 WETA 26, Public Television for Greater Washington. The following corporate members have made major contributions to support quality programming on WETA Channel 26. Chevron, USA. Time Incorporated Foundation Incorporated. And Marriott Corporation. WETA's local broadcast of Channel 3, Moscow with Mark Russell is made possible by a grant from the Himmelfarb Foundation. Afghanistan. During the past year, this once secret fighting has been transformed into a living room war for millions of viewers of Soviet television. Good evening, I'm Mark Russell. Tonight for the next hour, we'll be bringing you these and other highlights from the past year on Soviet TV. Intriguing and sometimes surprising glimpses into the world of Soviet culture, arts and news through the eye of the Soviet state-controlled media. It promises to be a fascinating hour, so stick with us for Channel 3, Moscow. TV Moscow with Mark Russell. Made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Last spring, while working on a documentary on international satellite technology, a group of producers here at Minnesota Public Television stumbled across this piece of videotape. The flickering images were from Soviet television showing a class full of Moscow school children struggling with the American classic We Shall Overcome, accompanied by a scratchy recording of folk singer Pete Seeger. In the months since then, Minnesota Public Television with the help of Creighton University has taken on the job of monitoring, translating, and analyzing hundreds of hours of domestic Soviet television. TV intercepted with some difficulty directly from an orbiting Soviet satellite and not intended for western eyes. Receiving the Soviet TV signal was an exceedingly tricky procedure and one that often resulted in less than perfect video quality. But the results over the past year have been an unusual look at the government and the people of the Soviet Union. Tonight, we bring you the year's highlights. We begin with a look at how Soviet TV reflects culture and entertainment in the Soviet Union. Everything from popular music to game shows, and one very visible element of Soviet culture is ballet. As we see in this first story, even children in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk must start early in the pursuit of a career in dance. Day is the last day of three days of auditions. You can have an ideal figure, an excellent walk, great leaping ability. But if you aren't musical, if you don't have a sense of rhythm and innate artistic ability, then you do not have a future in ballet. For some reason, the fathers seem to be the most worried. Oh, no, they're not on the list and they tried so hard. For our friend Masha, from far away so good, it looks like Lady Luck has smiled on her today. And now they have to wait for September 1st. While many Americans envision Soviets as being rather dull and humorless, we've seen several reminders this past year that the Soviets laugh at many of the same things we do, like this stand-up comedy routine about dieting. This morning, as usual, the discussion at the vacation home was about losing weight. Before breakfast, a line had formed at the scales. A woman of pleasant demeanor and unpleasant physique was engrossed in the process of weighing herself. However, her true weight was confirmed by other women in line. It's a well-known fact that the best diet is the following. Eat your own breakfast, share lunch with a friend, and give your dinner to an enemy. Following this advice, most women give their dinner to their husbands. If a woman isn't married, she gives her dinner to her best girlfriend. Enjoying a good laugh isn't the only thing we have in common with the Soviets. Just like us, they seem to enjoy the competition of TV game shows. And now for the fourth round, the compositions of the Swedish anti-fascist writer Lagerfest. The score is 2-1, the televiewers are leading. We're starting the fourth round. Card number 33, attention! The familiar frying pan, quiet, we're listening. You remember when you last heard the question why in previous times captains of long journeys took a frying pan with them? You remember this, yes? By the way, you didn't answer this question the last time. Now we want to ask a similar question. They say that this type of frying pan was taken into flight by military pilots. Do you understand the question? Why was a frying pan needed by military pilots? One minute. Throughout the course of the past year, we've seen a number of examples of what many Westerners might view as a new sleekness in the Soviet approach to life. From televised fashion shows to the introduction of some high-tech consumer goods to a more open appreciation of Western music. When I think of all the times I've tried so hard to leave her she will turn to me and start to cry. While virtually unknown in his native United States, the late expatriate Dean Reid was for some unexplained reason one of the most popular singers in the Soviet Union. But while Western influence, especially in music, may be growing, it is not yet universally accepted. On April 15, for example, we saw this sarcastic exchange about the value of Western rock lyrics. Let's look at another group, Twisted Sister from New York City that is mentioned in this letter. They are especially popular. The leader of the group is the guitarist-singer Daniel D. Snyder. I'll show you what he looks like. Here is the cover of the American magazine Rock World. That's him on the right. He looks like some kind of strange being, maybe even resembling a female. In my opinion, it's a totally revolting spectacle. You can see the kind of situation where fans of hard rock become animals. They are quite aggressive and very dangerous. Having learned the kind of music offered at rock concerts, the metal fans play out the music's message on the streets. They form gangs and frequent areas populated by minorities and foreign workers. As you can see, all of this begins with the music of hard rock and heavy metal, and it ends with the beatings of perfectly innocent people. Finally, while politically charged music is rarely seen on Soviet TV, this piece-oriented rock video was one interesting exception. I give up. Why do the military pilots carry frying pans with them? Joining me here to talk a little