How did we survive? First, we took all of our valuables to the market. The crystal, the Soviet gold, and our most precious possessions, our books. For weeks on end, we’d eat nothing but mashed potatoes. Then I went into “business.” I started selling cigarette butts. A liter jar of butts . . . or a three-liter jar of butts . . . My wife’s parents (college professors) collected them off the street, and I would sell them. And people would buy them! Smoke them. I smoked them myself.
