All the Clean Ones Are Married: And Other Everyday Calamities in Moscow

by Lori Cidylo

Overview

In 1991, Lori Cidylo shocked her Ukrainian Polish-born parents when she told them she was leaving her reporter’s job in upstate New York to live and work in the rapidly dissolving Soviet Union. For the next six years she lived on a shoestring budget in Moscow, in tiny, run-down apartments, coping with the daily calamities of life in Russia. Fluent in Russian, she rode public transportation, did her own shopping and cooking, and shared the typical Musovite’s life—unlike most Westerners who were sequestered in heavily guarded compounds reserved for diplomats and journalists. As the country experienced its most dramatic transformation since the Bolshevik Revolution, she realized she had stepped into a fantastical and absurd adventure.

Cidylo’s wry, insightful account of what it was like for an American woman living in Russia is a dramatic tale full of insouciant laughter, in which vividness and immediacy shine on every page. With the sharp eye of an acute observer, she captures both the momentous events and the everyday trivia: how do Russians address one another now that the familiar “comrade” is passé; or, how do you find your way home in a city where the streets keep getting new names? As Russia even now continues to struggle with the Cold War’s aftermath, Cidylo gives a delightful surprising, warmly human view of post-Soviet life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897337458
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/01/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Lori Cidylo is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Boston Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Economist, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and other publications.

Table of Contents

Introduction: So What Do You Think of This Crazy Country? 9

This Way to the Russian Federation 39

Everyday Calamities in Moscow 65

A Little Help from My "Russian Mother" 85

Sorry, No Wrinkled Dollar Bills, Please 107

The Washing Machine that Needed Time to Rest 127

All the Clean Ones Are Married 145

Life is Cheap in Our Country 165

He's More of a Feminist than Most Women I Know 181

The Train Has Already Left the Station 203

A Coup to Remember 221

Editorial Reviews

"A beguiling memoir . . . [Cidylo] serves up amusing slices of Soviet life. . . [E]vocative vignettes of ordinary life."––Kirkus Reviews


"Despite continual frustration with everyday life in Moscow (her search for a washing machine, for example, takes on the fervor of a quest for the Holy Grail), Cidylo retains her sense of humor and makes every effort to adapt. She aptly sums up a foreigner's perspective when she writes, 'Many of us don't realize just how ill prepared for life we are until we arrive in Russia.'" ––Library Journal


"The best of this fall's new travel books..."   —New York Times Book Review, "Best Travel Books of 2001"


“A fascinating glimpse of post-Soviet society during a time of turmoil and drastic change.”  —Library Journal


“Cidylo’s light touch and wry humor make this a distinctive trip, offering insight into both sides of the formerly bipolar world.”  —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Working as a newspaper reporter in upstate New York in 1991, Cidylo told her Ukrainian-born parents that she wanted to live in Moscow. The Cold War having only just ended, they were appalled. But she persevered, and for the next several years lived and worked in the capital as it quickly sold itself to the highest bidder. Fluent in Russian, Cidylo lived in a Muscovite apartment and immersed herself in the city's everyday life, which she describes with humor and compassion. For example, her efforts first to find a washing machine, then to use it, are poignantly funny. "What did you expect? This is Russia," is the usual refrain of her Russian friends to daily indignities. Many of her anecdotes focus on her experiences of close relationships and gender relations in Russia, which have been much less affected by feminism than in the West-though the Russians are enlightened in their own way. (In Russia, Cidylo writes, "what's important is not staying married, but having been married" as a sort of rite of passage.) Her feelings after the untimely death of a male friend and her relationship with a Russian grandmother who works for her as an upholsterer are poignant. Cidylo's light touch and wry humor make this a distinctive trip, offering insight into both sides of the formerly bipolar world. (...)

Publishers Weekly

Cidylo, a New York newspaper journalist of Ukranian-Polish descent, made a life-changing move to Moscow in 1991. There she worked first as a translator, and, as economic conditions worsened, ended up a stringer for various U.S. newspapers. Despite continual frustration with everyday life in Moscow (her search for a washing machine, for example, takes on the fervor of a quest for the Holy Grail), Cidylo retains her sense of humor and makes every effort to adapt. She aptly sums up a foreigner's perspective when she writes, "Many of us don't realize just how ill prepared for life we are until we arrive in Russia." The title refers to the plight of a young woman in search of a "clean" male, made difficult because, according to Cidylo, Russian men largely ignored personal hygiene in the early Nineties. The only weakness here is the confusing chronology; Cidylo often confuses the reader by going back and forth between the early and the later years she spent in Moscow. Nevertheless, this fascinating glimpse of post-Soviet society during a time of turmoil and drastic change is recommended for large travel collections in public libraries. Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A beguiling memoir by an American who arrived in the Soviet Union two weeks before Gorbachev was ousted from office. The daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, Cidylo grew up in New York but was fluent in Russian. In 1991, working as a reporter for a small New York state newspaper, she decided that there had to be more to journalism than front page stories centered around the cow-tipping escapades of local teenagers. So she set off for Russia with a backpack and a vague plan to operate as a freelance journalist. Luckily, she landed a job with the Soviet press agency, TASS, which provided her with a one-year work permit and a catbird seat from which to observe Russia's "most dramatic transformation since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution." Cidylo remained for six years through attempted coups and a crumbling economy, living as a Russian amid economic and political chaos that she encapsulates in evocative vignettes of ordinary life. Like other Russians, she scrambled on the black market for "luxuries": a washing machine, for example, required an anxious foray to the seller's warehouse in the middle of a thick forest on the outskirts of Moscow. She learned to outfox the system, hiring the driver of a municipal bus to move her belongings from one apartment to another rather than face the frustration of dealing with the official Moscow moving service. Cidylo serves up amusing slices of Soviet life in her accounts of hanging a shower curtain, befriending a seamstress who would reupholster her couch, hoping for a date who had taken a bath recently (the title chapter). But there is also more emotionally charged material discussing the sad death of her friend Andrei, a doctor who fought for thewell-being of Russian women, and the attempted coup against Yeltsin that brought tanks back into the Moscow streets. More adventurous than cow-tipping.

Kirkus Reviews

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