bit about what we're seeing tonight are three Americans familiar with the Soviet Union, its culture and its history. Harrison Salisbury has traveled and written extensively about the Soviet Union. He's also former Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times. Nick Hayes, an author and professor of Soviet studies with McAllister College and Hamlin University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Angela Stent heads the department of Soviet studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Also with us is Jan Smaeby, who has for the past year been a part of the team in St. Paul engaged in monitoring Soviet TV. Okay, are we all in agreement now? They're absolutely correct about punk rock. Well, who knows? I mean, the point is Jerry Farrell would agree. A lot of conservative Americans would agree. But the problem is, the Soviets, rock has become a big controversy in the last few years. And they want a different image. They want a younger, more hip, European-type image. And therefore, what sort of rock is going to be acceptable? Some nice, cleaner stuff. Dean Reed, Wholesome, but not... Okay, they lumped in Elvis with Twisted Sister. Do they not know there is a difference? My only explanation for that is that some sort of old grudge from the Khrushchev era. I don't know why they slipped him in in that spot. I think what Nick's saying is very important. We mustn't forget there's really been progress. 24 years ago, Khrushchev denounced western pop music in words that are unrepeatable on primetime television. Now they accept the Beatles. True, Beatles are now almost classical music here. On the other hand, one sign that is not progress, which I, of course, have to mention here, is that the Twisted Sister lead singer was described as some alien, strange being or like a woman. I noticed that. They had film that obviously didn't coincide with what they were talking about. In other words, you had Twisted Sister, and it looked like old film from the 60s. But often, you know, that's what they do. They throw them all together and they put a stamp on it. The fellow doing it really doesn't know the difference. He is an old tire. He doesn't know the difference between one kind and another. And the other thing which they often do is they take an example and say, look at how horrible this is. Just listen to it. And of course, a lot of people listen to it and like it. Look at those kids in the audience. Great stuff. How much do they allow? Where do they draw the line with their musical groups? Lately, they allow quite a bit. In the last year or two, there's been a peculiar irony that they've discriminated and withheld a lot of the fundamental, allowed some Tamer Soviet groups on, but they've opened the door almost completely to most European groups. Italian, French, Spanish groups, a lot of British groups. No boy George on there. But the Americans are always a touchy subject. They kind of still seem to hang around with a little bit of Dean Reid here. Who was Dean Reid? Well, Dean deserves at least a moment's respect. American folk singer from the 60s, expatriated to Eastern Germany. He was the first American rock and folk singer to tour the Soviet Union in the 60s, and he was very popular primarily for that reason. He stayed there in East Germany. He made films. He made records. He was very popular, but of course virtually unknown outside the Eastern Bloc. Now, Harrison, you saw this with jazz at one time. Jazz was placed in the same category as that. Exactly. Before World War II, jazz was fine. They didn't have this nonsense about categorizing music. They had great jazz. They had the All-Union State Jazz Orchestra, which was a great thing, and they played great jazz. Then the line came down. No more jazz. It was terrible. African, beastly, cultured Americans was trying to use it to conquer the world, to set everybody at each other. They continued to have the orchestra, but they changed its name. It was the All-Union State Variety Orchestra, and they would stand up there and they'd play some examples. Listen, folks, I'm going to give you some examples of this terrible, awful music that comes out of America, and they'd play it, and then they'd have a lecture. This is dreadful stuff. Now, let me give you some more of this stuff, and it would be a whole concert, but all given under this age of denunciation. It was a way of getting by. What about the humorist we saw? We saw several humorists on Soviet television this past year. Who are the humorists in Soviet? There's many good comedians. This one was not... My impression was that that might have been some sort of special talent show for the humor impaired. I think by any Russian standard, he was not particularly good. It's unfortunate there's a lot of good comedy on, but this just happened to be a pretty tame... They're pretty good, the stand-up comedians. They often are able to survive terrible periods of oppression by making jokes that are quite on the borderline. Everybody understands them, but the Ministry of Culture can't quite catch them. People like that. Mark started out by saying he gave up. Why did the military carry a frying pan into the plane? Nick, why did they? Well, I've been wondering now throughout the whole program. I've heard a variety of answers for these. One is that they used to name airplanes after appliances because they made funny names. They used to call them like primus stoves. Another is because they flew so low over Europe, they needed extra protection, and the pilots had to sit on the frying pans. They could actually cook with them. But it might be best. Maybe we should let our viewers decide. They can phone in, and at the end of our program we're going to be showing some Soviet appliances and products, and maybe we should award the viewer who knows. We'll send you a PBS frying pan that'll go right into your tote bag. We're going to move on to the next segment now. A television is popular inside the Soviet Union, and viewers in Moscow have their choice of four channels, all state-controlled, and most are run out of this facility, Stankino, just outside of Moscow. Now, during much of the day, the four channels cover a variety of programming, ranging from arts to sports to information. But in the evening, all eyes turn to the only