My Encounter with America
Part 12: Moscow: Reforms bring freedom and chaos
By Zadok Ekimwere
zomwere@hotmail.comI.

Zadok Ekimwere

My second trip to Moscow was in 1990, on my way to Pyong Yang, North Korea. Since this was the itinerary of my trip, I had no alternative.

Stepping into Moscow again made me recall some of the experiences I had wanted to forget. For instance, my escort who had a stint in Tanzania, East Africa, where he learned some Kiswahili, always wanted to speak to me in impeccable Kiswahili. Some of it was so sophisticated I could not understand. And for some reason best known to him, he always booked me in the topmost floor, and he stayed on the first floor, next to the entrance. When he took me to the airport to catch the next flight back to Uganda, we parted badly. I didn't know how he knew I still had some rubles on me which he insisted I had to spend all at the airport restaurant. I refused to accept this because I wanted to take some of them as souvenirs.

Most hotels I stayed in had one entrance. One day a very beautiful lady tried to sneak into the hotel, but when the guard saw her, he blew a whistle for her to be arrested. She leapt out and fled like an African gazelle. The explanation was that unaccompanied ladies were not allowed in the hotel as deterrence against prostitution.

This time it did not occur to me I was in Moscow. The whole city was topsy turvy. The tidy streets I saw a couple of years ago were no more. Piles of uncollected garbage littered everywhere. Walls were defaced with all sorts of posters and graffiti writings. Nobody swept the streets any more, and there was no orderliness. Instead, there was animated chaos on the streets. I also detected a visible problem of alcoholism and drugs, especially among the youth.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the symbolic end of communism. To fall in line with the rest, Mikhail Gorbachev then president of the Soviet Union decided to remove his country from what one American president dubbed the "evil empire" by implementing reform programs romantically known as glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). This meant effectively ushering in unlimited freedom to the Russian people.

Nobody was therefore available to collect garbage and sweep the streets as before. That year, there was a big bumper harvest of crops, but they were left to rot because there was no more forced labor.

The problem for Gorbachev and Russians in general was how to manage transition and understand what freedom meant. Did freedom mean not collecting garbage? Did it mean not harvesting produce? Did it mean chaos? Analysts opined that Gorbachev should have managed reforms in his country in a judicious manner, rather than doing it wholesale.

Most young men and women yearned for things from the West like jeans, music, and electronic appliances. They even tried to speak English with an American accent. A young man introduced himself to us as "Jimmy," when his real name was Vladimir Rostov.

At the same time, there were conservative diehards who still believed communism was the best system in the world. They nursed vitriolic hatred for Gorbachev for ruining their country by introducing Western- type of reforms.

During prime times news time one evening, Gorbachev's image appeared on the TV screen. An anti-Gorbachev fanatic almost smashed the screen. He openly cursed Gorbachev, hurled insults at him, and called him a sellout. Choked with hatred for the man, the fanatic switched off the TV. We just watched in awe.

(Next week: North Korea)