Word: volodya
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Volodya has known his share of despair. Having drunk heavily since his teens, he says, "I thought I would never be able to stop. I went to clinics where I would dry out, but I could never stay sober. I felt I did not have what it takes to help myself. And then came the group. It was like a miracle...
...Beginners spend Saturday afternoons visiting inmates in two of the city's alcoholic prisons, and this month a clinic using American treatment methods and run jointly by Soviets and Americans will open for outpatients. It will be the first alternative to the state-run program. Beyond that, according to Volodya, "people are writing to us from all over the country...
...them." By helping others help themselves, Moscow Beginners is rebuilding the sense of self-worth that society had stripped from them. In a limited way, the A.A. style could turn out to be just what the doctor ordered for a society that is trying to humanize itself. Says Volodya: "What I like about A.A. is that it ends our dependence on a cure from above. We are rediscovering how to help ourselves, and how to help each other. In this country we had forgotten how to do that...
...School No. 79 across town, Principal Semyon Boguslovsky sat at a table with a handful of teenagers, each dressed in the blue blazer that most Soviet students wear. When Boguslovsky said free discussion in the classroom was possible on every subject, Volodya, 16, quickly spoke up. His face red with anger, Volodya said, "There is much talk, but nothing has really changed. We are already tired of talking." Instead of silencing his young charge, Boguslovsky said nothing, but his features took on a boys-will-be-boys look of resignation...
...years ago, Boyko would not have handled the topic of religion with such confidence, nor would Volodya have had the last word. Now fresh breezes of tolerance are wafting through many Soviet schools, from first to tenth grade. Always considered a potent means of molding character, schools have been transformed into little laboratories of restructuring. Under Gorbachev, they are to change citizens from sheep into self-starters. Said Boguslovsky: "Soviet society requires not just a person who carries out orders but someone who thinks for himself. Our children are not mannequins, and our school is not a fortress...