nationwide evening newscast known as Vremya. That means time. Now, many of tonight's clips are drawn from that program. Vremya almost always begins with stories from inside the USSR. Anything from the post Chernobyl cleanup to an on-the-street confrontation between the police and a group of J-walkers. But in our next story, we join Mikhail Gorbachev down on the collective farm. Will you fulfill your plan? We'll try. It's difficult. That's not an answer. We always try. Well, the weather, comrades, I'm giving a speech tonight in which I will say that our weather in our country is set for the next 100 years. Rain or no rain, we need to harvest. Agreed. I must say I'm expecting much from Kazakhstan because there's quality grain, grain for trade in Kazakhstan. Grain is an all-union problem here in Kazakhstan. Aside from trying to inspire good workers, another function of Soviet television appears to be to provide almost paternal reminders to viewers to be good citizens and good neighbors, as we see in this announcement from June of last year. Respected comrades, before continuing our programs, we remind you to maintain quiet in these evening hours. Please turn down your television's radios and tape players so you won't bother those who are already resting. Don't forget about our other ongoing request to economize on electrical energy, gas and water. As opposed to television in the West, Soviet TV news doesn't spend a lot of time covering natural disasters within the country. But on April 26th, one very unnatural disaster put Soviet TV news to the test. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl is not the kind of story Soviet television could completely ignore. The coverage began late, several days following the accident, with these now familiar scenes of limited damage at the reactor and this man on the street interview in Kiev. Excuse me, I'm from the program Vremya. How was your working day today? It went well, we worked. The voices of the West insist that Kiev is in a panic. I wouldn't say there was any panic. I can't consider it to be a serious question. Panic? What panic? There isn't any. I'm from the program Vremya. How was your first working day after the holiday? Well, I had to work during the holiday to evacuate people from the Pripyat region and Chernobyl. We were evacuating people to the Borodiansky region. What can I say? The transportation was well organized. We had no problems. By mid-summer, however, Soviet television was routinely handling Chernobyl as a major domestic story. In this next report from late July, viewers were shown a housing project for former Chernobyl-area residents. By fulfilling these orders, we consider ourselves as taking part in the Chernobyl cleanup. We understand what kind of conditions the people have to work under in there. So all of us Soviet people, including the workers at the Kuybyshev factory, are making our greatest effort to carry out our task in time and do the highest quality work. Sixteen prefab houses have already been supplied to Chernobyl workers, and by the end of August, the rest will be transported. The Chernobyl disaster is notwithstanding. Soviet TV now seems to be providing more open coverage of technology. During this past year, even Soviet space missions, once cloaked in secrecy, were broadcast live. Can you hear us? We hear you. We hear you very well. Yesterday at the press conference, you said you just wanted sleep. Do you manage to sleep well? Yes, we always do. Attention, the take-off will take place in one minute. All rocket systems and connections with the Earth monitoring system are fully ready for take-off. As was planned, the helicopter landed near the Soyuz 14 vehicle. Even stretchers were at the ready, but did not get used. Vladimir Vasyutin feels quite well and is ready to conduct a shootout. The second cosmonaut, researcher Alexander Volkov, sat down, followed by the third cosmonaut, Victor Solenev. How are you feeling? I'm feeling all right, the way I should, after landing. I am very happy to see people. It has been just the three of us for so long, it is nice to see so many people. Was your work successful? Well, not at all. I'm very happy to see people. It has been just the three of us for so long. Was your work successful? Well, not quite. Well, what can I say? The flight is over, much has been accomplished. I'd like to keep working, but we can't stay up there forever. Another regular element of Soviet television that frankly surprised us was chest coverage, featuring detailed move-by-move analysis. The only way to do it, because the Soviet Union loses immediately after the war. The deciding factor in a game came after 56 moves when the white attack became even stronger. Although the black king was able to move successfully toward the center of the board from a dangerous situation, the white position was overwhelming. Finally, one item from this past year really surprised us. Moscow pedestrians being stopped for jaywalking. The offense may be common, but we were amazed by the hostile exchanges between citizens and police. Where do you live? On the Black Sea. What do you mean the Black Sea? Where do you live? We came here as tourists. Where do you work? On a state farm. Why do you break the pedestrian laws? We didn't know where to cross. How couldn't you know? Well, we just didn't know. Where do you work? Can't you answer? No. Why? I don't want to. What do you mean you don't want to? This will mean we'll find you. Well, go ahead. I'll check on this, and at work they'll make a note of this and talk to you. What factory do you work in? Factory number two. What is your job? Day laborer. I'm going to check up on you. We're still catching our breath after the chess match. Listen, Russian national television, a jaywalking worthy of all that coverage? Well, for Americans who think that there's never anything negative on the Soviet media about the Soviet Union, this was a wonderful piece. It's a typical popular Soviet piece, and the sympathy goes, why is that policeman picking on that poor lady from the Black Sea? You see a worker lipping off to the policeman, there's a lot of disobedience there. I'm from Minsk, that's the way we walk. Don't bother me. Now, how much trouble is that guy in? He's going to pay a fine. There may be a slight