S S S R
04-09-2006, 05:26
This young man didn't so much as throw a cursory glance across the court as his ears filled with his own chuckles. His whining father always used to say that reading Krokodil made him nervous, afraid that he may laugh too hard at the political satire within its blotchy pages.
Perhaps that was just the old man being jovial. The son, in this ressurected Union, was inclined to dismiss reports of disappearances as sensationalist stories, probably originating in the minds of those who feared that the soviet state would actually find them work!
Yevgeni Rykov folded the satirical publication under his right arm -best to keep the other free for a salute, since the 241st was due through Kerch, today- and headed out across the grey -but tidy- forecourt of the coffee shop at which he'd just spent a large part of his Hero of Socialist Labor bonus. There was no real coffee shortage, at least, as it was imported on the back of heavy indsutry's profits, but the state still charged a lot for a cup of the good stuff. The beans, apparently, came from a worker-managed enterprise in sub-Saharan Africa. It was all quite reassuring, and the staff had even served him politely. One was clearly Ukrainian, and he'd noted that the man working administration was a Tatar, and didn't look at all unhappy.
The Union was certainly getting back on track, and less than two years after the official ressurection, too. Yegeni had to stop suddenly to avoid being clipped by an AvtoVAZ sedan, the driver of which had been distracted by her favourite pop tune on the Third Programme, but managed to react with power steering and ABS breaks.
There was enough rebuilding to be done after more than a decade in the cold, and taking a command line to the economy was working, again, for now, even if the Krokodil still had plenty of fodder. Hey, here comes the 241st, too. The young man hurried across the road and turned to wait, stopping to check that his new medal was shining sufficiently. He didn't normally get excited about a few tanks passing by, but it felt different since he, a long-unemployed youth who'd only ever had seasonal jobs in the tourism industry, was given work at the re-expanding Zaliv shipbuilding factory, and did it so well that he was made a Hero of Socialist Labor.
Some of the passing soldiers didn't think much of Rykov, standing there beside the road with a magazine under his right arm, throwing a close-fisted salute to the sky with his left, and weren't moved by his civilian medal. Others in their ranks would later chastise these men for looking down upon the sort of labor hero who worked to make their lives better while they fought to make his safer.
Gradually, new sorts of respect were working their way to the surface in a restored Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik... this Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
As they roled through the Ukrainian SSR, though it extended only so far west as the Dnieper, the soldiers -Ukrainian, Russian, Byelorussian, Kazakh, and Uzbek- were bound for a new border of old significance, the fighting -and working- men of five countries, united!
Perhaps that was just the old man being jovial. The son, in this ressurected Union, was inclined to dismiss reports of disappearances as sensationalist stories, probably originating in the minds of those who feared that the soviet state would actually find them work!
Yevgeni Rykov folded the satirical publication under his right arm -best to keep the other free for a salute, since the 241st was due through Kerch, today- and headed out across the grey -but tidy- forecourt of the coffee shop at which he'd just spent a large part of his Hero of Socialist Labor bonus. There was no real coffee shortage, at least, as it was imported on the back of heavy indsutry's profits, but the state still charged a lot for a cup of the good stuff. The beans, apparently, came from a worker-managed enterprise in sub-Saharan Africa. It was all quite reassuring, and the staff had even served him politely. One was clearly Ukrainian, and he'd noted that the man working administration was a Tatar, and didn't look at all unhappy.
The Union was certainly getting back on track, and less than two years after the official ressurection, too. Yegeni had to stop suddenly to avoid being clipped by an AvtoVAZ sedan, the driver of which had been distracted by her favourite pop tune on the Third Programme, but managed to react with power steering and ABS breaks.
There was enough rebuilding to be done after more than a decade in the cold, and taking a command line to the economy was working, again, for now, even if the Krokodil still had plenty of fodder. Hey, here comes the 241st, too. The young man hurried across the road and turned to wait, stopping to check that his new medal was shining sufficiently. He didn't normally get excited about a few tanks passing by, but it felt different since he, a long-unemployed youth who'd only ever had seasonal jobs in the tourism industry, was given work at the re-expanding Zaliv shipbuilding factory, and did it so well that he was made a Hero of Socialist Labor.
Some of the passing soldiers didn't think much of Rykov, standing there beside the road with a magazine under his right arm, throwing a close-fisted salute to the sky with his left, and weren't moved by his civilian medal. Others in their ranks would later chastise these men for looking down upon the sort of labor hero who worked to make their lives better while they fought to make his safer.
Gradually, new sorts of respect were working their way to the surface in a restored Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik... this Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
As they roled through the Ukrainian SSR, though it extended only so far west as the Dnieper, the soldiers -Ukrainian, Russian, Byelorussian, Kazakh, and Uzbek- were bound for a new border of old significance, the fighting -and working- men of five countries, united!