Channel 3 Moscow; No. 103; 1985-12-18

Channel 3 Moscow is a production of KTCA TV, Channel 2, for stations of the Minnesota Public Television Network. Good evening. I'm Jan Smaby. As Americans, we all share certain stereotypes about the Soviet Union and its people. Now if you have any doubt of that fact, ask yourself if you laughed even just a little bit. The first thing you saw, this commercial. Tonight on the December edition of Channel 3 Moscow, we'll attempt to get beyond our notions of the Soviet Union as a uniformly gray nation, with another look at the Soviet Union the way

the Soviet people see it, through Soviet television, which this month focused on everything from popular reaction to the Geneva Summit, to a brief history of the Soviet refrigerator, to a glimpse of Glenmiller Moscow style. We've put together a great show, so stay with us for the December edition of Channel 3 Moscow. Clearly the biggest story related to Soviet American relations this past month was the Geneva Summit. We'll be taking a specific look at reaction to the Summit as seen on Soviet TV. Also a bit later in tonight's program, we will be offering you the chance to browse through

a recent edition of Provda. All you need to do is to record the final few minutes of this program at any VCR that has freeze frame advance. We'll tell you more about that later. Not all Soviet TV is news in public affairs. Although sometimes it does seem that way. After viewing many hours of Soviet TV from this past month, we found some interesting entertainment programming. We start off tonight with a look at an educational children's program that teaches kids how to make decisions. Now because of some technical problems, throughout this evening, some of our video will be in black and white. So don't worry about the color on your television. Our field reports are narrated by Laurie Kamen, and were translated by Basil Ivanov. In the Soviet Union, as in the West, people are fascinated with the subject of child development. In this particular show from December 4, children are taught the skills to distinguish between right and wrong.

We were especially interested to see that these kids were encouraged to select following orders over what might be considered a more expedient approach to solving this moral dilemma. Children, I'm going to tell you a story about a boy named Vova. Vova is a nursery school. A man came to the nursery and started to play some kind of a game. He took the marbles from the bucket into the box with a shovel. Vova, if you take all three of the marbles from the bucket into the box, then you can have this pretty paper. And if you don't do it, you don't get it. The man left. Vova tried and tried to move the marbles, but he couldn't. So he moved all the marbles from the bucket into the box with his hand instead of with the shovel, and told him he had accomplished a task. What do you think? Did Vova act properly or not? He didn't act properly. Why was it wrong? Because he moved the marbles with his hand, and now with the shovel. And would you move the marbles with your hands?

No. How would you do it? I would do it with the shovel. And what do you think? Did Vova act properly or not? No, because he moved it with his hand. How would you have done it? I would have done it with his shovel. And what do you think? Did Vova act properly or not? No, because he moved it with his hand? How would you have done it? I would have done it with my own hands. How would you have done it? We've seen a wide variety of sports on Soviet TV, from chess to hockey. But this sport was new to us. Its Russian name is Thunball, which means handball in English. But it doesn't look anything like what we know as handball. With four minutes left in the match, the Grinitz team was ahead 29-27 and it seemed as if the Army team would be beaten.

However, the Army showed their true championship character and scored four goals in a row, making the score 31-29. With this score, the Army team triumphed. This Czech singer is obviously sending the popular Stevie Wonder hip. I just call to say I love you. But we want to know as if Stevie realizes how universally popular this song really is. American music is frequently heard on Soviet TV.

We particularly enjoy the Broadway flavor of this version of Glenn Miller's in the mood. Youth exchanges between the U.S. and USSR are not new.

This next story was part of a Soviet youth show called Sixteen and Older, which focused on a group of American kids from Vermont, visiting Moscow, who pledged to promote peaceful coexistence between the two countries. The guests of the Friends of Peace, a recently formed group in the young pioneers of Artichillo, were American teenagers. Here, high schoolers from the state of Vermont decided to visit the Soviet Union and are preparing for their trip. They learned the geography, history, and culture of our country, learned to speak Russian, but were nervous all the same. The meeting began with an American folk fest, through which the kids attempted to tell something about themselves, about their country, about their people, about the things that are worrying average American people. Their musical collective was named Project Harmony by the students. This is the question.