message there, too, in that why aren't you at the factory? Why aren't you at the factory? He's five roubles, or three roubles, or something like that. Usually they just pay it on the street, and they love it. It's street drama. The Russian life is not that interesting. For just exactly that scene, I've seen it a hundred times, people love it, the crowd gathers, they go back and forth, and they all jump on the militia, every one of them. He was a central casting stereotype of a Russian. The women were laughing at him. The man wasn't. He was just being nasty to him. The women are used to dealing with quote-unquote young men like him, probably. They're used to a foreigner, and they do cost foreigners sometimes and try and ticket us. Again, one gets crowds, and usually the crowds sympathize with the foreigner, not with the militia man. Now, when Americans go over there, so often they come back and say, there's no crime. You can walk around the streets at night. Oh, there's quite a lot of crime. It's not on the scale that it is in this country, but it exists certainly in the outlying areas of the problem that intensifies the danger of crime. If you know anybody who lives in a communal apartment, it's a terrible problem. There's always somebody who's stealing all the time. In any little Russian group, there's somebody who's in prison, somebody who's being arrested for petty crime or maybe murder. Murder is very common. Crime is a passion. This intensifies the kinds of things that lead to crimes of fashion, which, by the way, explains why on Vramier they ask everyone to be nice and turn their televisions down and not to make too much noise. You have 15 to 20 people in an apartment, you have to consider your neighbor's feelings. Harrison, would you walk the streets of Moscow at night? I would, but I'd be careful about it. There's some places I wouldn't mind walking on Gorky Street if I didn't mind stumbling over the drunks, and I guess there are not so many there now. In Stalin's day, yes, all they were police, believe me. You didn't have any problems with that. Still, Harrison, the psychological environment of Moscow is radically different from, say, a major American city or even a European city. It's true they're aware of some crime, but people are on the streets late at night, virtually all sections, and there's not the in-depth fear of being on the streets there that you would find in America. And of course, it's difficult to possess weapons in the Soviet Union, so the kinds of crimes like the Finnish knife, as they call it, they all make them in Russia, but the Finnish knife is a very important dagger. The Chernobyl piece was filmed before the Russian statement in Vienna this past summer, citing mostly human error and admitting that thousands will die of cancer. Now, how open was that announcement within the Soviet Union? Let me just say, I was there during the whole Chernobyl event, and I must say that because normally on the premise that what you don't know can't hurt you, the Soviets were very surprised when they saw this on Framier. People I talked to, and they assumed that things must have been much, much worse than they really were, and therefore there was panic in Kiev, not maybe on the day when they interviewed people in the streets because the people are so unused to their government being open about any kind of negative thing that happens. The Ukrainian Minister of Health got on television, the evening television, and gave the inhabitants rules to wash their clothes, to be careful of their shoes, to keep the children inside, and that did start a panic. We saw the pictures in this country of the people taking their children out of there. Everybody thought, if he says that, my God, how awful it must be. Now, their space shots were never covered for a long time. Now they are. And there's a school of thought that is because as a follow-up to our Challenger disaster that they are sort of gloating over how successful their program is. No, it started before that. The live coverage is a recent phenomena but it did start before the Challenger disaster and it's a nice break by coincidence they could also cover the Disasters American Space Program and keep showing how their program is getting better and better. Did you notice how it's part of Gorbachev's so-called Glasnost Program of making things more easy and more clear and putting them on like the publicity they've given to their that big steamboat disaster in the black city? But you notice that one of the cosmonauts admitted that they haven't successfully completed everything. And that really is a change. That's the chance you take with live coverage. Well, toward the end of tonight's program we'll be giving you an unusual opportunity to intercept, on your own, several recent articles from the Soviet state newspaper Pravda. They're in English and to see them all you need is any standard VCR with a freeze frame advance. So get your VCRs ready right now. International reporting is a major part of the Soviet Evening Newscast's Ramia. Most often the stories focus on a particular world trouble spot. But sometimes like in this next Ramia story filed from Paris the subject can even be a certain fictitious character whose politics have captured the world's attention. Armed with a grenade launcher, he is ready to fire. This is a huge billboard on one of Paris's largest theaters. Rambo is the shield of America. Large headlines take up pages in a Parisian press. What is going on here? The movie about the American Superman with bulging muscles destroying communists and enemies of America is exported from the United States to France. The French have been thrown a typical piece of psychological preparedness for war from the other side of the ocean. Rambo has been described as with the eyes of an unfresh fish and a vacant look. He would have been better off staying in a country that produced him. Where is the glory of your cinematographers of France? While Rambo may be Hollywood fiction, other non-fiction stories caught the attention of Soviet TV this year. In the course of its considerable international coverage, Rambo focused a lot of attention on world hotspots like South Africa, Nicaragua, and this next item from Libya. This is the Libyan capital. In their recent pirate-like attack