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The Book of the Week is “Dreaming in Russian, a memoir [sic]” by Anya Gillinson, published in 2024. In this wordy, redundant volume, the author recounted the story of her exceptional life. She was born in Russia in the mid 1970’s.
Fortune smiled on the author due to various highly unlikely circumstances. As is well known, after the Russian Revolution in 1918, the USSR’s government discriminated against Jews in higher education and employment.
Nevertheless, the author’s Jewish father became a medical doctor in Russia. His charisma and extreme dedication to his patients in a specialty in high demand– pulmonary cardiology– allowed him to run a very busy medical practice. He made valuable business-contacts with all walks of life, so that his family was able to have a luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by only Communist Party elites.
Ironically, there was gender equality (!). Women got pay equal to the men’s pay for equal work. The women got paid maternity leave, and daycare was freely available. And abortion was legal because many men were mean drunks, so many women didn’t want children.
Before the late 1980’s, ordinary Soviet people: had extremely cramped housing, had to wait in line for hours for basic foodstuffs, and could ill-afford to pay bribes to acquire fancy items. There were always shortages of clothing, toiletries and other basic necessities. There was intense societal pressure to conform– wear the same clothing as everyone else, and live frugally for the collective good of the Soviet people.
Loyalty to one’s friends and family was taken very seriously. Russian teachers would condone what would be considered cheating in the United States– if a student told a friend the answer to a question during an exam– that represented loyalty.
Read the book to learn: 1) of the numerous other instances of great good luck had by the author that led her to finally find a truly happy life; a life she would never have lived had she been a common Soviet citizen; and 2) more about how the numerous similarities between the United States and former USSR are increasing due to the following: Party Elites are loyal to one another, their wealth is increasing, their criminality is increasing, and they are imposing policies that make the poor, poorer!