October 9th, 2025

For today we started with the lecture material and then ended class with the discussion about the movie My Perestroika. The day ends with office hours where we talked about some interesting things.

I wrote some thoughts down before the lecture started: “it seems that every time I enter this class I am depressed. My classmates make me sad. It is like I dread coming to class. Every Tuesday and Thursday. There is nothing wrong with my professor, it is everyone else that makes me want to die.” Now I do not actually want to die, but it’s what I say when things go terribly wrong. It’s an extremist thought I have but it’s not genuine. It’s just a way to portray my absolute despair. Anyway, let’s get on to the lecture.

We started with learning about Boris Berezovsky, who was a mathematician. He had more than 100 published articles, founded logovaz in 1998, and worked in a research institute. He did what Gorbachev expected: selling his expertise and creating cooperatives. There is no evidence that he was working with the mafia, but it was impossible to survive without cooperation with criminals. 1990-1991: there were fewer state orders for cars, so cooperative dealership were to help with distribution now that the state wasn’t doing it. The chaos of the early 90s meant bartering was the major economic mechanism. Berezovsky was not rich due to market reform, his wealth grew from it.

So schock therapy, what was it? She gave us this quote from Robert Skidelsky’s The Road from Serfdom: The Economic and Political Consequences of the End of Communism:

“Shock therapy is a three-part cure. First, prices are liberalized, the exchange rate is lowered, and the economy is opened up to competition. Secondly, credits and subsidies to loss-making industries are cancelled… . . Finally, the main source of money-supply growth—the bloated public sector—is shut down or sold off for whatever price it will fetch.”

Notice the title of his book, the attitude. He claims that people under communism were serfs.

January 2, 1992 was talked about next. It was brief. The first step was liberalization of prices, which resulted in milk costing half someone’s salary. The state retained ownership of land and controlled the prices of oil, gas, medical supplies, and weapons. Prices grew 2500% in 1992 and people had to barter just to survive. Pensions and personal saving were wiped out. But at least the chops were stocked!

Step two happened between 1992-94: privatization. Apartments, small businesses, and medium and large-sized enterprises were all sweat up in this process. Aluminum was not allowed to be sold abroad. In October of 1992, vouchers of 10,000 rubles were given to all citizens. There was a huge ad campaign, the goal was to turn Russia into a nation of shareholders, but most vouchers were wasted. Only 28% of Russians became shareholders, the vouchers were wasted due to corruption and deceit. People didn’t know what the voucher was and ended up selling it for less than it was worth. Organized crime groups were buying up the vouchers. 2000 private banks were opened, many were collecting the vouchers and many closed afterwards. It is hard to explain how confusing this time was. Many people were left destitute.

The life expectancy in Russian in 1995 was 58 years. Tuberculosis exploded. Women were survivors and would travel to Türkiye and China to buy stuff, they would then resell it on the streets. Social connections disappeared and men were trying to resolve this problem by drinking more. My professor then talked about how during her class reunion there was only one man present. She then said how Russian men drink at the same rate as others, they do not drink more than the Irish. They drank because they lost themselves. This was stated in a slide titled: Dying Unneeded: The Cultural Context of the Russian Morality Crisis (2014).

Now we can get into the discussion about My Perestroika. My professor wanted us to watch this film to see the lives of normal people. People wanted the collapse but nothing changed. Andrei (the business guy who complained about not joining the army) was interesting as he thrived after the collapse, while the other characters were preoccupied with the past. The pioneer girl was mentioned by a students, how she would salute that anthem but not know why she did it. He said it was like 1984’s “double-speak.” My professor said it doesn’t really seem like double-speak at all.

The Russian couple, history teachers, are very passionate while they claim that American teachers only do it for the money. But isn’t that what they wanted since the USSR was supposedly so bad? Anyway, people are becoming more disillusioned with the system under Putin. My professor said that Olga constantly goes back and forth: “yes it sucks but we have freedom so it’s actually good!” She complains but backtracks a lot. My professor says Olga is a good example of the average person.

Everyone is sort of nostalgic for childhood in this movie. September 1st is a huge day of celebration in the USSR, and in Russia there is still the same cycle of students finding uniformity and ideology happens regardless.

The business major talks about Ruslan, the punk guy. His son is depressed about not fitting in at school and his dad says that change is coming so he will be cool soon. She says she likes the kids in the movie as they are just like us.

The teacher guy portrays society history as impossible to describe to his students. He said that people were dropped into the middle of nowhere and they died with communal farms.

People are nostalgic for childhood, not socialism. But there was stability in the USSR despite waiting in lines.

Then there was comparing Ruslan and Andrei’s perspectives on the world. My professor said that Andrei would’ve done well under any regime. He was fine under the USSR and he is fine in capitalism. She then talked about how the apartments of the teachers and Olga are messy but also warm, they’re lived in and feel homey. Andrei’s apartment is very expensive but cold, there is nothing to his space. She then gave us a writing prompt, she asked us if life was worse based off of what we watched. My answer basically said that who was I as some westerner from the 21st century to say, but yes life got worse. I went into more detail but I cannot remember all of what I said. I mentioned Yeltsin being a disaster.

That is where class ended. I then stayed on campus for a few hours to go to office hours. The first question I asked was if she watched the documentary The Human Face of Russia (1984), she said no. I then asked her about the write-ups we have had to do during the discussion periods, we don’t do them every time but I wanted to know if they were graded. She said they were not graded but are used to have us organize our thoughts. It so helps direct lectures and participation grading.

I then asked her if the book Russian Homophobia From Stalin to Sochi was good to use for my paper. She told me yes, but that I should also look into Pussy Riot (PR) as they promoted this sort of equality (lgbt). As a side story if I need it. There are a few books on them. Art was action that was weird, apparently they had sex in museums. In St. Petersburg, bridges are separated during the night, and on the part of the bride that overlooks the KGB side, PR drew a giant penis. She then said that Nadia was a brilliant girl as she studied philosophy. She said that they appeared on the Alter of Christ the Saviour and were immediately arrested. They did not commit a crime but still received jail terms. Western artists, like I think Madonna, spoke up in support for PR.

She then brought up the recent BRICS forum on traditional values, as this was evidence of Russia’s obsession wth so-called traditional values. I looked this up on my own time but couldn’t find anything about it, only that the forum happened. I then brought up that maybe there was an issue of western interference when it comes to LGBT rights. She agreed, I then talked about polls on Russian attitudes, all I can say is that it was mixed before but had steadily become more negative after the war. She said that people don’t personally care much about LGBT because of the war. Is this true? I have seen the polls and people have an overwhelmingly negative perception but maybe that doesn’t matter because they are more focused on Ukraine.

I made a comment about how I did not like Putin at all but I worked about who comes after him because what if they make things worse for Russia. She then said there is honest worry of post-Putin leadership. She brings up the Saddam Hussein example, he wasn’t good but what came after him was much worse. There is a danger of someone more right wing taking Putin’s place. Liberal leaders in Russia could scold Putin, now they say Russia should be destroyed. The Russian Liberals call the autocracy and the people stupid. Before I left I asked her about the Kazakhstan Health Ministry article, talking about how LGBT propaganda isn’t negative towards children, and if it was a good source despite it having t be archives because it was taken down from the site. She said it was a very good source to use because Kazakhstan has a very large Russian speaking population and is also diplomatically close to Russia.

Then I went home.