COW'S HAPPINESS

Im a city guy, but I like going to the country. Im quite aware of all the delight of milk fresh from the cow, young radish or freshly baked bread. However, all that was in the past, in the grandmother time. I am not aware of the things occurring in the village now.I mean that the country lived through the next velvety bourgeois revolution, the social system changed, and private property has to substitute collective and Soviet farms, hated and imposed in a forced way. They just had to die immediately, as vestiges of the old epoch. It is not quite clear, why they survive.In order to see what is happening in our agriculture, I set out for the collective farm «Sickle and Hammer»

«Russia just has to arrive at an agrarian cult»

COW'S HAPPINESS

LYRICAL INTRODUCTION

I am an expert in agriculture, and I recognize two features by which the village is different from the city. First, one can always feel approaching a village by ones hind quarters. This rule holds true regardless of what you are riding to the village: an old-fashioned truck, a route bus, or a Mercedes. Your feelings are very simple: the car where you sit starts jumping, you are separated from the seat for a moment, and then you crash on it again. In half an hour of such exercises, bruises might be observed on your rump. Im telling you that both as a man of the world and as a journalist once having worked as a rural correspondent in a city newspaper.

The second sign is the odor. The smell of manure. Whoever does not know what that is, he never smelled life. In both direct and figurative meanings. It is a powerful, buoyant aroma that gets through your snot-filled nostrils, caresses your soul, penetrates deep inside you and touches upon some delicate strings of my heart, my old rural roots (we have all come out of there). Having once sniffed that smell, you will never forget it.

Now when I was brought to the «Sickle and Hammer» in the car «Volga», I revealed only one of the signs. There was that smell. There was a road, but there were no usual sensations in the lower part of my body. After that, I knew for sure that some changes did occur in agriculture.

A VISIT TO THE CHAIRPERSON

Close to the substantial boxy white-brick building of the collective farm office, there were three cars: «Volga» of the deputy chairperson, «Zhiguli» of the chief accountant, and «Niva» of the chairperson. All the three cars were battered, dust-covered, and weather-beaten. In a word, three working cars. The chairperson, about whom I have heard a lot, and whom I liked to meet so much, did not turn to be present. Anna Zakharova (one of the three lady-chairpersons of collective farms) proved to be extremely progressive, and she proved that by flying off on a business trip to the city Dusseldorf (Germany), to exchange experience with colleagues on issues of potato cultivating.

For the sake of decency, they invite me, a journalist from the capital, to the chairpersons room and set up something in-between of a report, a presentation and a press conference. I represent the journalists, and the other party is represented by the deputy chairperson, chief accountant, chief engineer, and some other people. For several minutes, I was attacked by an abundance of figures: on growing milk yields, crops, harvest prospects, prices for combined fodder, and progressing hard drinking. The first three topics were used in order to discuss achievements, and two other ones to complain of poor life.

Earlier, under the Czar, there were several small villages in place of «Sickle and Hammer». Nobody can recall their names anymore. Later, under the Soviets, one of the republic-first agricultural communes was set up in them. Then, in 1969, they constructed a large village here, and established a collective farm. When the Soviets came to an end in the country, nothing happened to the collective farm. It went on working as before. Moreover, almost everybody at the «Sickle and Hammer» is sure it is the most advanced economic form. Ten years ago, when the economic structure changed in the country, and artificially imposed collective farms should have disintegrated themselves, which did not occur for some reason. At their general meeting, the collective farmers decided that its a sin to withdraw from such an advanced collective economy, and said: «Don't touch it». However, they had to obey the spirit of the time. On paper, they distributed all the land, allocated land plots (again, on paper), pretended they distributed the cows, and went on living as before. Every plot was gathered back into the collective farm, and they started again to cultivate them together.

AN ADVANCED VILLAGE SHOP

Vladimir Vysotsky noticed best the difference between a shop in the village and the city. He said: «State Department Stores is a shop, but with glass». A similar comment to city dwellers would be a village shop is your store, but without glass. And a little smaller. So the «Sickle and Hammer» shop has no glass windows. That is not the only difference. The main point is operates without cash. No, they haven't build communism in «Sickle and Hammer» yet, and they haven't reached capitalism with its credit cards. They did it much easier.

