INSIDE INTO URIST

How to Break Even (or Almost) in the Soviet Union

To enjoy a thing requires that it be approached in the proper mood. A woman who has been promised a luxury suite at Miami Beach won't cheer at the thought of roughing it in the north woods, especially if her husband pulls this switch after the vacation has started.

But, with proper pre - conditioning, it is possible to enjoy anything - some people are addicted to parachute jumping. To experience the Soviet Union without first getting in the mood for it is too much like parachute jumping when the chute fails to open. The proper mood for the Soviet Union is that of the man who hit himself on the head with a hammer because it felt so good when he stopped.

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 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 which your investment will be well repaid in education if not in pleasure.

But to get fun out of it, too, you must understand the Intourist game, play it, and win. Winning consists in outwitting the system so that you get more than they intend you to get; it does not mean fair value in the fashion (for example) that a traveler invariably gets his money's worth in any Scandinavian country. It is not possible to get fair value in the USSR; the game is rigged against the American tourist. But there are ways to minimize the expense and maximize the return while having quite a lot of fun.

All travel in the USSR is controlled at every point by Intourist; you must buy from it all travel, all automobile and guide service, all hotel rooms, all meals - or if you buy a meal not from Intourist you simply waste a meal already paid for.

You buy from Intourist at four rubles to the dollar - and you are licked from scratch as the value of the ruble is closer to forty to the dollar (which is the rate the Soviet government gives to favored visitors such as Asians they are trying to woo into the Communist camp).

You can cut costs by ordering cheap accommodations. Three grades are offered: Luxe, Tourist A, and Tourist B. A single man might risk Tourist B if he did not mind public toilets and baths of uncertain cleanliness, plus sharing sleeping space, dormitory style; a couple might risk Tourist A, which is supposed to be (but is not) equal to first - class travel elsewhere. But I cannot honestly urge anything short of "Luxe" class because even the best in Russia is often shockingly bad by our standards - bathrooms without baths, even hotels with no baths, tubs with no hot water, plumbing that is "quaint" or worse, poor cooking, dirty utensils, maddening waits. The lodging for Luxe class is often a huge and fantastically furnished suite, but a first-class double room & bath in any other country is more comfortable.

Luxe class costs $30 per day per person (3 Dec 79 - Kremlin rate $182.40 - World free - market rate $370.29) and includes lodging, meal coupons, and three hours of guide and automobile service per person (thus six hours for a couple) - if you get it. It does not include any train, plane, or bus fares. Add these in, plus round trip air coach fares from New York, and a month in the Soviet Union will cost an American couple at least $4500 (3 Dec 79 - Kremlin rate $27,360.00 - World rate $55,543.50), plus spending money and extras.

You will get at least twice as much for your money in any other part of Europe, but the real problem always is to get what you have paid for and Intourist has contracted to furnish you.

Start by realizing that Intourist is not really a travel service in the sense in which Thos. Cook or American Express is. It is a bureau of the Communist government and its function is to get those Yankee dollars in advance, channel you through a fixed route, then spill you out at the far end almost as ignorant of their country as when you started. P. T. Barnum's famous sign "This Way to the Egress" anticipated the basic Intourist principle: Get the sucker's money first, then get rid of him with the least trouble to the management.