This article assumes that you have already, for good and sufficient reasons,
decided to visit the USSR, one good and sufficient reason being a wish to see for
yourself this Communist paradise that Khrushchev has promised our grandchildren. But
to set out for Russia in the holiday spirit in which you head for the Riviera, Las
Vegas, or Rio is like going to a funeral for the ride.
You can avoid the worst shocks to your nervous system by knowing in advance
that you are not going to get what you have paid for; then you can soothe the
residual nerve jangling with your favorite pacifier. I
used small quantities of vodka-“small” by Russian standards, as Russians also use it
to insulate themselves from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune but they
dose to unconsciousness. Drunks, passed out in public places, are more truly
symbolic of the USSR than is the Hammer & Sickle.
My wife found methyl meprobamate (Equanil, Miltown) more useful. For you it
might be yoga, or silent prayer, but, whatever it is, don’t neglect it. Travel in
the Soviet Union is not like travel anywhere else in the world. My wife and I have
visited more than sixty countries on six continents, by freight ship, helicopter,
dog sled, safari, jet plane, mule back, canal boat, etc.; as “seasoned travelers”
these are our credentials. To visit the USSR we prepared by extensive reading and my
wife learned the Russian language. Nevertheless, again and again we ran into
surprises, difficulties, and maddening frustrations.
You can travel all through the Soviet Union without knowing a word of
Russian-which will suit Khrushchev just fine because you will thereby be a prisoner
of “Intourist,” the state-owned travel bureau, seeing only what they want you to
see, hearing only what they want you to hear.
But the Russian language is difficult; it took my wife two years of hard
work to master it. The alphabet is weirdly strange, the pronunciation is hard for
us, and the language is heavily inflected-a proper noun, such as “Smith” or
“Khrushchev,” has eighteen different forms.
Obviously most tourists can’t take two years off to master Russian. What
then? Depend entirely on Intourist guides?
No, no, no! Better to save your money and stay home. With no Russian at all
you’ll be as helpless as a bed patient. Instead you should prepare by learning a
smattering of Russian. Forget about grammar; grammatical Russian is found only in
formal literary compositions. Khrushchev has never learned to speak
Russian well and Mikoyan speaks it with an accent thick enough to slice-so why
should you worry?
First learn the alphabet, capitals and lower case, printed and written. This
alone is half the battle. You can now find the men’s room (or the ladies’ room). The
men’s room is marked with “M” (for “muzhcheen,” but think of “M” for “men”) and the
ladies’ room is marked with a letter which looks like two capital K’s, back to back:
~ You are now past the greatest crisis confronting a traveler: finding the plumbing.
You now know many of the most useful Russian words just from knowing the
alphabet. Hungry? Watch for a sign reading: “PECTOPAH.” Sound it in your head as
“restauran”-and it is!-the same word as in English save that the final “t” has been
dropped.
There are hundreds of words which turn out to be the same as the English, or
near enough. If you know French or German, your immediate vocabulary is further
enriched, as, despite their boasts, Russian culture is very backward and most of
their vocabulary for anything more complex than weeding a turnip patch has been
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borrowed from French, English, or German by converting the foreign word
phonetically.
But don’t stop with the alphabet; get a set of phonograph records for
teaching Russian. Play them while following the lessons in the book-and play them
without the book while bathing, shaving, cooking, gardening, etc. A few hours of
this will pay off to the point where you will no longer be dependent on an Intourist
guide; it will triple what you get out of a trip behind the Iron Curtain. For a few
dollars in records and a little work you change it from a losing game into one in