>I don't think factoring them in would change very much. Unless we're
>talking about the top-top of the CPSU hierarchy, the elite
>(political, scientific, cultural) had better access to housing and
>the special shops where you could buy Western goods legally, but I
>don't think your average apparatchik or Soviet physicist was living
>high on the hog. Certainly nothing like today -- Alla Pugacheva
>(Russia's Bette Midler) used to pull in maybe $100 a concert. Now
>she must get $20,000. At the very least.
Back during the height of perestroika, I read a heartbreaking tale of the head of construction for the entire Leningrad region who lived with his family in a two-bedroom apartment. It's not like that any more, is it?
Doug