Revisiting a Family
In Russia 7 Years Later
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The Starodubovs Bicker, Fret
Under Reality's Grind;
Meat Pies Pay the Bills
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Like 'Claws on Your Soul'

MOSCOW -- On the street, Svetlana Starodubov stifles her rage. In the privacy of her own apartment, she's falling apart.

As the ruble sags, prices climb and shops empty, the stocky 43-year-old meatpie vendor paces her apartment in the middle of the night. She calls her husband a "vampire" and "lazy drunk." He says she's a nag. The two spend many nights apart; he stays in their new apartment while she camps out at the communal flat where they used to live.

When Mrs. Starodubov and her husband, Vitaly, first appeared on these pages in 1991, communism was crumbling and the couple worried they wouldn't be able to provide for themselves in the harsh new market economy. For Mrs. Starodubov, "it was like being thrown into a boiling vat and told to find our own way out."

For a time, they thought that they had crawled at least to the rim. They got a new apartment, a color TV and Sony VCR. They found jobs in the private sector and learned to work long hours for extra pay.

But the market economy that the Starodubovs and other working-class families had fumbled their way through has imploded, leaving them more anxious and confused than ever. In 1991, they worried about keeping up as the country rushed toward capitalism. Now they have no idea where they or the country are going.

Russia's financial crisis has knocked them back into the vat. Their incomes are sinking, and prices are rising. They don't own stocks in privatized former state companies or have permanent jobs. But at one point, they benefited from those who did. Mr. Starodubov, a 40-year-old construction worker, laid polished Italian granite tiles for Moscow's new commercial banks. Most of the banks are now bust.

On one level, the Starodubovs' spats are like those of any couple whose marriage has gone wrong. Yet they also reflect the tensions of a society once again in turmoil. Times of economic stress increase rates of depression and disease, health experts say, and Russian newspapers in recent weeks have been filled with macabre reports: A locksmith in southern Russia burned himself to death after not receiving a paycheck for two years. In Moscow, a young man committed suicide after he lost his savings and his fiancee walked away.

Like most Russians, the Starodubovs aren't about to take their anger to the streets. They don't see what would be gained by overthrowing the system. But they yearn for someone to bring stability to their lives. The "democrats" in power have done as little for the common man, they think, as the Communists before them. "We're not ready for democracy," Mr. Starodubov says. "We just don't understand it. Russia needs a firm hand-not a Lenin or a Stalin, but still a firm hand."

A recent workday begins for Mrs. Starodubov at 9 a.m. Arriving at a teeming outdoor market, she dons a stained white frock. Tables are groaning with vegetables and fruits, and the air is thick with the odor of pickled garlic. In Soviet times, Mrs. Starodubov earned a paltry salary just for showing up at the state-run warehouse where she was a clerk. She had no idea how private business worked.

Today, the amount she earns depends on how much she sells. Her boss is no longer the state, but a middle-aged Tatar woman who runs a small meat-pie franchise in the Vykhino market, a gritty bazaar in a working-class neighborhood. To earn her 50 rubles a day, Mrs. Starodubov must sell 70 pies. It means hustling for eight hours on her feet with only a few short breaks. She says she sells more pies than anyone else. And when the pies sell slowly, she earns a few extra rubles packing cabbages in sacks. "Under the old system, only people who stole got ahead," she says. "Here, you can work for yourself. You smile at people and they smile back. People are learning to live life all over again."

For a time, she dreamed of starting her own business. But that hope has perished. Once again, the issue is survival. Her boss has raised the price of the pies to five rubles from three, but takes pity on Mrs. Starodubov, who she knows is supporting her family, and lets her sell them for four.

In the Soviet era, the Starodubovs spent hours in lines to buy cooking oil or milk. Now they can buy food on any street corner. But they can't afford much. Mrs. Starodubov's salary has stayed the same since the ruble started falling in mid-August, while prices have gone up 67%. In dollar terms, she earns about $3.75 a day.

Mr. Starodubov has been staying home of late. Normally, he works on two- to three-month construction jobs on contract for private firms. But no one has cash now to build.

They waited 16 years for the flat, a boxy two-room space on the 13th floor of a concrete housing block. The small elevator doesn't always work -- sometimes it will come down only to the third floor, so they must walk up and then take it.

Until they moved here, the Starodubovs were crowded with their two children into one tiny room of the communal apartment. After waiting on a Soviet-era list and finally getting the new apartment three years ago, they rented it out for a year to nine Ukrainian workers for $250 a month.

With the cash, they bought a "foreign" car, Mr. Starodubov jokes: A cheap Tavria sedan, made in neighboring Ukraine. The car is used only occasionally, as when the family goes to visit Mr. Starodubov's mother, who lives about 250 miles south of Moscow. Mr. Starodubov used to have a car he called his Rolls-Royce, but it was stolen soon after the Journal article in 1991.

By the time they moved into their apartment two years ago, construction was booming in Moscow and Mr. Starodubov was bringing home regular pay. For adorning their garish new offices well and quickly, some banks would give him bonuses of $100. He bought a big Russian-built, Western-style refrigerator to replace an old model that they used to open with thick gloves so as to avoid electric shock. They also replaced the Soviet black-and-white TV with a big Grundig color model.

He pilfered some pink and black granite tiles from one bank and used them to pave the floor of the apartment's dark, fetid bathroom. Another financial institution yielded some leftover gray industrial carpet for the floor, though Mr. Starodubov has yet to lay the carpet. Mrs. Starodubov bought shelves, wallpaper and light fixtures, "all the cheapest kinds," she says.