on the city, the United States had hoped to dishearten the citizens of Tripoli to cause panic. Businesses all failed. Life goes on as usual in the country's capital. Businesses, banks, and other enterprises are all working normally. While the Soviets did devote a lot of airtime this year to various world hotspots, in July of 1985, Rambo also began providing occasional coverage of a major story a bit closer to home, the war in Afghanistan. Just 10 minutes ago people were filming in this very classroom, this auditorium. Classes were in session, people were sitting here. Then suddenly there was a deafening explosion. Look around here, everything is destroyed. All of the students and the instructors ran outside. There are many wounded. The market here in Kabul is abundant with all sorts of fruit and green zones where it is warm now and the citrus harvest is in full swing. I'm talking about this now because western propaganda has created a campaign of rumors and lies maintaining that there is hunger in Afghanistan caused by Soviet authorities and soldiers who burned fields in the summer and destroyed farms. They also say that the Soviet troops buy up all of the food from native people hungry. These operations were carried out in mountain regions which are difficult to reach. Here in the foothills along the Viroshonkin-Dokuzhye ridges, which are always under snow, reconnaissance forces discovered caches of weapons and equipment fortifying the region where the rebels are. The success they had in fulfilling the skill of the helicopter pilots and the fighting determination of the Afghan landing troops. The air attack was so swift that as you see here, the douchemen literally threw things and in a panic ran down over there. And look, when I got here, the teapot was still hot. In their reporting of world events the Soviets feature extensive coverage of the United States. One of the stories that got a lot of attention earlier this year was the tragedy aboard the space shuttle Challenger. While the Soviets initial coverage of the disaster was straightforward and sympathetic, by early February the tone had changed. The Challenger accident exposed the extraordinary danger of militarizing space. If the United States doesn't draw this kind of conclusion from the Challenger tragedy, there awaits one to the one that destroyed the Challenger along with its crew. The main difference will be that this explosion will cause the entire earth to burn. In another story related to the US Soviet television aired last spring a lengthy documentary about the American Nazi party. The underlying message here appears to be that this group founded on hatred is allowed to flourish in the United States. An American housewife is letting her daughter in on some culinary secrets. The foundation of the cake is white. I'll add two egg whites, a little water and I'll bake it for about an hour. After that we put white frosting on the cake. The red must look like blood. The circle is made out of white frosting and the swastika is made from melted licorice. And then you put on the red frosting so it will look like a flag. Today the Nazi party of the people of America has branches in 30 American cities and in military posts too. The racists have patrons in the business world and in politics. While Soviet television broadcasts routinely differ from western media in emphasis and interpretation of the facts, every once in a while this past year we came across items that were verifiably untrue. One example was this story from February 28th on FBI surveillance of Samantha Smith. The American school girl who was internationally known for her plea for peace and who died in an air crash last year was kept under close watch by the FBI for a long time. This conclusion was reached by the makers of a documentary film at the KRON television station in San Francisco. The FBI frightened by Samantha's peace mission to the USSR followed her tormentedly according to KRON. Of all the stories about the United States that we saw on Soviet TV this past year, most of them served simply as general indictments of American foreign and domestic policy. One good example was this look last October at the people of Baltimore, Maryland. I'm from Moscow TV. Can I ask you a question? What would you do if you were president of the U.S. for one day? Would you change anything? Leave things as they are? Of course I would make changes. I would give people jobs. That's what I would do. Make believe that you have become president of the U.S. of Baltimore. Get rid of the speed limit. I feel Reagan is going the right way. So you approve of Reagan? Yes. 100 percent. Well, maybe 99. So you are 1 percent against? It's not worth talking about. And what do you think? I think something should be done about the people who pretend they are poor to get on welfare. The first thing I would do is build affordable housing for everyone. This is the first priority. Would you stop police brutality? It's impossible. That will always happen. Then you disagree with Reagan 100 percent of the time. I love that. Jan, the TV station K-R-O-N now, what is an update on? What do they do? They said that the FBI followed Samantha Smith. Well, we did check with K-R-O-N in San Francisco, Mark. And that clearly, what we just saw in Vremier was a great exaggeration. K-R-O-N heard a rumor, and a rumor only, that there was an FBI file on Samantha Smith. They were never able to prove it, and they certainly never were able to show that the FBI was harassing Samantha Smith. Do the Russians really believe we bake Nazi cakes? Well, they fear that there may be a lot of Nazis circulating in the western countries and the United States. But what's amazing about that is that's really old obsolete footage. Real stories of new right-wing lunatic organizations in the United States. Where is that film from? That's from California Right, which was a documentary produced I think at least 20 years ago. Other parts of it, there was, I think, a few shots from the Ku Klux Klan from an incident in the 1970s, but it's old stuff. I think the reason they show that is because World War II was still such an important part of current Soviet literature, movies, you know, young children in school learn about it. It's as if it were yesterday, they guard the flame to the