar arrangement with Zabaikalsk, just over the strip of border that is still patrolled by Soviet guard dogs and marked by watchtowers and electrified fences...
...short supply on the Soviet side these days, thanks to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's antialcohol campaign. As a result, Chinese traders make room in their sample cases for bottles of mao-tai, a fiery 120-proof sorghum liquor -- not to sell but to lubricate negotiations with their Siberian hosts. Says Dimitri Krolov, a Soviet regional trade official who joined the train in Zabaikalsk: "Business is booming. We manufacture what they want, they grow what we want...
Among ordinary workers, who according to official statistics constituted one-third of the delegates, the most frequent gripe was that perestroika so far has provided few benefits in day-to-day life. Said Veniamin Yarin, a metalworker in the west Siberian city of Nizhni Tagil: "The workers say, 'Where is perestroika when the supply of goods in shops is as poor as ever, sugar is bought with ration cards and there is no meat...