English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

From a distance—I was glued to television and newspapers in Cambridge—nothing dramatic seemed to be happening in the Siberian prov inces of Russia in 1989. All attention was focused on the amazing events in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria; yet I remember not only my astonishment at the tumbling of regimes but also constant twinges of regret and impatience that I could not be there. And “there” for me meant Mongolia and Buryatia, the regions I knew best, which now seemed hidden away behind the mysterious inactivity of the Soviet government. The reactions of ordinary people could only be guessed. As soon as I could make the arrangements, in the summer of 1990, I trav eled to both countries. These are some rec ol lec tions of that visit to Buryatia, a place geographically and mentally far from the liberation euphoria of Eastern Europe, yet as I was to discover experiencing its own unexpected perturbations. By 1990, Buryatia still appeared more prosperous and better run than Mongolia (which is not necessarily the case today), with more technical equipment, educational and medical facilities, and above all a closer, more oppressive governmentality, a more pervasive caution. Trav eling through rural districts I found collective farms in full Soviet mode: some proud of their vast flocks of sheep, others struggling to meet the plan. On the surface, it seemed not only that 1989 had passed like any other year, but that the people here were still coming to terms with perestroika. Many were the farm directors who told me that on no account would they give up their land and livestock for households or small teams to use under their own steam in the new lease system proposed years earlier in Moscow. For their part, ordinary farmers and fishermen were unwilling to take on the responsibility—it was too risky. A proposal to break up a large state fishing enterprise on Lake Baikal into smaller companies was turned down “democratically”; that is, at an open meeting where the workers protested that they wanted to keep their present jobs, houses, and salaries. Yet beneath the stasis, thoughts had begun to turn eastward to China. It was kept quiet, for this was an unheard of breach in the sacred state border still guarded by thousands of troops, but rural laborers had been invited from China to make good the lack in production of food. Near the frontier, in the Aga Buryat National Okrug (an entity that no longer exists), I met one hugely successful farm director who claimed to have introduced the perestroika reforms on his own initiative and who had been dismissed by disapproving regional party officials, but the economy was generally in the doldrums. Hard-headed Soviet officials were negotiating with the Chinese foreman in my smoky hotel how best to take advantage of the incomers’ productivity but not “allow matters to get out of hand”. Such were the rural preoccupations and no one breathed a word about Eastern Europe. I had the sense that tectonic plates were shifting above all in the cities. The reforms—or was

Remembering 1989 and its aftermaths in the depths of Russia