I read of the distressed Guyanese male who is married to a Ukrainian and has a daughter, with wife and child living in Ukraine. He is working on a cruise line where he had met his wife. I don’t know how many Guyanese or Caribbean people experienced life in Ukraine. I did briefly and was most awed by the simplicity, friendliness, quietude (or docility), beauty, kindness, and charm of the Ukrainian people and in fact all of the people I interacted with during my visit to the Soviet Union. It was a memorable experience. In addition to meeting Ukrainians in USSR, I also met and dined with Ukrainians and other Soviet Union people in New Delhi and Mumbai where they would come shopping during the 1980s and onwards in my frequent trips in India. Ukrainians and Russians would stay, socialize, dined, and shopped in certain (low cost) sections of Delhi where I also stayed in my early visits to India before I moved to more upscale lodging and dining areas. The Ukrainians and Soviet people I encountered in India, Ukraine, New York, Boston, California and elsewhere were peace loving and decent and among the nicest people I met in my many travels.
I passed through the Ukrainian Soviet Republic when it was still part of the Soviet Union’s fifteen Socialist Republics, passing near dangerous Chernobyl Reactor sarcophagus, Kiev, etc. I also passed through several other republics traveling on a bus from East Germany to Poland (Brest Crossing with long lines of trucks, trains, and buses) to Byelorussia (now Belarus), into Ukraine, to the Russian Republic, and going on to other republics including the Baltic states and crossing over into Finland. That was more than thirty years ago when Gorbachev was General Secretary (de jure/de facto leader) during the period of glasnost and perestroika, but the Soviet Union was on the verge dissolution. Guyana itself was undergoing glasnost and perestroika (or Hoytestroika as my political scientist friends Vassan Ramracha, Baytoram Ramharack, etc. called it). Ukraine, like most of the other Republics, especially the countryside was largely ‘underdeveloped’, using my economist hat to describe them. The cities like Minsk, Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg, Stalingrad, Kaliningrad, etc.) were very ‘developed’. I was amazed at the beauty of the subways of the Soviet Union – more than a block in depth and very decorated with some of the most beautiful ornaments and crystal chandeliers). They were the most beautiful I experienced and I visited subways of dozens of countries. The trains were very efficient, running on time, fast and extremely cheap (just one ruble at the time or the equivalent of two cents if I remember correctly when I changed my dollar at the black market). The subways in Kiev, as it was called then, and other cities would have been the same. Food and clothing were very cheap all over the Soviet Union but food (especially meat and bread) was very scarce and rationed. I remember a fur coat I saw in New York was less than $100 at the Gumb Store in Moscow. Sneakers and blue jeans were not available. I bought a coat for my mother at Gumb store. In one of the shops on the countryside, I bought a half gallon of Vodka (three times distilled) for just $1.
Locals were not allowed to shop at certain stores and there were special stores for foreigners like me. My Guyana passport was treasured then. I didn’t need a visa to pass through East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet bloc. In several major cities, I bounced up foreign students (South Asians, including Guyanese, Hispanics, and Africans). Most of them were in Moscow. On weekends and during their school holidays, they would hang out on regular spots at bridges in the cities. Foreigners, including Guyanese, were grant scholarships in ‘lower rated’ universities like Patrice Lumumba (Friendship Univ). There were probably hundreds of thousands foreign students on scholarships in USSR. Few Guyanese were admitted into the prestigious universities. Dr Rudy Jadoopat stood out as among a few who claimed to have studied at Moscow State University where Raisa Gorbachev (wife of the Soviet ruler) was affiliated. Unlike other Guyanese, Jadoopat did not study on a PPP scholarship. Rather, he received a labor union NAACIE scholarship, becoming the first Guyanese to receive a labor union scholarship. Other Guyanese got PPP, PNC, and Guyana government scholarships at Lumumba Univ. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) gave party scholarship to the PPP since the 1960s. During the 1970s, as Burnham veered leftward, the CPSU gave scholarships to Burnham’s PNC party. The government of the Soviet Union also gave scholarships to the government of Guyana. Almost all of the PPP scholarship recipients were Indians and almost all of the PNC and PNC government scholarship recipients were Africans. Jadoopat studied at Ukraine State University (Donetsk) for his MA and because he excelled in his studies he won a scholarship to do a PhD at Moscow State. Unlike most other countries, the Soviet Union did/does not offer a BA Degree as in the rest of the world but a six years MA degree. From high school, one goes straight into a MA program. Besides Jadoopat, a handful of other Guyanese also studied in Ukraine on scholarships during Soviet era. Many Guyanese students studied in various republics of the USSR; most were students in the Russian republic. In recent years, tens of thousands of Indians (from India and even some from Mauritius and Fiji) studied (and are studying) medicine in Ukraine. Currently, some 20K Indians are studying medicine in Ukraine.
During the Soviet era, some 90% of the people of Donetsk and the Dunbass region of Ukraine were ethnic Russians, probably why Putin wants to cling to it; that percentage dropped to about 75% today as Russians moved out and Ukrainians moved in. It was (and probably still is) one of the richest parts of the Soviet Union/Ukraine at one time.
When I visited Soviet Union, I interacted with students who I happened upon in the cities especially Moscow where they would hang out (as we did in Guyana) in a bridge sitting on a rail chatting and taking on the site. Not far from there was the Friendship Univ and the Guyana Embassy/Consulate. Guyanese related how they crossed over into the West, shopped, and brought back goods that they sold for three times the price they paid, earning scarce money. Jeans, women clothing, cosmetics, sneakers, and tape recorders were in demand. When I was in Moscow, a youngster came up to me and offered to buy the sneakers I was wearing. I told him to return the next morning. He also asked for jeans which I did not have. I shared candies, cookies, chocolates and mementos with some friendly people. He showed up next day, and as promised, I wore my shoes and gave him my sneakers. I don’t remember if my wife gave away her jeans but others who were on tours exchanged jeans for gifts or cash. One day in Moscow, I saw a long line of people stretching from a bakery. I decided to join it recalling my joining lines in Guyana for basic goods. I purchased a long sweetish hot bread (don’t remember name of it) that was quite tasty for the equivalent of just a cent or two of American money. The cashiers were friendly. People in general were glad to converse with me to practice their English they were learning. There was isolated incidents of foreign students being beaten by criminal male elements out of jealousy when foreign male students were seen with White females; most foreign students were males. Another source of friction between foreign students and locals was in trading of goods. Russians used the foreign students to travel in the West to engage in trade. When things didn’t go right, the students could be beaten.
I had most pleasant memories in the Soviet Union traveling around the various republics of country. I don’t think Americans were allowed in certain parts of the Soviet Union. But my Guyana passport took me to several places as it also did when I visited China. And as an ethnic Indian, there were no restrictions on my movement in Soviet Union unlike my experience in China where tourist police monitored my every movement during my first visit as a student in 1985; in subsequent visits, the police in China did not intimidate visitors.
In addition to Soviet Union, I also visited Soviet bloc countries like Hungary, Romania, Czech, Slovakia, etc., some multiple times. Some of my most unpleasant (racist) encounters were in East Germany (Leipzig) and Hungary (Budapest) by racist ethno-nationalists who don’t like non-Whites and my friendliest experiences were with Ukrainians in what was then USSR.
By Vishnu Bisram
