THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SECTION TWO
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1992
KU-Russian exchanges remain strong
By Svala Jonsdottir Kansan staff writer
When Jason Merrill, Newburyport, Mass., graduate student, studied abroad last fall, he arrived in Leningrad in the Soviet Union. Four months later, he left the same city, only this time it was St. Petersburg in the independent state of Russia.
"I got there two weeks after the coup, but things had already calmed down, which surprised me." Merrill said. "As the semester went on, people became more apprehensive when less and less of everything was available."
The exchange students did not have to go without, although the average Russian had an increasingly more difficult time affording even the most basic necessities, he said.
"Every month we received our set of coupons for things like sausage, macaroni, butter, eggs, alcohol and cigarettes," he said. "But even with the coupons it was hard to find anything in the government stores, and if it was available, the wait was two or three hours."
Merrill did most of his shopping in commercial stores, which accept rubles but have prices that are at least twice as high as the government stores.
The "exchange rate is very favorable, so everything is still very cheap for us, while the average Russian cannot afford it," Merrill said. "When I was in Moscow three years ago, the official rate was 63 kopeks to the dollar, but when I left last month it was 90 rubles to the dollar, and 130 rubles on the black market."
A kopek is roughly equivalent to one United States cent. Merrill returned to the United
States three days before Christmas.
Several stores in St. Petersburg had Christmas trees in their windows. Often the trees were the only things in the stores, but most of Merrill's Russian friends were not planning to celebrate Christmas, he said.
Merrill said that the food shortages steadily worsened during the fall semester, and people were worried about the future.
"New Year's Eve is still the most important holiday around that time," he said. "The Orthodox Christmas is after the New Year, and one my friends had a big history exam then, so Christmas is still not officially recognized by the university at least."
"People are not sure what is going to happen, and they are very anorexic," he said.
Eric Coste, Lawrence junior, is one of the five KU students going to Russia this semester
through the department of Slavic languages and literatures' exchange program. He will study at St. Petersburg University, which was called Leningrad State University until the end of last semester.
"I already know a lot of people from KU who have been there since last fall, so they will be able to break me in," Costle said. "I know there will be hardships, but it is the best way to learn a language."
He said he wasn't worried about going, because his friends have been giving him information on the situation in their letters and phone calls.
"Right now there is massive inflation and food shortages. You can live easily if you shop in the foreign currency stores, but the average Russian cannot afford their prices," he said.
The average prices in currency stores were higher than in the United States although the average monthly wages are just 500 to 1000 rubles, which equals $5 to $10. Costa said.
"I'm going to take a couple of thousand dollars with me just in case I will need them," he said.
He said his friends in St. Petersburg have told him that there were some demonstrations in the city about the coup last fall, but since then it has been quiet.
"A letter I was just reading said: 'Yes, we are starving, and we are doing it quietly.' Everybody is still anticipating riots, but it all depends on how skillful Yeltsin will be. They still have coupons for some basic necessities, such as bread and milk, so it's not entirely a free market yet," Costle said.
Soviet events spur changes in department
By Svala Jonsdottir
Kansan staff writer
Norman Saul, professor of Russian history, is not sure what to call one of the courses he teaches.
The course is called, the History of the Soviet Union, only the union no longer exists.
*'Many particular strategy, which I have been forming in the last few days, is to pick a few areas, such as the Ukraine, Uzbekistan
"I do not know what to call it in the future," Saul said. His course, which has focused on Moscow, also will look at other areas, he said.
and Armenia, rather than to try and cover all of them," Saul said.
The changes brought about by the fall of the Soviet Union are affecting KU departments and courses.
William Fletcher, who heads Soviet and East European studies, said the name of the department would have to be changed.
The department is not planning to make any significant changes right away but will gradually offer new courses, he said.
"Various places around the country have come up with strange-sounding names, such as Eurasian studies or Russian-European studies," Fletcher said. "We will be having faculty meetings very early in the semester to decide on a name."
Graduate students enrollment in the program has increased during the last five years, and this semester the enrollment figures were still on the
"It will mean offering some different languages and utilizing visiting professors. The name change is not going to mean that the degree requirements
or course offerings will change as soon." Fletcher said.
rise, he said.
SOURCE Indianaapolis Star, Flair Mundo (Madrid), AP
"We have one of the largest master of arts programs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and I see no end of it," Fletcher said.
Alexandre Filatov, visiting professor of Soviet and East European studies, said he had to update the names and content of his courses.
His honors program course, Radical Economic and Political
Reform in the Soviet Union, is called Communism to Democracydom and economic reform.
And in his Russian business course title, Filatov changed the USSR and Russia to the Russian federation.
Filato said he used various sources such as newspapers and cable channels and made telephone calls to him. He used course material as up to date as possible.
"The changes have been so rapid that you have to read immediately," he said.
Stephen Parker, chairperson of the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, said there would not be much change in the courses offered in the department.
"We expect that there will be greater interest in the languages that we teach, and there should be a greater number of students coming to KU from these countries," Parker said.
Soviet Union died peacefully after violent birth
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Born in war and revolution and ruled by fear nearly all of its 74 years, the Soviet Union fell to democracy, nationalism and communism's failed promise of prosperity.
