In this Book
- Communist Daze: The Many Misadventures of a Soviet Doctor
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Indiana University Press
Welcome to Gradieshti, a Soviet village awash in gray buildings and ramshackle fences, home to a large, collective farm and to the most oddball and endearing cast of characters possible. For three years in the 1960s, Vladimir Tsesis—inestimable Soviet doctor and irrepressible jester—was stationed in a village where racing tractor drivers tossed vodka bottles to each other for sport; where farmers and townspeople secretly mocked and tried to endure the Communist way of life; where milk for children, running water, and adequate electricity were rare; where the world's smallest, motley parade became the country's longest; and where one compulsively amorous Communist Party leader met a memorable, chilling fate. From a frantic pursuit of calcium-deprived, lunatic Socialist chickens to a father begging on his knees to Soviet officials to obtain antibiotic for his dying child, Vladimir's tales of Gradieshti are unforgettable. Sometimes hysterical, often moving, always a remarkable and highly entertaining insider's look at rural life under the old Soviet regime, they are a sobering exposé of the terrible inadequacies of its much-lauded socialist medical system.
Table of Contents
- Preface: September 1964
- pp. ix-x
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xiv
- Beginnings
- pp. 3-20
- Potemkin Profession
- pp. 21-46
- Hard Lives and Few Choices
- pp. 47-66
- Just One More Drink
- pp. 67-84
- The Party’s Party
- pp. 93-102
- The Wanderers
- pp. 141-148
- Death in a Family
- pp. 149-154
- The Great Chase
- pp. 155-168
- KGB Daughters, and Why Not to Treat Them
- pp. 169-186
- The West Meets the Best
- pp. 187-200
- The Incredibly Shrinking Crop
- pp. 201-208
- A Frosty Farewell
- pp. 209-216
- One Joke Too Many
- pp. 217-224
- About the Author
- p. 241