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[Read Calling Moscow (Part 7).]
In this episode: Random city government. Madmen in control as the doers return. Last vestiges that won’t wash away.
I’m trying to get a feel for how the chaos of post-Soviet-collapse Russia has panned-out. What grew out of all the upheaval? Have things improved? Neil tells me:
“Things have moved on a bit and some cities (not all) have managed to clean themselves up and have got mostly working public infrastructure. But it varies very much from city to city. Some cities have still got old, Soviet Era nutters running the show, and, often, very, very badly. Other cities are doing very well out of it. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. It’s purely luck of the draw… who managed to get good city government and who managed to get bad. So, public morale varies from place to place according to how the local government is being run.”
And what of the working population at large? “A lot of the people had to learn new tricks in order to survive in the new world. Sometimes, very able people who knew how to do their jobs fell by the wayside because they didn’t know how to make money from doing their jobs. It panned out later that the new breed of administrators, managers and consultants realised that they needed a team of capable people who may not necessarily know the slightest thing about profit and loss accounts. And slowly, those competent people have found their way back into the system as do-ers who aren’t necessarily involved in the management of anything. Primarily it’s actually the opposite that’s happened: that people, bosses, who didn’t know anything about business at all saw the possibilities that their organisation had for making money and they just clung onto their jobs viciously, and got in some smart people underneath them to make the money. But they clung on… even though they’re often useless as business people. That’s the more common scenario that worked out.”
Neil relates an experience with the head of a hotel chain, “They absolutely fitted that bill of: Organisations-Run-By Former-Soviet-Madmen.” Just as Neil was going into the meeting, the boss’ secretary said, “He’s a bit strange, just humour him, will you?” As they sat down, Neil was asked, “What do you think about the Cosmos?” He replied, “The Cosmos hotel? It’s a big hotel isn’t it? The service standards are quite good…”
“No, I don’t mean that!” replied the boss. “I mean outer space! Do you think there are aliens in outer space?! I think there are!” And then, Neil tells me, “He went off-on-one, about aliens in outer space… for nearly an hour! It was completely potty but he absolutely believed that there were little green men controlling the Earth. So he’s a classic example of Soviet organisations in the hands of people who should never have been allowed to be anything other than the doorman…”
In retrospect the role of the Soviet regime as glue and veneer becomes apparent: To hold all the disparities together whilst at the same time covering up their deficiencies. Neil agrees: “Yes it was, and it promoted, very often, people who had no ability in the organisation, but were very strong members of the communist party. So they got their job, not because they knew anything about their organisation or the industry in which their organisation functioned, but because they had a good party history, which quite often meant you had complete idiots in charge. It was very frustrating, of course, for the middle management, when the senior management quite clearly hadn’t a clue what was going on…”
Hmm, there’s a sense of deja vu… But before I can nail it down, Neil continues: “For example, the tourism academy, which was teaching people how to work in the industry: the top people had never, ever worked in the tourist industry and weren’t interested in it. They were still, seven or eight years after Communism had finished, teaching courses on the role of tourism in a communist society…! But why?! Communism had ended! I taught there for a while and they were still insisting that the students who were supposed to be going into hotel management turn up for lectures about Soviet poets. It was just completely mad. It’s dying out though, it’s normalising… but it’s taking quite a long time.”
Neil is about to detail this phenomena; of antiquated old guard, inevitably found as dinosaurs, standing in the path of progress: The “Soviet-Strong-Men”.
Next time: Beware Soviet-Strong-Men at work. Lost Generation “P” and the Return of The Political Dead.
[Photo by Dennis Goedegebuure]
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Thank you for using my picture here, and the right attribution.
Great story, wonderful to read!