SYMPTOMS

It is difficult to remain optimistic in a country losing such people as Feliks Kryvin, once a literary lion of Moscow and now surviving by selling books from his personal library because he cannot live on his $20 a month pension. Our farewell interview on the eve of his impending emigration to Israel should be read not only as a conversation with a unique creative individual but on a deeper level as a microcosm of what is happening to the arts and letters in a country turned topsy-turvy with former bandits joining the rich and famous and those once adored by millions for their creativity joining the poorest of the poor. This has happened to uncounted thousands of intellectuals and scientists. In a previous issue we reported the figure of 35,000 scientists and scholars leaving their fields annually. The few who can emigrate, but most simply trade in local bazaars. The lady from whom I buy soda pop in my local marketplace, it turns out, is a candidate in physics who left the National Academy of Sciences because her Institute cannot pay salaries. This is a symptom that if there every was a sick society, this is it.

Yet another symptom is the omnipresence of corruption. What makes Ukraine unusual is not that it is corrupt but that it is so openly corrupt, all the way up and all the down. Lawmakers openly sell their votes. The Interior Ministry has not solved a single big case like a political or big business murder. Humanitarian aid is openly sold in almost every bazaar. The secret police agent spying on you can actually come up, introduce himself, and complain about how poorly he is paid. And nothing whatsoever can be done about it given the poverty that breeds corruption.

The economic news this week is especially grim: higher interest, probable inflation, an endless spiral of government debt, and general degradation. The government has decided to cut the deficit by cutting the things people need: things like education, healthcare, basic research. One might have expected that it would not really touch all those bureaucrats and the unnecessary regulations they enforce, that is, what is really strangling the economy and society. After all, in this patticular country regulations mean bribe money, and those benefiting from this form of social parasitism are just not going to give it up. The Socialists were right in claiming that Panikovsky is the real symbol of the current regime. Now, if only someone with Ilf and Petrov’s sense of humor would write about this country today.