Евгений Лиманский – Confession… A fairy tale in the style of sentimental cynicism (страница 2)
When I was in the first year of university, my classmate Kiev Jew Yasha Brotsman invited my friend Andrey Panin after a winter session to stay with him in Kiev. The thing was that Andrey’s mother, a teacher of mathematics at our University at the time helped Yasha to enter the University. And then she supervised him almost the entire period of study, because to protect Yasha constantly it was much necessary. The fact is that Yasha, despite his Jewish origin, was slacker and was constantly on the verge of expulsion from University.
Well, and Andrey of the friendliest motives decided to take me with him. Yasha, after a short hesitation and, apparently, negotiations with his parents, agreed. So, we flew to the glorious city of Kiev for the winter holidays. Yes, I will tell you, dear sirs, I did not have such a grandiose vacation neither before nor after. The fact is that in Kiev, just on the eve for a reason; that I still have not understood, Kegelbahn or as we call it now Bowling on 4 tracks was opened. Now it is difficult for anyone to surprise with this, for example, I go to bowling, very rarely, if my friends drag me in. But then, in the mid-seventies of last century, it was the highest delight and indescribable pleasure. By the way, this very Bowling alley was not officially opened yet, and the only we played this bowling. Yasha invited his local friend Marek and we together with Andrei spent whole days, as we joked between us, were fighting against the Jews in this very bowling alley. The theme was topical, because at that time with variable success there was a permanent Arab-Israeli war, and we certainly were for the Arabs. Once, when the game was in full swing, the members of the Supreme Council of Ukraine were brought for viewing Bowling alley, and we, with the air of connoisseurs, explained to them the basics of this bourgeois game. A responsible Jew from bowling explained to the deputies that we were experienced experts on the game of bowling from Moscow, and we behaved accordingly, especially since in four days of continuous play we actually became such.
In addition to bowling, we watched the play in Russian Drama Theater with the incomparable Ada Rogovtsev, naturally in the first row, visited the concert of Sofia Rotaru, again on the first row. All the rest time we studied the Kiev restaurants. On rare evenings at Yasha’s family home, we got drunk Muscat champagne Abrau-Durso.
– Yashenka, run down to the shop, bring the champagne, our beloved one, – usually said Yasha’s papa Abram Samuilovich before dinner. And Yashka, one foot here, the other there, in three minutes was coming back with 3—4 bottles. Well it was short way to go down to the shop from the second floor to the first in their two-story house.
Before that I did not even know the name of Muscat champagne and I tried it for the first time then and I adore it until now, however, now, mainly in Italian performance. And the secret of providing of this entire VIP rest was that Abram Samuilovich had a private wine shop in the Podol area. That is, just only imagine, in the middle of the seventies, in the midst of socialism, a private wine shop. First, how? Secondly, can you imagine else what a gold mine it was?!
Then Yasha and I crossed closely once more at military training after the fourth year of the university. I, as person with artistic abilities, was sent to the headquarters to draw visual agitation, and Yashka simply bought for himself a place for a clerk at the headquarters. Our comrades trained to dig trenches and shoot from the tank, and we in the breaks from exhausting labor of “rear rats” reminisced with a bottle of port wine that wonderful vacation at the first-year study.
A few years later, in the early eighties, their entire family successfully immigrated to the United States of America, and, as I heard, they even very much there thrive. Apparently, Yasha’s father was able to take out those considerable assets that they had. Let me remind you that the dollar in those days cost sixty kopecks at the official rate and three rubles at an unofficial rate, that is, they had a lot of these dollars. How he managed to do it, a mystery covered in gloom, but on this account in those years among the people the fable was prevalent that it was relatively simple to do. Let us say you have a million dollars. You invite to your home or other place where you keep these dollars two representatives of the American Embassy and with the registration of the relevant act, you simply burn these very dollars. Then, if you have a visa for permanent residence safely depart to sunny America. And there the Ministry of Finance or the Federal Reserve Bank, or who is authorized there, give you another million new crunchy dollars on the basis of the act of burning.
Actually, with all this, I just wanted to say that, even on my unenlightened opinion of the Soviet schoolboy and then of the student of the 70th of last century, the Top class in the USSR, after all, was.
I remember that I was struck by the gradation in the Top class. The Top-Low subclass includes all millionaires. You earned a million dollars and you are already in the elite of society. Further rudely Top-Middle subclass, I do not exactly remember, but let us say it started from 100 million dollars of personal capital, well, and to one billion. However, the most interesting thing is that becoming a billionaire does not mean getting into the Top-Top subclass. The Top-Top subclass according to Zorin includes the families of the Rockefellers and Kennedy, but the upstart Howard Hughes is a representative only of the Top-Middle class, despite all his billions. That is, the Top-Top class includes the families with centuries-old traditions of billionaires, at this level there is already a complete fusion of capital and power. The Kennedy clan is, in this sense, a textbook example.
Zorin also argued that if movement within the class is still possible, then moving between classes, and even more moving up, is more an exception, and quite rare and deserves a separate study in each case. Zorin gives an example of the talented student Henry Kissinger, whom the Rockefeller’s collector remarked and provided him with a successful start, appointing him a Rockefeller scholarship, made a dizzying political career and ended up in the political elite of American society and the world.
To modern Russia, in my opinion, this classification according to Zorin can be attributed in full, well, maybe with some reservations, for example, regarding the Top class. Of course, the Top class is now in the process of formation and the merging of the power and capital is only still taking place, and there is no possibility to speak about any traditions in this area. In my opinion, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar from the time of my youth to the Top-Low subclass, it is possible to include all those who have personal capital from 5 to 100 million dollars (of course, we are talking about the ruble equivalent). Accordingly, to the Top-Middle subclass we include all those who own from 100 million Up to 1 billion.
It is not very clear what to do with the Top-Top subclass. On the one hand, there is still no such subclass in the classical sense, because there are no traditions, but on the other, what to do with those who have a billion or more dollars. My suggestion is to simplify and to include all these people to the Top-Top subclass. As a commentary to the existing status quo, it can also be added that, in my persistent conviction, at least 80 percent of the origin of the present Top class is directly related to crime or violation of the law to a greater or lesser extent. The remaining 20% owe their origin to talent, diligence and banal luck.
When I reread the previous paragraph, after a while, I realized that it was a rather amateurish way of looking at things, and everything is actually very clear with the Top-Top subclass in Russia, and is as follows. It was in the US it took several centuries for a Top-Top subclass born and has formed, but in Russia this subclass was formed in about 10—15 years starting from 1987—88 years. Because it was formed very simply. The most energetic and active representatives of the highest bureaucracy simply divided the wealth of the country among themselves, and by the end of the specified period the freshly baked Top-Top subclass simply just was born. It is clear that bureaucrats shared the country’s wealth by the billions, and so these senior bureaucrats have become after all our new Top-Top subclass. Of course, in the process of sharing of billions someone was trampled. But those who survived the sharing just got a billion or more dollars and took the highest point in the socio-economic structure of the society. Next a smaller division of wealth was. Regional bureaucrats held a similar local dividing of that is not useful Moscow officials, and respectively formed a Top-Middle subclass. But the previous paragraph should remain as an example of inexperienced and superficial look at the issue.