Communist Daze: The Many Misadventures Of A Soviet Doctor

Welcome to Gradieshti, a Soviet village awash in gray buildings and ramshackle fences, home to a large, collective farm and to the most oddball and endearing cast of characters possible. For three years in the 1960s, Vladimir Tsesis--inestimable Soviet doctor and irrepressible jester--was stationed in a village where racing tractor drivers tossed vodka bottles to each other for sport; where farmers and townspeople secretly mocked and tried to endure the Communist way of life; where milk for children, running water, and adequate electricity were rare; where the world's smallest, motley parade became the country's longest; and where one compulsively amorous Communist Party leader met a memorable, chilling fate. From a frantic pursuit of calcium-deprived, lunatic Socialist chickens to a father begging on his knees to Soviet officials to obtain antibiotic for his dying child, Vladimir's tales of Gradieshti are unforgettable. Sometimes hysterical, often moving, always a remarkable and highly entertaining insider's look at rural life under the old Soviet regime, they are a sobering expos? of the terrible inadequacies of its much-lauded socialist medical system.

Author: Vladimir A. Tsesis

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Publication Date: Feb 13, 2017

Number of Pages: 254 pages

Language: English

Binding: Paperback/Biography & Autobiography

ISBN-10: 0253025869

ISBN-13: 9780253025869