WAKING THE TEMPESTS: Ordinary Life in the New Russia [Hardcover]

Eleanor Randolph (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 1996

A journey to the grim Soviet hospitals and new Russian sex clinics, old communal apartments and shaky new suburbs. The author visits decaying Soviet schools and new private academies, families living in toxic industrial towns and ballet masters trying to preserve their art. She interviews working people trying to cope with Mafia thugs, girls looking for a rich husband, and couples looking for an apartment. She also attends a murder trial, watches black marketeers plying their goods, and listens to priests trying to rehabilitate their church which has been suppressed by the communist government.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For two years, Eleanor Randolph, a former Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post, and now a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, traveled across Russia talking to ordinary people--psychics, priests, ecologists, sexologists, mail-order brides, gay activists, pensioners, prosecutors, women entrepreneurs, and pre-school teachers--about life after the introduction of economic shock therapy by President Boris Yeltsin. Her observations are sobering, and if there is a cultural theme running through this largely bleak picture of the new Russia, it is that of the age-old Russian conflict between order and freedom being waged at almost every level. "Freedom is wonderful," an elderly and impoverished couple explained to Randolph, "but you can't eat words."

From Publishers Weekly

An enthralling portrait of how Russians are coping with new freedoms and perils, this report by Los Angeles Times national correspondent Randolph is based on her extensive travels in the former Soviet Union as Washington Post correspondent (1991-1993) and as an independent observer through 1995. Randolph toured unsanitary, under-equipped hospitals, visited a sex clinic and a privately run day-care center, attended a murder trial and interviewed struggling couples, gay activists, Russian Orthodox Christians and young people indifferent to the risks of AIDS and venereal disease. She depicts a schizoid society rapidly polarizing into rich and poor, where outmoded communal values are being replaced by opportunistic individualism. Women face increasing physical abuse at home, and in the workplace they endure pay discrimination and open hostility. Abysmally high numbers of Russian women die in childbirth, and get secret abortions-often without anesthetic. Medical care for the average person is haphazard. The former Soviet Union, in Randolph's affective mosaic, is a heavily polluted land roiling with crime, homelessness, corruption; rife with sexual ignorance and violent homophobic hatred; where a small entrepreneurial class of old communist bureaucrats, young go-getters and mafia thugs vie for control of an anarchic free market.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition (June 19, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684809125
• ISBN-13: 978-0684809120
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #972,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent - A window into the chaos of the "new" Russia, October 18, 2002

By 

cnyadan (Bavaria, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: WAKING THE TEMPESTS: Ordinary Life in the New Russia (Hardcover)

I happened to be going through books at work when I came upon this particular one; I'm a self-professed "Russia-freak", so it seemed the type of thing that would be just up my alley.

Randolph and her husband are both journalists, and lived in the USSR/Russia from 1991 to 1993. Instead of living almost completely in the "second society" of newly rich and expatriates that Matthew Brzezinski describes in his book "Casino Moscow", or being almost completely on one's own as in Lori Cidlyo's book "All the Clean Ones Are Married", Randolph manages to pull off a fine balance between the two. This balance is maintained in Randolph's writing as well. She's a Western journalist coming to write about "everyday" Russia, and she tries hard to get the real story. One of the things that impressed me is that, although she used a translator, it was more to make sure that what she was reporting was accurate. There is at least one point in the book where she mentions about her translator not translating a certain question to her liking. Most Western reporters would have no clue if this were to happen, and I think it seriously limits our view of the world.

Randolph tackles a different subject as it pertains to the Russia she experienced in the book. There's one about the problems with housing, and attitudes toward private ownership (especially of land), as well as chapters about religion, cults, women's issues, homosexuals, the state of the arts (case in point: ballet), as well as others. What is impressive is the time she took to track people down and have serious interviews with them, rather than be satisfied with fluff pieces that could be easily made into simple anecdotes or pieces to feed into current stereotypes of Russia.

When reading this book, one can think that the conditions in Russia are unfathomably bad. However, it's not like the Russians can stop living because life there is crazy. Randolph starts the book with a story about her returning home one grey winter's day. She looks up and is struck by the beauty of a blazing light in the distance, and after a moment realizes that it is the reflection of the last rays of the sun on the golden crosses of a church. She compares this experience with her stay in Russia. As horrible as a lot of life there seems, there is something there that is enduring and beautiful. This is the sense that I came away with after finishing this book. I only wish that it was a little bit more current, as much has happened in Russia even after her last interviews in 1995.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Right Place at the Right Time, November 11, 2006

By 

Erika Mitchell (E. Calais, VT USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WAKING THE TEMPESTS: Ordinary Life in the New Russia (Hardcover)

This book is an in-depth report of Russian society at the transition between the communist and capitalist state. Randolph arrived in the Soviet Union in the spring of 1991, and remained in Moscow for three more years. An experienced journalist on assignment for The Washington Post, she was in an ideal position to observe conditions and the lives of ordinary Russians in the communist and post-communist era. Over the course of her stay, Randolph observed many aspects of society, and divides her book into chapters by topic, including: women, marriage and family life, children, education, health and sickness, the arts, and crime.

Randolph was fluent in Russian, but still used the services of interpreters when conducting interviews because she wanted to catch every detail, every nuance of what was said. Indeed, some of the chapters seem to go on and on with detail. But most of the material is quite fascinating. We learn how couples used to have to wait for years to get apartments of their own, and then how apartments could be had instantaneously, for a price, or how people who had lived in the same apartments for decades were bilked out of their homes due to gullibility from having spent a lifetime in a welfare state. Randolph discusses health in great detail, providing not only mortality statistics, but also interviews with leading figures in the Russian health care system--and interviews with some stars of the new alternative health care enterprises.

Having run in to a few too many shady characters from Russia in the past few years, I must admit that I was a little dubious about finding any good news from this part of Eastern Europe. But Randoph's stories of the human side of history that is unfolding in Russia helped me feel much more sympathetic towards average Russians and all that they have lived through. She demonstrates that Russians come in many types, and the vast majority of them are struggling to learn what they need to do in order to survive in a world that has turned upside down. While it is true that some are despicable villains, for every villain there are many more heroes doing their best to make lives better for themselves, their families, and their country. This book is extremely valuable for the snapshot it provides of Russian life at such an incredible juncture in time.

3.0 out of 5 stars Still Relevant After All These Years, December 28, 2007

By 

Zato Ici (Starbucks, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: WAKING THE TEMPESTS: Ordinary Life in the New Russia (Hardcover)

Twelve years old, but still valuable. The author sensed she was at a place and time when describing a wildly changing country would be interesting to many. She interviewed, and wrote, and the result is still worth reading. Her process captured much about Russian character and culture that is timeless. Any American looking to understand how these foreigners are different would do well to start here.

The gems of insight are scattered randomly through the book. To find them the reader will need to learn lots about the transition to Capitalism. But it's a fine journey. Randolph is a good tour guide, occasionally biased by her American mindset, but worldly, literate, and perceptive.

I liked this passage on men: her Russian female friends said "their boyfriends and husbands were babies. ... They were beasts. ... They were docile on one level, waiting to be told what to do. ... On another level there were snarling at the world, driving automobiles and making love like angry hornets. ... It was not their fault. ... [They] suffered from [a] system that punished many of those who showed initiative." P. 82. Things change slowly. Here in 2007 this is still valid.