unknown soldier. And it's something that evokes a memory of a time in the Soviet past when everyone was united against the fascist enemy. And by showing Nazis with pictures of Hitler and swastikas, this evokes a very strong emotional reaction in people. It links directly Nazism to the United States imperialism, and it fits in very well with what the Soviets really are trying to tell young people about life in the outside, about the outside world. And I think if they focus too much on racial problems and on more contemporary right-wing groups this wouldn't have touched such a raw nerve in the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union anyway, their attitude towards Africans is not exactly what stands in the Soviet Constitution. So this is not something that would have the same appeal there. It's a 50-year game, isn't it? We call them slaves of a captive system. They call us decadent capitalists. Does it matter as long as we're not shooting at each other? Oh, I think it does matter because it has a lot to do with our attitudes back and forth. And they have had in the 50 years, I haven't known them for 50 years, but 40 years anyway, they've always had an argument against us which they'll throw up when we criticize them or when they feel inferior in some way or self-conscious about something. When I first went to the Soviet Union and anybody criticized anything that's happened there, they'd say, what about the Scotsboro boys? These were nine blacks in Alabama who were held for years on false charges of rape or something like that. That was the answer. If the housing was bad, if they had a shortage of bread, whatever it was, the Scotsboro boys did. That's been updated a little bit, and I actually heard a Russian say this and settle his argument. He says, what about the Smothers Brothers? It goes on and on. Do they know that an awful lot of us in this country wouldn't go and see Rambo if Stallone himself personally threatened to fire bomb our houses? Well, I don't know that they really know that, but they have given us, I mean, Flattery is supposed to be the sincerest form of admiration. They have created their own Rambo, their own Soviet Rambo who is a star of a film. And Rambo tapes, Rambo tapes because of just the kind of publicity they've been giving Rambo the hottest item in the black market. Young people will give you, I don't know what, 100 rubles probably, maybe 200 rubles for a tape of Rambo. Again, this is totally counterproductive. The more they show this on TV, the more they wet the appetites of young Soviet viewers to watch this movie and to imitate Rambo. Any coverage at all of Afghanistan is a turnabout, isn't it? No, they have been, in fact, remarkably open in their coverage of Afghanistan, not right from the beginning, but a few years after it began. They had to because even though people can't take to the streets and they can't demonstrate against it openly, the rumor mill is such that there's a lot of discussion about what's going on, a lot of discontent among the population. They have now, I think, escalated their coverage of it, they're showing more, but they have been more open about this since the beginning than maybe we thought. I think it's because I think they're trying to get the government position closer to the government position. There's been great, great antagonism to Afghanistan among the Soviet people. Gorbachev and the government would like to get out from under Afghanistan if they can. He's talking about that now. This kind of presentation narrows the gap between the government view and the popular view. But it's had two functions. In part, it's to let the war out of the closet, explain that there are casualties going on. But part of it, I think, is that perhaps they protest a little too much. We're there to help and we're working with the Afghani people and look at these bombs and terrorists and the disgusting things they do when we build schools and so on. It sets the stage to get out. Do they, is there any, I know the answer to this already, any hint from them as to why we carried out the bombing of Libya in the first place? No? Because we're under the domination of Israel as they always say, linked again to Nazi interests and we're trying to destroy the national liberation government in the third world. Take a look at some more here. When our monitoring of Soviet television began last May, we didn't expect to see many western style consumer stories. But frankly, we were surprised by the range of consumer items that did show up. From reports on the newest Soviet automobiles to investigative stories on shoddy construction practices to this, shall we say, rather low budget commercial for shortwave radios. It works good? I can't complain. Can it get shortwave? At night, I can get all of Europe. But it is so tiny. It's great that it's so small. You can just stick it in your briefcase on the most varied jobs. I've traveled half the Soviet Union with it. At night, you're sitting in the hotel and you can get everything. That's my flight. Goodbye. What's your radio called? Giala 410. Giala 410. Let's remember the name of this portable radio. We too have to be on the road at times. Giala 410. Giala 410. Let's remember the name of this portable radio. We too have to be on the road at times. I successfully passed the test of the new Zaporozhets. While Soviet television does contain what to most westerners would appear to be commercials, it also features longer product demonstrations. This report from last November 3rd celebrates the introduction of a new model of automobile. The tests on the new Zaporozhets were successful. Today is its first appearance for our viewers. The Zas 1102 will differ considerably not only from the one produced today but will also be a front-wheel-drive automobile. This has been implemented on the eighth model of the Zhiguli and is also being used in other cars. Mid-sized front-wheel-drive cars will be in a majority over the next five years. As a passenger, I can say that I'm more comfortable in this car. It seems that the ventilation will be much better in this car. The system of heating and cooling is certainly more effective than in the old model. And not only is it just the heating it is for the comfort of the passengers. You can regulate the direction