Documentaries : On the Road in Soviet Union: Chaos Abounds : * Traveling in Siberia is full of challenges. Ask for an explanation of the insanity, and the answer is always: 'Because.'

By CHARLES P. WALLACE

Oct. 29, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

YAKUTSK, Soviet Union — The weather had turned nasty, with slush on the streets and air so cold that the fillings in my teeth began to ache. As I stood next to a giant statue of V. I. Lenin, taxi after taxi cruised past and ignored all of my overtures to get them to stop.

Finally, a vehicle looking like a green panel truck veered toward the curb. “Hop in the back,” said the driver, after we agreed on a price of 25 rubles, about 75 cents. Only then did I realize that I was climbing into an army ambulance.

There were plastic vials on the floor, the kind that might be used to rush plasma into an operating room. “Don’t worry,” laughed the driver, a good-natured Yakut native. “I’m on my way to fill up on beer.”

Life in the Gorbachev-era Soviet Union is an improvisation, and traveling to the hinterlands of Siberia is no exception. All organized structures such as car rentals and hotel reservations have completely broken down because everybody is out hunting for food or toilet paper.

In a shop in Vladivostok, I found butter for sale in chunks next to winter clothes and razor blades. Everyone seemed to think this was normal.

Restaurants keep their doors permanently locked so the waiters can eat all the food. Hotels have permanent “no vacancy” signs. Taxis are out cruising around without customers.

Ask for an explanation of this insanity, and the answer is always the same: “Because.”

Because what?

“Just because.”

In one city, I was obliged to hire a 100-seat Ikarus intercity bus because no taxis were available.

In another, an army dermatologist named Olga chauffeured me around in her state car for two days for $200. As a parting gesture, she mysteriously gave me a bottle of ginseng, the Korean root that supposedly endows those who partake of it with boundless virility, from the hospital’s pharmacy.

In the big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, a state travel agency called Intourist helps foreigners buy tickets for airplanes and trains. But there is no Intourist in the Soviet hinterlands.

Ticket offices for the state airline Aeroflot offer a new definition of the concept of pandemonium, with formless wall-to-wall crowds pressed against the reservation counter and people shouting, “I’m next! I’m next!” The impatient ticket clerks hide behind closed blue curtains and shout back, “No seats to Moscow! No seats to Khabarovsk!”

Each ticket is written by hand in triplicate. It gets particularly worrisome when you realize that some people in line have brought lunch.

One reason for the crowds is the ludicrously low ticket prices. A coast-to-coast ticket equal to flying from San Francisco to Maine, for example, costs just $8. Flying is cheaper than phoning and a lot quicker.

Once at the airport, the scenes of chaos are repeated. Electronic flight signs are paralyzed with years of neglect, their letters caught in an unreadable alphabet soup. “MISKVU *%$” read one sign.

On the plane, often there are not enough seats for ticketed passengers. Needless to say, the dash for seats is not for the faint of heart. The losers get to make the flight standing up in front or seated in the toilets, while emergency exits are used to store suitcases and sacks of potatoes.

A recent innovation on some flights is that the cabin crew conducts a lottery among the passengers, as if flying the vintage aircraft is not enough of a gamble. Everybody antes up three rubles, and the winner gets a box of imported tea. Losers get a rubber toy. For five rubles, you can rent a Walkman with sad Russian folk songs.

In Novokuznetsk, a dim industrial town in southern Siberia, the airport truck was out of action so passengers had to carry their luggage to the plane and heave it into the cargo hold. One man was carrying home 25 gallons of gasoline--but claiming it on the other end can often take longer than the flight.

Entering a restaurant can also be a special challenge, since waiters are paid a state salary and their income does not depend on the number of people served. The restaurants are invariably vast with dozens of empty tables, but they almost always feature a band playing rock music so the nonexistent diners can dance.

In Yakutsk, I was seated only after presenting the director of the restaurant with a carton of Marlboros. In another city, the price of admission was a French lipstick.

In Khabarovsk, I was told to “ask for big Masha” and give her $20. Sure enough, dinner magically appeared. There was even ice cream.

In one Siberian town, a friendly grandmother led me down a set of back stairs through a kitchen into the shuttered restaurant, where a waiter with a gold-tooth smile tried to sell me a statue of Lenin as a souvenir.

At the Sapporo, a joint-venture Japanese restaurant in Khabarovsk, the staff had stolen the distinctive dinner plates. The Chinese restaurant in Vladivostok had run out of rice.

Every restaurant seems to have a creative, elaborate menu. After foolishly trying to order, however, the traveler soon learns to ask, “What do you really have?” The answer is invariably the same: fried pork. There is rarely anything to drink, not even water.

While restaurants have no drinks, the black market is efficient enough that unusual beer brands such as DAP and Milwaukee’s Finest are sold for 20 rubles a can (about 60 cents). One shop in Khabarovsk proudly offered a canned beverage that was obviously imported. On the label were Chinese ideographic characters and an English translation: “Japanese Sweat.”

Here’s the Soviet Union’s economic problem in a nutshell: At the hard-currency bar of the Khabarovsk Intourist hotel, there is gin but no tonic. Some 700 miles to the south at the Vladivostok Hotel--you guessed it--there is tonic but no gin. If they ever get together, the country will be well on its way to capitalism.

Only twice in 3 1/2 weeks did I find a hotel with hot water or heat. This is a part of the world where winter starts in August.

“You have a nice warm overcoat,” scolded a maid at one hotel. “You should sleep in that.”

Because the pay is so low, service personnel rarely show up for work. At one restaurant in the remote northern city of Magadan, after forcing our way in, the waitress nearly broke down in tears. Out of 11 employees, she was the only one to show up that day.

The wait for dinner seemed eternal. But Russian hospitality, warmed by several bottles of hard-to-find vodka, filled the void. Sensing a foreigner in their midst, a group of young people in this former prison camp outpost started singing a chorus in perfect English:

“Well hello Dolly, it’s so nice to have you back again.”

Into the Hinterlands

Charles P. Wallace of The Times’ Bangkok Bureau traveled on assignment across Siberia, and Mark Fineman of the New Delhi Bureau traveled in the southern Central Asian republics.