Sex and Love in Soviet-era Moscow

Recently I took a stroll down Neglinnaya Street, from Ararat Hyatt Hotel, a stone's throw away from the Kremlin, all the way down to Trubnaya Square. In the tsarist era, Trubnaya was famous not for its House of Political Education, but for its cozy chain of brothels. Their red lights shone brightly in the dark like stars in the midnight sky, much to the pleasure of the politically uneducated pre-Revolutionary toiling masses, who had not as yet experienced the pleasures of Communism.

As is known, during the reign of the good-natured Soviet "emperor" Leonid Brezhnev, there was no sex in the Soviet Union, but there was love.

It was on Brehznev's watch that I, a very young man at the time and somewhat at a loose end in that realm, asked ‘Karl,' a friend of mine, a poet-cum-playboy, to introduce me to a good girl, one of the numerous admirers of his lyrical talents.

The renowned poet said that he would bring two girls - one of them his new love, the other one for me. The pleasure of the date would only cost me dinner for the whole party at an Uzbekistan restaurant, which is still there, on Neglinnaya. However, it is different from its former self, since our era is the era of "stagnation."

While we were waiting outside, I decided to show off my erudition to our little party and quoted a short passage from Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem about a drunken man who was knocking on the door of an Uzbek restaurant but was not granted entrance. Karl, to show that he was no country bumpkin, said he did not like Yevtushenko, but referred Joseph Brodsky.

A literary dispute ensued, which continued inside the outlet, where a stern looking porter swiftly let us in as soon as he received a three-ruble bill. At that time, an average engineer made 120 rubles a month, while our little dinner set me back 45 rubles: 44 rubles to pay the bill, plus a one-ruble tip. In that dispute, Karl's girl took his side, while "my" girl stood by me. The real problem, however, was that I realized that Karl had cheated me: both girls were in fact his. But "my" girl - Veronika - caught on, and agreed to team up with me and take revenge on Karl for his treachery.

After leaving the restaurant, we headed along the quiet boulevards to Veronika's cramped room in a communal apartment to continue our feast.

When it was well past midnight, Karl said to me: "All right, time to go." "What do you mean?" I asked. "You go, but I'll stay here with Veronika. Right,Veronika?" "Right," she said, offering her full red lips for me to kiss.

"What's going on?" Karl asked, bewildered. "Veronika, may I have a word with you out in the lobby?" "You'll talk tomorrow!" I said, pushing my friend out as quietly as I could so as not to attract the attention of the people next door and locking the door behind him. The second girl, Lusia, was giggling as the poet led her away.

Today,Veronika is a successful businesswoman, while Karl recently won the State Prize for his poems. So much has changed since then, including Neglinnaya Street. In addition to Uzbekistan, there is now another restaurant, called Beloye Solntse Pustyni (White Sun of the Desert, named for a popular film about the post-Revolutionary period in Soviet Russia). The entrance is guarded by a soldier in period costume, complete with puttees and things and holding an old period rifle: he is a doorkeeper. He does not accept bribes, but then no one offers them to him.

As for Lusia, I don't know what has become of her.