of airflow of the cooled air or warm air. There is only one windshield wiper. Yes, there is only one. This is dictated by the fact that a higher angle windshield was used. Let's turn it on and show the people. The higher angle glass and the one wiper simplify the construction but make the wiper no less efficient. And in the back there is one too. You could move a refrigerator in this car. That last comment about moving a refrigerator was only one of a bewildering array of refrigerator references we've seen on Soviet television this year. There have been stories about everything from refrigerator maintenance to the history of the popular ZIL model. These shots we filmed at the Likhachov factory today when the 4 millionth refrigerator was being assembled with a brand name ZIL. 35 years ago this factory turned out the first home refrigerator. The 4 millionth refrigerator was made by the brigade headed by Viktor Vasilyevich Semyonov who participated in the assembly of the first refrigerator. Now the 4 millionth refrigerator will be placed in the ZIL museum. The past 3 years on Krasnodar street the center for the repair of refrigerators Biryusa has been in operation. Every year it fills 70,000 repair orders. Every year there are more orders but fewer people coming to the plant. This is the reason why. A refrigerator is not an iron. You can't carry it to the shop. You have to haul it and not every model will fit into a taxi. To get it there and back will take more than a day. The center takes the majority of its orders by phone. If the dialed number is busy the call is automatically switched to another line. You can call from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. This job has no lunch breaks and there is a large demonstration hall with even more economical refrigerators featuring color models of the Biryus. You can order a model color here that matches the color of the kitchen interior because the factory is so conscious of the quality of the product they establish this center. Cracking down on poor quality goods and services has been said to be a high priority for Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Interestingly, Gorbachev's business to power has been accompanied by an increase in the number of stories like this one, which contains not-so-subtle criticisms of Soviet auto repair procedures. What has to be changed is the paperwork system. See what happens. First you have to go to one window just to get permission to have your car repaired. After this you have to go through the car wash then you get to the stall and you wait until someone tells you where to put the car to be worked on after which you wait for the mechanic to finish his previous job and finally it is your turn. Then comes the so-called diagnosis finding out what the problem is after which another form is filled out for the repair that has to be made and you start the whole bureaucratic circle again. So the whole thing starts over again and this is the kind of thing that happens. So this is what has happened. We came here at 10 o'clock and the car still hasn't been touched. No parts have been found and it is over a real trivial thing in my opinion. Nothing has yet been done and for this you have to waste a whole working day. I do not feel there is much organization here. Along the same lines one can just imagine the reaction within the Soviet winter coat industry when this little item appeared on Vramia last fall. Our first question is to the director of the Universal Store Lydia Nikolaevna Ivanova. Could you please show us those winter coats that are currently being advertised to our viewers? Are you kidding? These kinds of winter coats couldn't be in a store. We have them only on very, very rare occasions. We simply aren't getting them. They don't give them to us. We don't have them anywhere. And now I have a question for both the buyers and the sellers. Tell me, what kind of coats do you dislike and which shouldn't we advertise? These coats are too heavy. The nap is too long. They're too expensive. 260 rubles. You can buy a better coat for that kind of money. Would you like this winter coat? No, I wouldn't. Well, I think that the workers of the Vimple and the Salute factories are listening to us and will take measures to improve the quality of their goods. But probably the most scathing consumer story we've seen on Soviet TV in the past year has been this report from February on shoddy construction practices. Its investigative tone and confrontational style would have made Mike Wallace feel right at home. Anton Pavlovich, you have just completed 149 apartments. You see the new tenants moving in. How do you feel about this? I feel satisfied. I feel satisfied. How would you rate your work, especially in terms of quality? The quality of our work will be determined by the tenants. So let's listen to their opinions. Our film crew spent time in many apartments, and what you will see and hear now are typical reactions. Here's an example. You open a cupboard door and it falls off. There isn't one shelf in this cupboard. Some kind of builders. What are we supposed to do? Steal the shelves? I think that the builder feels that you ought to be grateful just to be in a new apartment. The amount of work and repair the new apartment may need is none of their business. You call this quality? We will never find wallpaper that will match this. So we have to change the wallpaper in all of the rooms. Here the linoleum is bad and there's water on the floor, but it works too. The doors and the windows don't open. They all have to be done over. The simplest things don't work. I feel shame for the builders. Everything they do is slap-dash. Don't they take any pride in their work? We played this tape to the foreman of the building crew. What do you say to this now, Anton Pavlovich? I have nothing to say. He was sentenced to ten years in one of his own apartments. In this country, a story like that the investigative reporters, the local television, they find these things and then they air it and then they go to the government and they say look at that slum, Lord. What are you going to do about it? Now how does that story get on the air in Russia? I think what probably happened is that at a local level and when one's discussing economic questions, particularly