Robert Heinlein's Expanded Universe 2 by Robert A. Heinlein

Author:Robert A. Heinlein [Heinlein, Robert A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612422411
Publisher: Phoenix Pick
Published: 2015-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

AFTERWORD

After twenty years it would seem logical for me to return to the USSR to see what improvements, if any, they have made in handling tourism. I could plead age and health but I shan’t—one trip to the USSR is educational; twice is masochism.

If you have been to the USSR recently and if you know enough Russian that you could and did slip the leash occasionally and poke around and get acquainted without permission of Intourist, please write to me and tell me about it—what you saw with your own eyes, what you touched, what you counted, how you were treated. I am not interested in second-hand reports, not even from other Americans you trust, and I most emphatically am not interested in anything your guides told you.

If you know no Russian and took one of the standard Intourist trips—around the Black Sea, or the Leningrad-Moskva-Sochi trip—don’t waste your time writing. I hope you had fun.

If you took the long railway trip, Vladivostok to Leningrad or Moskva—or vice versa—do please write to me. If you knew no Russian at first, I’m betting high odds that you spoke fluent (if ungrammatical) Russian long before you completed the trip. You will know many things I don’t know as I have never been across Siberia. Alma Ata, KSSR, north of the Himalayas and just short of Sinkiang, is as far as I got.

Concerning believing what you see and ignoring reports: In thirty-odd years of habitual travel, Mrs. Heinlein and I have not been simply sightseeing; we have been studying other people’s ways. Sometimes trivia—e.g., in Peru they make far better apple pie than Mom ever baked (treason!), Chile has us beat all hollow when it comes to ice-cream sodas, and the Finnish ice-cream cone is a work of art that makes what we call an ice-cream cone look sad.

But usually we are dead serious. Lately I’ve been making a global survey of blood services—but that is another story. Two things we have done consistently throughout the world: 1) See the slums; 2) evaluate the diet.

The fancy hotels and the museums and the parks are much the same the world over—but the slums are honest criteria even though a traveller can’t assign a numerical value. The street people of Bombay and of Calcutta tell far more about India than does the glorious Taj Mahal.

Two other questions give direct, numerical comparisons: Q: How many long tonnes of protein (meat, fish, cheese) does this country consume in one year? (Then, privately, divide by the population.) Q: How many minutes must a journeyman carpenter work to earn enough to buy one kilogram of the local standard bread?

The first question tells the quality of the average diet; the second tells you how rich (or poor) that country averages. If you have also managed to see the slums, you have some idea of the range of wealth. You can’t tell by looking at the extremely wealthy; all over the world they are careful to dress like upper middle class, no higher.

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