To avoid extra trouble and problems with copper and paper cash, the collective farm decided otherwise. A list comes to the shop: how much each farmer earned last month; so, the attendant sells the buyers commodities on a credit basis.

All working members of the farm are happy with such an advanced form of trade, and now they don't care for cash when they go shopping.

Lena, the shop attendant, told me that the farmers do not pay much attention to the shop. They buy foodstuffs only on great holidays like November 7 or the New Year. During the rest of the year, they say ones own is tastier and cheaper. Lena is a progressive girl, and she believes that in the XXI century it is silly to spend all your leisure time over the garden-bed, cultivating radish and other root crops. In the evening, one should go to the club. Or read books.

COLLECTIVE FARMERS LIFE

They are going neither to go bankrupt, nor to take back their shares in «Sickle and Hammer». However, their wages are not optimistic (by city standards). There are 380 persons in the farm, and together they have on the average Rb 500 — 600 thousand per month. The average of Rb 1200 — 1500 per capita. Livestock breeders get more than spare hands but less than tractor drivers do. Just an engineer gets less than chief engineer does, and a foreman has bonuses. And so on.

Naturally, every farmer has a house, a vegetable garden, a sty, and his potatoes. With all that spirit of collectivism and socialist consciousness, they plant 0.2 — 0.3 hectare of potatoes. As to the vegetable garden, there are onions, carrots, and tomatoes; there is a cow, pigs, sheep, hens, and geese in the sty. Everyone has his own small farmstead, and there is a large collective farm. Here is your own, you can cultivate and save. There is a collective farm, you can cultivate and earn.

As a rule, cash is no problem for both the collective farm and the farmers. Cash from the farm do not get into the mysterious moneybox and are not spent for contingencies, it goes for quite real, tangible and desirable things. Construction of residential houses. Last year, local builders commissioned 15 cottages for their own people. There is a queue here for housing, as in most Russian cities. The difference is that it moves faster. People in the queue are rank-and-file and usually young. Animal attendants, milkmaids, undergraduate students. A purely Soviet idyll.

LINKAGE BETWEEN THE CITY AND THE VILLAGE

In «Sickle and Hammer», people do not complain of their life, but they believe it to be unfair in many ways.

Look for yourselves, milk prices have been dropping for three months, while milk is bought from them for Rb 3.30. Prices for petrol have been rising roughly in the same proportion. On top of that, prices for power and gas grow all the time. The latter is of much concern. Most utilities are in private hands now, and former practice of ignoring any bills or annual debts for power, gas and other fruits of civilization wont do to date. Debtors are cut off from the pipeline next month, and connecting back is always problematic.

Neither of the villagers I polled could answer the following: why is it that prices for gas and other services grow as if they are on good mineral fertilizers while they are stable as rock for milk and meat from year to year. Even the local economist raised his hands to the sky and said with frustration, 'The devil only knows!»

The villagers beef and complain, but they do not want to leave their customers. JSC «Kholod» in Kazan receives regularly its 10 tons of fat cow milk every day. Having treated it and diluted it twice to 2-3% fat content, they sell it in the city for Rb 6 for a liter. The Kazan meat processing plant takes, slightly less regularly but just as happily, small and big carcasses for Rb 27 per kilo. Ready salami, sausages and other meat products, also diluted with fillers, thickeners, etc. are priced at Rb 60-80.

... A regular bus arrives at a public transportation stop. The bus route is from «Sickle and Hammer» to Kazan. The fare is Rb 7. Two teenagers wearing jeans and ties are waiting at the stop. Sasha and Lesha are students of Kazan Veterinary Academy. In two years they will stop going to the capital of Tatarstan every day and start working at their native collective farm. At least that is what they say to me. Incidentally, there are many people here with higher education, occupying almost every responsible position: agronomists, mechanics, livestock specialists, electricians, economists, and accountants... Almost as in Japan.

Dmitry AKSYONOV