Through Dark Days and White Nights: Four Decades Observing a Changing Russia. Naomi F. Collins

poured the popped corn into our all-purpose yellow plastic dishpan, added salt, shook it around, and invited the skeptical neighbors to share the popcorn. They did, and seemed to love it, although I wondered if they, like many students, were often a little short of food. But it did become a tradition for the rest of the year. At the first sound and smells of popping popcorn, they would show up in the kitchen. And if they didn’t, Jim would knock on their door with a bowl of freshly popped corn.

      Another evening many months into our stay when Jim and I were alone in the kitchen, a young man entered whom we had not seen before. He had a confident swagger, wore blue jeans, and addressed us in English. Blue jeans, branded capitalist by the Soviet regime, gained major currency as status symbol, conspicuous purchase, and defiant statement. Sometimes all three. There were almost no ways to obtain them legally, and their black-market price was very high. My antennae were up.

      He struck up a conversation using casual rather than studied English, saying he had been a friend of Larry’s, an American exchange student from Cornell the previous year. He told us he lived on the 10^th floor, chatted for a while, invited us to call him “Charlie,” and left. A couple of weeks later, he showed up again, knocking on our door, and asking if we’d do him a favor. Already wary of an English-speaking, jeans-wearing, visiting person from nowhere, we carefully asked what it was he needed:

      “My friend Larry from Cornell gave me this record. And I listen to this Bob Dylan. I try to write down and understand the words, so I can sing them when I play my guitar. But it is not possible for me. So I thought for you it would not be so difficult to write down the words.”

      We looked at each other, until Jim said, “O.K.” and invited him in. Easier promised than done, we discovered that Jim and I had to try to capture alternate lines, and then to pick up the phonograph needle every few lines to catch up in our writing. Finally, close to midnight, triumphant and grateful, he left with the already well- scratched record and the full text of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He left me wondering then (and even today) what he heard blowing in the wind back in 1966, and how many years he thought it would be before people would be allowed to be free.

      After that he continued to show up randomly, hungry for American sounds, words, music, style, and look. He picked the wrong people to emulate, since we were hardly “hip,” but watched carefully our dress, manner, and especially our colloquial speech. He loved American slang. Although he was to show up in our lives over all the decades we returned to Russia, in the 1960s, his preoccupation was to be Bob Dylan. And it almost seemed he might succeed.

      Maria and Alexander right next door to us had no interest in becoming Bob Dylan, pop stars, or hip. A gentle, refined couple married for some years, they were finishing their advanced degrees in philology (languages, literature, and linguistics), and hoping to be placed in schools in the same city as each other. She had the wholesome bright red cheeks Soviet posters idealized, and a warm, inviting smile; and he, the tall, lean build of a basketball player, with a gentle nature. We watched them await their mail and return from their faculty meetings during the first semester while they anticipated their fate.

      One day in mid-winter, when we sat together drinking tea, I could see they had something to tell us. With the tea, we were eating homemade strawberry preserves, served Russian style, in miniature dishes with tiny spoons. They told us they’d be leaving soon—for Omsk, in Siberia. And that in a few days her mother would come from her village not too far from Moscow to deliver their three- year-old daughter to them to take along to their new home. Little Katya had been in grandmother’s care during her parents’ graduate studies. She turned out to be a picture-perfect little girl bundled in her fur coat, pink scarves, mittens, caps (wool under fur), and little felt boots, her cheeks glowing with cold. We knew we’d miss them, with their quiet decency and dignity, integrity and warmth.

      And so they packed their belongings in tote bags, bundled other possessions and tied them with cord (they didn’t own suitcases), took little Katya, and, with Jim’s help, carried their household effects on the Metro train to the railroad station to embark on a three- to four-day journey to their new home and new life in Siberia. They looked like Tevye’s children in Fiddler on the Roof—but pointed east instead of west. We were happy for them, for their good fortune in being kept together as a family, but saw in their eyes an expression that said that this “goodbye” was forever. And it was.

      We spent many evenings sitting around talking with fellow students, drinking tea and eating cookies. The tea, steeped from leaves, not bags, was strong; the cookies, mild and plain, very durable. The “friends” assigned to us by the Office of Foreign Students came by frequently, with enthusiasm and apparent sincerity, hoping we’d spend more time socializing with them— but that didn’t happen. I knew that Nina had a job, reporting our activities, views, and weaknesses to the KGB. Her father was a local Communist party bigwig; and she, with her strong determination, lack of scruples, and focus on her mission, was set on a career path to success. I sympathized with her ambition and tenacity, but was uncomfortable with her prying and intrusive questions. Raised to be a “good girl,” and still not very worldly, I didn’t know how to cope with this unwelcome relationship, so I remained courteous, but distant and unforthcoming.

      Fortunately, Ivan was less persistent, and sometimes even appeared reluctant or ashamed. But he was soon succeeded by German (Herman; but no H in Russian), to be Jim’s newly planted friend. German was more sophisticated, educated, and even aristocratic: his grandfather had been an Orthodox priest — unlike Roman Catholic priests, Eastern Orthodox priests can and do marry and have children. Perhaps they reckoned he would be a better match for Jim, and in that, they were partly right. We did, in fact, spend a bit more time with him, especially because he had also been assigned to accompany our group on some of our travels.

      We came to know other people as well, like Anna, the serious, down-to-earth student of philology across the hall. A small woman, with large brown eyes and brown hair, she was both intrigued and cautious in her visits. She enjoyed borrowing my books, then asking questions to fill out her picture of what America was like. We talked about daily life: “What kind of house do you live in?” she asked, in English, nodding her head slowly to absorb the answer: “We have no house,” I replied, “only dorm rooms and small rented flats.” “What do you eat for your meals at home?” And such.

      We also talked “girl talk,” including about health problems. She, like most Russian women I then met, knew little about the functioning of the female body, the general information that most girls at home picked up from popular books (or the booklet, “What to tell your daughter,” that Kotex sent free to shy or anxious mothers). For Anna this was not academic, as she suffered a great deal, even becoming bedridden, from some sort of female problem, but without the benefit of good medical diagnosis, care or cure. Sadly, we watched her and other friends and their families suffer from conditions or illnesses we thought would have been easily addressed in the States, helped by antibiotics or aspirin or other medications we took for granted—but were not available there.

      When our British friend down the hall became ill mid-winter with flu-like symptoms, fever, and pains, his Russian roommate called for medical help. A medical professional in a dirty white coat soon came by. She treated him by placing mustard plasters on his chest, and suggesting he eat strawberry jam; and urged that he open wide the windows of his room for fresh air—which she then did with gusto, quickly chilling the room. Perhaps this approach worked; in any case, he did eventually recover.

      Meanwhile, next door, with our friends gone off to Siberia, another married couple quickly filled their suite. At 6:00 a.m. their first morning, we awoke to the blast of booming radio noise. When we tried to speak to them later in the day, to ask them please to tune down the radio in the early morning, we found them to be boorish, rough, and slovenly—and clearly very heavy sleepers. Their snoring permeated the thick cement walls between us, their radio blasted, and we found we could do nothing about it for the rest of our stay.

      Ironically (or necessarily), in a country that did not seem to have as high a standard of sanitation as other European countries, cleanliness was highly valued in the dorm. Cleaning duty for the kitchen and halls rotated among students. Additionally, our rooms were inspected, unannounced but frequently, for dust, dirt, and clutter. A large chart posted in