Expanded Universe

FOREWORD

"Don't Go To Russia If You Expect Tidy Toilets" is the heading on an article by H. Marlin Landwehr (News paper Enterprise Association) in the Santa Cruz SENTINEL, Sunday, December 2, 1979. "Russian toilets," writes Mr. Landwehr, "are uniformly filthy, with no toilet seats, coarse (if any) toilet paper, and extremely low pressure.

From this and from many recent (1979) personal reports I know that my 1960 article INSIDE INTO URIST is still timely despite minor changes. Intourist still has three classes of travel: Bad - Worse - Horrible. These are now called: "Deluxe Suite, Deluxe, and First Class" - i.e., "First Class" is in fact third class - an Orwellian Pravda.

Dirty toilets and bad food explain themselves; relative prices are harder to make clear, as the 1960 prices I cite as being outrageously high seem like bargain prices in 1979. So I must adjust for inflation, not too easy when dealing with four sorts of currency: 1) the 1960 dollar fully convertible to gold in the world market at $35 = 1 troy ounce of fine gold; 2) the 1979 floating dollar having today, 3 December 1979, a price per troy ounce of fine gold on the world market of $432 and some odd cents; 3) the 1960 western - tourist ruble, a currency not traded (= "blocked") in the world market, not convertible, not spendable outside its own country, and having its official rate set by decree and in direct consequence a very different black market (= free market) rate; and 4) the 3Dec - 79 western - tourist ruble, a blocked currency not equivalent to the 1960 western - tourist ruble.

To define the relationships between a fully - convertible gold currency, a floating currency, and two different blocked currencies is a task that causes headaches. The arithmetic is simple, the semantic problem is not, and it is further complicated by both conscious and subconscious personal attitudes. You may not "believe in" a gold standard, for example (and I readily concede the

truth of the old saw that one cannot eat gold), but it does not matter what I believe or you believe, our floating dollar is now worth in gold whatever the rest of the world tells us it is worth, i.e., the price at which they will buy dollars or sell gold. The only yardstick I can apply to all four currencies is the troy ounce of fine gold (= 480 grains in both troy and avoirdupois, or 31.1035 grams in metric).

Since the ruble is not traded in the gold market, I must equate rubles first in dollars, then translate into gold. (This fiscal discussion is not my idea; our editor complained - correctly - that a much shorter discussion was unclear.) In 1960 the Kremlin - decreed rate was 4 rubles

= $1.00 USA. Today Monday 3 December 1979 the Kremlin - decreed rate to U.S. tourists is 1 ruble = $1.52 USA.

Now to work -

In 1960 $1.00 USA equalled

1/35 tr. oz. Au. = 13.715 grains = 0.888671 + grams gold,

and one ruble equalled $0.25, or

1/140 tr. oz. Au. = 3.429 grains = 0.222167+ grams gold.

While on Dec. 3, 1979, $1.00 USA equalled

1/432 tr. oz. Au. = 1.1111... grains = 0.071998+ grams gold

and one ruble equalled $1.52 USA, or

0.003518+ tr. oz. Au. = 1.7 grains = 0.109438+ grams gold.

- which doesn't tell us much, especially as the dollar floats and changes every day, and the ratio between the dollar and the U.S. - tourist ruble is by decree and subject to change without notice. In the following article I show all prices three ways: 1) 1960 prices; 2) 3 - Dec - 79 equivalent by world free - market conversion; and 3) 3 - Dec - 79 equivalent by Kremlin - decreed dollar/ruble ratio.

The conversion factor for the world free market is 432/

35 = 12.343; the Kremlin - decreed conversion factor is

1520/250 = 6.08. You are free to believe either one or

neither.

But the above still doesn't tell you very much as the Early Worm Deserves the Bird. The floating dollar changes daily and the ruble/dollar ratio changes whenever the Kremlin changes it... and you will not be reading this on December 3, 1979. But all is not lost; you can obtain and apply the conversion factors for the day you read this in the same fashion in which I did it:

For the world free - market conversion factor first get that day's gold fix from newspaper or radio, then divide by 35. For the Kremlin factor telephone a Soviet consulate or Intourist New York, get the current price of a ruble in dollars and cents, divide by 25%. Then reach for your pocket calculator.

It would have been simpler to state that travel in USSR in 1960 was extremely, outrageously expensive - a planned swindle.