under Gorbachev, it's quite acceptable for ordinary people to write to their local newspapers about shoddy construction, about bad housing. As long as they don't criticize the system as a whole, as long as they don't criticize the leadership, this is probably how that story got on the air. And then someone much higher up decided to make an example of this particular luckless Anton Pavlovich and his housing development. It could have been anywhere in the Soviet Union and this is how it got on the time. I think it's a little bit of a, I disagree just a wee bit. I think every day the authorities get hundreds of thousands of letters complaining about apartments and everything else that's wrong in Soviet life. A decision comes first up at the top at Gorbachev or in his secretariat or in the Central Committee. We're going to do something about this. We're going to make an example and maybe we'll shake things up a little. So they take out of this massive cases this one unlucky fellow and boy he gets on framing and that's the end. Where do you suppose he might be today? He's not a housing farmer. Building shacks in Siberia maybe. I don't know. I think that he certainly will have lost his job as Harrison said. He may still have a job though in some place in Moscow. Moscow is dozens and now hundreds of building trusts. Some place he's got a friend who will look after him. Not in such a good job. Or he's doing work on the black market in his spare time. How effective is such an exposé though of shoddy workmanship? We're false advertising recently. I've seen these exposés I guess for 40 years and the conditions are not any better. What do we have about refrigerators? I've got the opinion that a refrigerator repair man does not make a house call in Russia. This is the final victory of the kitchen debates with Nixon where Khrushchev said we're going to have better kitchens than you and so the obsession with the refrigerator was actually seriously assembled in the 50s and 60s of a better way of Soviet life. You notice they said they've only been manufactured for 35 years. Reprigerators have always had a special aura in the Soviet Union. It was so cold there, I don't know what, but when they first began to make them you'd go to the theater and in the set of the luxurious bourgeois writer the refrigerator had the place of prominence right in the middle of the set and either side were the pictures, two pictures of that famous portrait of the three bearers. That was really living. We saw refrigerators on Vremia constantly throughout the past year. Is there an oversupply, Nick? That's the cynical interpretation. It reminds me in the early 70s they had a number of promos for televisions too and the prices went down for TVs and of course the explanation was they had an oversupply and perhaps the beer use is an oversupply and you can get all the colors you want now and even find a car that can move it. The sales lady in the Furrier shop I found quite charming. I know a KGB agent when I see one. What was that, bait and switch? Of course we don't have it just because we have it. Well again, this is again, it goes on more under Gorbachev. You come down very hard on shoddy quality, on not delivering the goods to the population and you blame in this case the fact that although these things are advertised and we saw those lovely advertisements for the radios and for the refrigerators in fact you can't get them. I think in the case of the coats everybody watching that in Moscow said, oh how naive. They go to the back door. They're under the counter. Of course you can get them extra. Now you've all been there and you were seeing more of these and I, well you were chuckling among yourselves at the references to the telephones and so forth. I think the funniest thing was the man who tried to get his car repaired legally at the store. Any Russian watching that who has a car would say it serves the poor man right if he tried to do it legally. Everyone gets their car repaired under the counter because your automobiles are never repaired. And they laugh at the telephone service because they know you can call all day and nobody will answer. And I think the other thing to point out is it's beautiful to have that wonderful promotion for the new automobile. Is anybody going to be able to afford that or even if they could get one, very few people. It's nice to see on television but it's not something that could be part of the ordinary person's life. Harrison, they're sending this stuff over here not that it was discovered at the beginning of the show. But there is a degree of self-criticism of their media over there, is there? Yes, there is. There's a lot of criticism and Gorbachev has put the heat on the media actually for not being more sharp not being up to it not being more realistic. And even on big things like Chernobyl there was a hell of a blast at the media. This very program rammed you for being slow, for being shoddy for not getting to the heart of the issue and believe me, things have picked up. On television now you see very good coverage on Chernobyl. Before we go, you may want to try something that we mentioned earlier in the program. For those of you with any standard VCR with a freeze frame advance start recording now and in a few seconds we will transmit to your homes at very high speed now the English language text from several recent editions of Pravda, the Soviet state run newspaper. Then on your own just play the tape back frame by frame and read the articles at your leisure. It's an unusual process which we call data burst. So get ready here it comes. Well that's it for Channel 3 Moscow tonight and we'd like to hear what you thought of it. Just give our answering machines a call anytime during the next few days at this number 612-642-1980 It'll be a total call so dial carefully at 612-642-1980 for my colleagues here at Channel 3 Moscow. Thank you very much. I'm Mark Russell. Good night. Tonight at 11 Bishop Desmond Tutu speaks out on violence in South Africa in witness to apartheid. Stay with us now for World Without Walls Beryl Markham's African Memoirs an unusual story of an extraordinary woman coming up next here on WETA Channel 26. Channel 3 Moscow with Mark Russell made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.