The Russians

As some Soviet doctors emigrated along with other Jews in the Seventies, both American and Israeli doctors who were trying to help them adjust to foreign medical systems were surprised to find Soviet doctors generally less qualified than they had expected.

By 1970, the Soviet Union had the highest ratio of doctors to population in the world — 23.8 doctors for each 10,000 persons (compared to 15.8 in the U.S.).

Travel is cheap. A Russian can ride a train or plane 1,000 miles and spend only 50-60 rubles ($66-80).

The military sector is the only sector of the Soviet economy which operates like a market economy.

By Western estimates, for example, Russia spent $45 billion on manned space flight from 1958 to 1973 compared to $25 billion spent by America.

We were tasting Bulgarian canned goods and we were almost thrilled with the high quality and good taste. We asked the representative of the Bulgarian firm how they managed such high quality. He looked at us in surprise: 'Why— we always follow your Soviet recipes and technology without change.'

Martic Martentz, an Armenian-American Communist who voluntarily returned from New York to try living in the Soviet Union, told me he was astonished at the Soviet image of Americans. "They think everyone [in America] is rich," he gasped. "They don't realize how hard people have to work in America."

Although Russians are capable of great exertion if pressed to produce, sustained hard work is not a national characteristic. They do not have the work ethic of Americans, Germans, or Japanese.

Russians are genuinely put off by the impatience of Westerners, especially Americans, who go up the wall with frustration at the dawdling uncertainties of Russian life.

The Russian sense of time is at once enchantingly and frustratingly loose or nonexistent. It bears little relation to time in a commercial society.

In the world at large, Russians have a reputation for discipline because of their seemingly docile obedience to authority. But this is a discipline imposed from outside. Left to their own devices, Russians are generally an easy-going, disorderly, pleasantly disorganized, and not very efficient people.

In July 1975, C.I.A. economists calculated that from 1968-1974, the Soviet Gross National Product rose from $555 to $722 billion while American GNP rose from $1,090 to $1,266 billion, giving the Soviet economy an annual growth rate close to 4.7 percent compared to about 2.4 percent for the American economy.

With economic controls and centralized pricing, Russians have cushioned themselves from the gyrations of boom-and-bust and double-digit inflation that have rocked Western economies.

Thanks to Lenin's belief in electricity, most peasant homes have lights — and television. But plumbing remains a luxury for the future.

Russians often brag about how much they read. But I saw only half a dozen people glancing at newspapers.

One unusual article in March 1975, revealed that 27 percent of the total value of Soviet farm output — about $32.5 billion worth a year — comes from private plots that occupy less than one percent of the nation's agricultural lands

Westerners forget that far from the scene, they sometimes know more about some Soviet historical events than young Russians themselves.

In 1970, the Soviet Union had 11 million phones compared to 120 million in America.

Affairs in working-class dormitory buildings, Writers' Union hideaways, and hostels are reportedly so common, that Russians joke, "We don't need prostitution, we have hostels."

Given the shortage of men after World War II, Russian women have gained a reputation for being forward.