1917 Folshevik Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin shook the course of 20th century history.
In seven decades, the Communists forced whole villages onto collective farms, defeated Germany in World War II, set off an atomic bomb, put the first man in space, earned superpower status and fomented revolution around the world.
Lenin took the philosophy of Marx and Engels and applied his iron will to forge a revolutionary party determined to seize power and achieve a classless society in which the state would wither away.
A country defeated in World War I became a world power in 25 years and a superpower with nuclear weapons a few years later.
In the name of achieving those goals, the Communists repressed religion, sent millions to die in the frozen Siberian gulag, exiled their finest minds, ruined the environment and agriculture, and left the country in material and spiritual poverty.
Then, instead of dying under the Communists, the Soviet Union collapsed as a state in a rush toward freedom and economic reform.
The Communist Party was already rotting when hard-liners tried to restore authority by ousting President Mikhail Gorbachev in August. The failed coup finished off the party with little resistance from the millions of members who seemed to lack the will to defend the ideas they forced on the rest of society.
Now all the nations and ethnic groups forced into the Soviet Union are fighting to recover their history, their religious and political traditions, their cultures and their economies shattered by central planning.
Weak and indecive, Czar Nicholas II refused to reform. Inflation, falling production, worker unrest and repeated military setbacks by poorly leased armies fighting Germany cost him the throne, ending three centuries of rule by the Romanov dynasty.
Russia was ripe for revolution when Lenin slipped back into St. Petersburg in 1917 after a decade in exile.
The nation was exhausted when the Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in 1917. Lenin proclaimed "all power to the ruler" and promised land, bread and peace.
It took Leon Trotsky's Red Army three years to subdue the country in a war that brought famine and terror.
Price not right for Muscovites upset about food cost hikes
The Associated Press
Before Russian president Boris Yeltsin lifted controls on Jan. 2, most prices in state-run stores were so low they did not even cover production costs. That didn't provide state-owned companies with incentive to turn out goods, resulting in decades of shortages and poor quality.
MOSCOW - With the price of basic food items such as butter fluctuating wildly from store to store, Muscovites accustomed to government-regulated prices are being forced to learn the art of comparison shopping.
Lenin's death in 1924 set off a battle for control of the party that lasted until Josef Stalin crushed the opposition.
There was a rule for Muscovite shopkins: If you see a line for food, get it in. After you had secured a place did you need to check what was on sale. And even if you don't want it, you'd buy it — because your neighbor, your sister or your father most likely would need it.
Most Muscovites were happy to purchase almost anything edible they could find in stock at government stores without checking the price.
Now shoppers are confronted with widely varying prices for the same item.
"I've personally seen the prices, my family has seen the prices, my friends have seen them. This is a better deal," said Muscovie Yuri Kisil Monday, nearly two weeks after prices were freed
Kisilov, a local hockey coach, was nearing the end of an hour wait to buy nearly 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of imported Australian butter for 51 rubles per kilogram at a downtown government-run store.
The Russian Labor Ministry estimates the average monthly salary is about $690 rubles. One ruble equals 10 cents.
Russian legislative leader Ruslan Khasbulatov sharply criticized the government price increases Monday as "utterly senseless, divorced from the realities of economic life."
Just back from a trip to the Russian city of Ryazan, Khasbulatov told the Russian legislative leadership that he saw milk there prized for 17 rubles a liter, and cited this as an example of what he termed "an uncontrolled, anarchic and runaway price increases."
Across the street from Moscow's Milk shop, the ornate Yeliseyevsky Gastronom was crowded with long lines of testy shoppers.
At a crowded, muddy shop inn Moscow — named simply Milk — milk was priced at 11 rubles for a half-liter bottle (about half a quart) — more than 10 times the previous regulated price. Nobody was buying, even though milk has become so scarce that irate Moscow residents blocked a downtown bridge Sunday in protest.
Some shoppers said they were learning to be choosy. Two middle-age women pointed at the posted prices and began to laugh.
The store's meat section was nearly deserted, however. Only a few people stood at the main meat counter, staring incredulously at my mute sausage priced at 500 rubles per kilo (227 rubles per pound) and packages of vacuum-packed pressed ham for 331 rubles per kilo (150 rubles a pound).
Anatoly Flagin, a 68-year-old retired machine assembler, wasn't amused.
"Smoked sausage costs 500 rubles a kilowon. My entire pension is 300," he said.
Stalin was an early disciple of Lenin, but shortly before he died, Lenin expressed worry that Stalin was unfit for leadership.
It was too late. Starting in the late 1920s, Stalin forced well-off farmers into collective farms. Millions died from famine and deportation.
Hitter's declaration of war in 1941 caught the Soviets unprepared and his panzers rolled deep into Russia, reaching Moscow and Leningrad. But Hitler had overreached. The stubborn war waged by the Red Army, the Germans' long supply lines and the bitter weather took their toll.
The war cost an estimated 27 million Soviet lives, but became the main achievement of Soviet power and citizens were never allowed to forget the "Great Patriotic War."
When the war was over, Stalin had extended Communist power to the Elbe River and an "Iron Curtain" cut
Europe in two. The Cold War began.
For more than four decades, the Cold War divided Europe until the "glassnost" or openness instituted by Gorbachev eased the territorial tension and opened the door for reform as well as the Soviet Union's eventual disassemblage.