Volume 44, Number 7 · April 24, 1997
The Way They Live Now
By Tatyana Tolstaya
Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia
by David Remnick
Random House, 398 pp., $25.95
St. Petersburg, 1997. My mother (eighty-one years old) travels all the way across town to pick up her orphaned grandson's social security payment: you can only receive the payment in person and only on a certain day of the month. She is greeted by a sign: 'No money.' 'And when will there be?' 'Drop by and you'll find out.' She goes back into the metro where a voice over the PA system entices her with the prospect of a vacation in the United Arab Emirates. She rides the metro for free: she's retired. On the other hand, she hasn't gotten her pension in two months. A friend of hers doesn't get her salary. But this friend rented her apartment to an Englishman for $100 a month.
Review, 3747 words
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