What do you do in order to keep the people who are around you from being indifferent? We tell the people who are indifferent that... In order for there to be peace, the American and Soviet people have to interact more, and so this is why we came to the Soviet Union. When we return to the United States, we plan to tell about everything we have seen here, everything that we've learned about the Soviet people, and we think we can convince those that are indifferent, that good relations between our two countries are possible. Some negative feedback from people about the Soviets saying that they are bad people. Of course, there are a number of people who have a negative attitude about the Soviet Union, but when I reached the Soviet Union, I learned this was not true. Those who speak that way simply don't know anything about the Soviet Union. It was good that we came and it would be good if more Americans could visit the Soviet Union, and if the Soviet people could visit our country more often.

We understood that we had hopes and dreams, just like you do, that we all want to live together. You have the same feelings about people in the United States, and I think if they would come to the United States, they would find out that their ideas are wrong. And now for the fourth round, the compositions of the Swedish anti-fascist writer, Lagerkris, the score is two to one, the tele viewers are leading, and we're starting the fourth round. This is the first game show we've seen during our six months of monitoring Soviet television. The questions used are all based on a Swedish author's book on anti-fascism. This particular round of questions focused on the connection between a frying pan and military pilots.

Card number 33, attention, the familiar frying pan. Quiet, we're listening. You remember when you last heard the question why in previous times captains of long journeys took a frying pan with them? You remember this, yes? By the way, you didn't answer this question the last time. Now we want to ask a similar question. They say that this kind of frying pan was taken into flight by military pilots. Did you understand the question? Why was the frying pan needed by military pilots? One minute. I was thinking that the military pilot was in the film.

Nick Hayes of both McCallister and Hamlin University, welcome back. Good to have you here. Nick, why did the military pilots carry a frying pan? Well, I have to admit that it wasn't exactly on the tip of my tongue when the question came up. And to make me feel a little better, I have tried calling Russian friends to see if anybody knew and I have come up with the answer. But it is not common knowledge, so they deserved a prize on the show. It was the nickname for a jet fighter corps and it was their symbol in the frying pan. And they had a number of fighter corps that had various appliance. And one was called a Prima Stove and a variety of reasons the nickname. And then plus it was also useful for them to carry along frying pans in case they had to do some cooking or something like that. Now this, as we mentioned, was the first game show we'd seen in the hours over the past three months of screening Soviet television. Are there many game shows on the show? There are several game shows. They will have various, I'm most familiar with one that has to do with my favorite profession. Were you asked questions about what's done on a job?

What are the techniques of a job and things like this? Okay, like what's my line? Yeah, I did something on that line. Something else I thought was interesting is there seems to be a new sport, kind of basket soccer for short guys. Have you ever seen that one? No, I can't say I saw that one. And I've always been highly suspicious of a number. There seems to be kind of the politics of sports building or sports making going on. That is, I have a hunch that this is a game that someone's devised. Do you remember last summer on Almanac we saw this peculiar program of some sort of aquatic check gymnastics? Do you remember that? And part of this was the imagination of making up new games. And maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't detect on our little spot here a big audience for this game. No. It seemed to me that this was a set sport. I wonder if four years out though, we'll see how the Soviets asking whether it could be included in Olympics. No, I wouldn't be surprised if they cornered this game in the Olympics. If they do, they could whip us. We could start a bit of sort of program now to get Goombal going. What about the children's programming that we saw there and the lesson that was being taught?

Now this again has been something quite common in the Soviet television we've been viewing, isn't it? Yeah, well to say two things, first of all whether the message in the program, but also the fact that television is used really to give children's programming and children's issues a lot of visibility in the Soviet Union. Something I don't think we see in this equivalence on prime time. And in this case, it repeats a very common theme in Soviet education. Education is not just what the Russians would call formal education, it's also moral upbringing. And here you have the children being faced with an ethical dilemma and of course they all respond correctly. They know that they wouldn't do the expedient thing, they would do the morally correct thing with the marbles and so on. It seems the parallel exactly though values formation classes which are begun to be taught in this country, the same sort of essentially non-religious but clearly moral outcome. Yeah, well you have the same problem in a secular education system. How do you introduce at a very early level ethical decision making in the curriculum? Now there was Glenn Miller's in the mood, which I thought was absolutely wonderful.

