How Are Things in Sverdlovsk?

While Nikita Khrushchev talks, the other 202 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union do their best to go about their daily business, living and loving, bettering their lot, and sometimes--with the skill born of long practice--outwitting bureaucracy. Last week's progress notes from Moscow:

P: Bulldozers pounded through a pine grove on the bank of the Skhodnia River about 30 miles northwest of Moscow, leveling the site for the first of several self-contained "Sputnik [satellite] towns" designed to move both industry and workers from the congested capital. Total population of each Sputnik: 65,000. After studying British and Scandinavian models, Soviet architects broke with the clumsy gingerbread architecture of the Stalin era, planned ten sections of four-story apartment houses to be assembled from prefab materials and set down amid flowers, shrubbery and ornamental ponds, as well as shopping centers, nurseries and kindergartens. Express buses will link the satellites to Moscow.

P: Khrushchev has long had ambitions to move many Muscovites far beyond Sputnikville. Two years ago he eliminated scores of Moscow bureaus, ordered 60,000 employees, from charwomen to ranking executives, moved to regional councils thousands of miles away. Last week it developed that many upper-bracket wives had refused to join their husbands in the sticks. Komsomolskaya Pravda summoned seven such wives to its offices to find out why they were not with their husbands in provincial Sverdlovsk, in the Urals. First the women talked of Moscow's culture and comforts, but when assured that Sverdlovsk has culture, too, the most common excuse was: "My Mama is sick." One woman complained that she had nine different ailments (the ninth: hydrophobia against the kind of water used in Sverdlovsk). Together, the seven women claimed a total of 67 maladies that only living in Moscow seemed to check.

P: Soviet authorities were up in arms at the treachery of two young painters, E. Sazykin and Andreev, who had been commissioned to paint collective farm life in the town of Bondari. Instead, they were doing a brisk business painting icons and murals for the local Russian Orthodox church. On the ground that it was rank ingratitude to prefer "the dark corners of churches" to "the radiant creativeness" of Soviet life, the art committee expelled them.

P: Two months ago Khrushchev himself told the Soviet people to shape up--discard their familiar padded jackets and baggy pants. Result: on Moscow streets, vivid hats are replacing drab shawls, and more men are wearing fedoras instead of cloth hats. But following fashion is not always easy, complained Izvestia. Only one man in 30 can find a ready-made suit that will fit him. In a ladies' clothing store on Gorky Street an Izvestia reporter overheard a salesgirl telling a customer: "Your figure is nonstandard, and you won't find anything for yourself." The next 20 customers were likewise nonstandard. The Central Institute of the Garment Industry's explanation: the State Planning Commission has failed to give cutters proper guidance because the Scientific Research Institute of Anthropology has failed to supply it with proper statistical data on the sizes and shapes of the Soviet people. Another cause of all the trouble, added Izvestia: up until recently, the clothing industry has been headed by a lumber expert.

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