Before, I had hated money, I didn’t know what it was. My family never talked about it—it was considered shameful. We grew up in a country where money essentially did not exist. Like everyone else, I would get my 120 rubles a month and that had been enough. Money appeared with perestroika. With Gaidar. Real money. Instead of “Our Future is Communism,” the signs began exclaiming, “Buy now!” If you want to, you can travel. See Paris…Spain…fiesta…bullfighting….When I read about it in Hemingway, I’d been sure that I’d never see any of it with my own eyes. Back then, books replaced life…This was the
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