Sergei, their 19-year-old son, sleeps on a sofa in the living room, while the parents and Irina, age seven, sleep in the one bedroom. Just off the bedroom is a small balcony where the family keeps the potatoes, pickles and onions they brought back from the garden of Mr. Starodubov's mother to sustain them this winter.

In the kitchen, a makeshift shelf, held up by a chair on one end and a sink on the other, holds soap and drying dishes. The family uses bar soap to wash dishes to save on detergent.

Things were looking up until last year, when Mr. Starodubov started having trouble collecting his pay. After working at an office building owned by Tokobank, he got paid in installments of 500 to 1,000 rubles for three months. But the big Russian bank closed this summer. "It's humiliating," he says. "You give an honest effort, and they deceive you."

Then, lured by an offer of the ruble equivalent of $1,000 a month, he left his family for three months to help refurbish some buildings at the Baikonur space center in Kazakstan, about 1,800 miles away. He had arranged for his pay to be sent to his wife, but nothing came in.

So Mrs. Starodubov starting selling meat pies. She had hoped to rely on her husband's salary after quitting a 280-rublea-month job as a cleaning woman at a factory that makes ventilators. She had gone to work there after Irina turned three and her state stipend for new mothers ran out. But she hated it because the boss was a "self-important necktie" who she says treated her like a vassal.

Mr. Starodubov, looking since May for his salary from Baikonur, picks up his umbrella and goes outside to a pay phone. The Starodubovs don't have a phone in their apartment because, while the service itself is cheap, installing a phone means either waiting at least five years for the state to allocate a line, or paying around $2,000 for a private service.

He reaches the phone and dials the contractor. He is still owed 6,000 rubles. Back when he did the work, it was worth $1,000. Now it's about $375.

No one answers. He resolves to try again in a few hours, and heads for the store. He has only 250 rubles left from his last disbursement. He buys a loaf of bread, whose 2.70-ruble price tag is one of the few that hasn't been raised, a three-ruble beer and a pack of Russian cigarettes for 2.50 rubles. Normally he smokes L&M, but they cost 15 rubles a pack now, up from three rubles a month ago.

Mr. Starodubov's helplessness frustrates and angers his wife, whose salary is too little for the family to live on. At home that night, weary and sore, she yells at him to get a job. "Half of Moscow is under construction!" she barks.

Her anger overcomes her once in a while. She chased him around the apartment one night with a plastic rod, calling him a "vampire," he says, after watching a translated version of Quentin Tarantino's "From Dusk Till Dawn," which Sergei has brought home on video.

A few days later, she moves out to their old room in the communal apartment, which they have held on to for 50 rubles a month; the other apartment costs 144 rubles a month. They did this by deploying a bureaucratic ruse perfected by millions of couples in the Soviet era: As soon as they got the apartment three years ago, they divorced. Each is registered now at one of the state-owned properties. Because one is a communal flat slated to be broken up, they're in line for a second new flat, which might eventually be used by the children when they move out.

A few mornings after she has left, a co-worker drops by to tell Mr. Starodubov he can get his remaining salary from Baikonur that afternoon.

Mr. Starodubov picks up Irina from school. She has started first grade a year late because of developmental problems that are likely connected to trauma at birth that damaged a nerve in her neck. The car is broken, so they take a bus, the metro, a suburban train, and then another bus to get to the office where the money supposedly awaits. After a wait of an hour or so, the department director emerges, counts out 5,500 rubles, and tells Mr. Starodubov he'll have to come back another time for the other 500 rubles. "They do that just to keep you hanging," Mr. Starodubov says later in disgust.

To celebrate, he drinks heavily at home that night. The next day, he takes Irina shopping to a small grocery store. Inside, some worried women are asking the manager when he's going to raise prices again. Some brands of Russian sausage are 105 rubles a kilogram, which is $16.60 at the ruble's rate before it started to fall.

Mr. Starodubov spends 19 rubles for half a kilogram of the cheapest bologna. He wants some kasha or buckwheat, but most long-life staples have been bought out. Impulsively, he buys Irina a treat: For four rubles she gets some vanilla ice cream in a chocolate-coated roll. For himself, he buys a five-ruble beer.

At a farmers' market, Mr. Starodubov picks over some dill and peppers for two rubles each. He stands in line for a slab of fresh butter for 15 rubles, up from four rubles in just a week.

As noon approaches, Irina begs her father to buy her some shashlik, or grilled kebabs. He hesitates; it's 16 rubles for five pieces of beef from a sidewalk vendor. But he gives in.

Economizing has never been easy for him. When Journal readers sent the Starodubovs $350 back in 1991, they spent it all quickly. They wasted about $30 on a pair of Chinese-made sneakers for Sergei that turned out to be mismatched and quickly fell apart.

But Mr. Starodubov will have to watch his rubles now. Until his wife comes back, he will have to stay home and take care of Irina. Sergei, who spends a lot of his evenings either at discos or watching American horror or action films on television, has just finished vocational school and is waiting to be drafted into the army for a two-year stint. Once the money runs out, Mr. Starodubov says, he can sell the garage where he stores the Tavria and live on the proceeds for a while. The family has 1,000 rubles that Mrs. Starodubov has kept in the state savings bank-worth only $62 now.

But then he'll have to find some work. "I can't just lie on the railroad tracks," he says, referring to coal miners who staged protests earlier this year in Siberia.

Back at the apartment, he shows Irina how to unlock the door. She must learn, he tells her, because if he goes back to work, he may have to leave her alone. She struggles to turn the key in the lock. Finally, he turns it for her.

"You get by day to day and keep a smile on your face," he says. "But inside, you feel like cats are sharpening their claws on your soul."