I like the sapetone photography that accompanied it, I thought it was wonderfully done. And well, first of all it's simply well done, a nice in the mood rendition, well done. It's also improvised, it's not a standard American set. It adds a certain amount of improvisation to it. And in the larger context, jazz just simply can't be taken for granted in the Soviet Union. It's come back very strongly in recent years, it's getting more and more visibility. But for a long time this was considered suspect and this is part of the kind of the new fresh air that's coming in Soviet life these days. Is this something one would see more frequently on Soviet television, the Broadway tunes from America being shown? We've seen more popular American jazz, these types of popular tunes, and also much more European materials from France, from Italy, from Spain. But played by very competent Russian musicians. Right, and done by dancers.

And you know the audience knows the Glenn Miller tune is being presented. Right now Nick and Joe, we're going to shift to the international front. Obviously last month's Geneva Summit received a lot of attention on Soviet television and we'll see some popular Soviet reaction to the summit later in this next segment. But first, we take a look at what the Soviets thought of the Paris premiere of the movie, Rambo. The average Soviet citizen rarely has an opportunity to see first-run feature films made in the West. But on November 3rd, Soviets did have a chance to find out what Paris movie goers and the Soviet government thought of the popular American action picture, Rambo. American propaganda of war on the screens of Paris, a report from our correspondent Anatoly Potapo. Armed with a grenade launcher, he is ready to fire. This is a huge billboard on one of Paris's largest theaters. Rambo is a shield of America. Large headlines take up pages in the Parisian press.

What is going on here? The movie about the American Superman with bulging muscles destroying communist and enemies of America is exported from the United States to France. The French have been thrown at a typical piece of psychological preparedness for war from the other side of the ocean. Here are the facts. Every third film shown in France is from America. The attendance of American films in France ranks first. A frontal attack is being conducted on French cinema. The Americans have totally captured the record industry, have flooded television with war programs and horror films. And now American money is forcing small companies to cooperate by sending a river of films into France with this trans-oceanic recipe. A cult of brute strength, global supremacy of America in the world, anti-communist propaganda and war. The people are exiting the movies after a showing. The film has a certain political vent. It is clear. It's a clear apology for war. Rambo has been described as with the eyes of an unfresh fish and a vacant look.

He would have been better off staying in the country that produced him. Where is the glory of your cinematographers, old France? A half million and a half signatures on a petition to free Leonard Peltier has been sent by Soviet teenagers to the White House. For almost 10 years Leonard Peltier has been rotting in jail on trumped-up charges. His basic crime is that he is a fighter for rights of Native Americans. On the 12th of November of this year, the newspaper, Comsimole Pravda, published a letter to the White House from 42 million members of the Comsimole and from all the Soviet youth. A plea to free the fighter for the rights of American Indians. American themes and traditions are often viewed in an unflattering light on Soviet TV, even the celebration of Thanksgiving, as its dark side as this story from November 29 suggests.

In the USA they have celebrated Thanksgiving. Traditionally, everyone must have a piece of turkey. A tradition begun by the first settlers which symbolizes hope and planning. But not far away there are those who cannot participate in this annual tradition. In spite of bad weather, the line for free Thanksgiving meals has never been longer here across the street from the White House. As the American television network NBC has commented, today in the USA, with all its wealth, 20 million Americans remain hungry. Soviet coverage of the United States almost always has a negative slant of some sort. This story from November 11th about the renovation of the Statue of Liberty starts out straightforward enough, but ends on a somewhat cynical note. In the United States, in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the erection of the Statue of Liberty, repairs on this monument that Americans call the old lady are now in progress. Now instead of the 90 meter bronze torch in its hand will be a new one featuring gold leaf.

There are other cosmetic operations in progress. The Reagan administration is determined to make the 100th anniversary of the monument into a bombastic propaganda campaign. However, the question is already being raised. Will there really be more freedom in America just because there is a new torch of liberty that shines brighter than before? Vremia almost always includes news from around the world. Much of it handled in an even-handed fashion, as with this story from November 28th about the recent hijacking of an Egyptian airliner. As we have reported previously, the Egyptian commandos stormed the Boeing 737 at the airport in Malta. After the commandos had set off an explosion in the luggage compartment, the terrorists threw grenades into the passenger area. As a result, 60 people were killed. It is unclear how many terrorists participated in the hijacking. The airport officials say that there were either four or five of them. It is thought that one of the terrorists was killed by an Egyptian commando before the jet reached the airport. One of the hijackers injured has been hospitalized. Also, the remaining passengers have been hospitalized.

This story from November 13th about Nicaragua had an unusually conciliatory tone for the U.S., in spite of the fact that it refers to the United States as an ugly intervener into that nation's events. In the face of the aggressive politics of the United States and Central America, the main task of the Nicaraguan people is to defend itself and the revolution. People of the most peaceful professions, peasants, teachers, carpenters are forced to participate in military action. As Daniel Ortega noted in a recent speech, Nicaragua is ready to talk to the United States on equal terms. However, the Nicaraguan people will never agree to the rude intervention in its internal dealings and will not reject the victory of the revolution. How would you describe your politics? I don't like any labels. I can take a sword 360 degrees around me and I cut no strings. I'm a puppet or nobody. I'm a non-political party. I'm just an artist who believes very, very much that fame has to be dedicated to a certain cause.

In an appearance last month on KTCA's OMENAC program, expatriate American folk singer Dean Reed described himself as non-aligned, yet he is well known and well-loved in the Soviet Union. In this report from November 15, we see Reed performing at a rally in protest of the Pinochet government in Chile. Dean Reed continues to perform in concerts before anti-Pinochet activists. In Chile, for the first time in many years, one can hear the people's anthem, Vinceremos, resounding clearly and openly. The song has gone on with Chilean workers, Portuguese groups, Bulgarian come-some-all members, and workers on the Baikal Amur Railroad.

Today, in Geneva, the Soviet American negotiations continue. Certainly, the biggest international story this past month was the Geneva Summit. The two-day session marked a long-awaited meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mithael Gorbachev. While most political analysts admit, little of substance was accomplished at the meeting, most agreed that just getting the two leaders together was a significant step forward. Another timely story, related to the Geneva Summit, was this one from November 16th, about the U.S. publication of Soviet leader Mithael Gorbachev's book, A Time for Peace. An American publishing company has issued the book of Michael Sir David Gorbachev, A Time for Peace. In a ceremony at the consulate in Washington, celebrating the release of the book on the United States, Ambassador Dubrinion expressed assuredness that the mass American reading public would become acquainted with Leninist politics, that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet government.

In October, a group of Soviet professional women visited the Twin Cities. This woman recently returned from a similar trip to the U.S. On November 23rd, she described her reaction to the Geneva Summit on Soviet television, impressions apparently shaped by her U.S. trip. These were days filled with a special kind of feeling because when the radio broadcast started, they came right at the lunch break at work. We didn't even want to go on our break because we wanted to know what was going on, what new things were happening, and I felt a feeling of pride for the work being done by our delegation. It gave me a feeling of pride for my homeland. Not long ago, I returned from a trip to the United States of America.

I was a member of a committee of Soviet women. During my trip, I could not shake the feeling of how much in common we have with the people of America, especially with the women whom we had contact with. This is an enormous love of life, a love of children. This is the hope to see happiness for the children, a happiness for tomorrow, and great concern about the fate of the world. It seems to me that the summit in Geneva has given us the assurance that there will be a turnaround in Soviet-American relationships, a warming of relationships in the future. We Soviet people look at this optimistically. Joining us now with Nick Hayes, our Stephen Feinstein, a Soviet history professor from the University of Wisconsin at River Falls, and Norma Nuna, who teaches political science at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, and welcome to all of you. I'd like to ask any of you. Does the Soviet film industry turn out anything quite so blatantly propagandistic as Rambo? Well, I think that they do. The big thing for the last 15 years has been World War II films, and while it may not identify the precise enemy, it's a white and black situation, much like you see in socialist realist paintings, and where the enemy was precise, it was always fascism, and Nazi Germany.

I don't think they reversed the result. But they have an excuse. World War II films are something that the state officially promotes. I mean, the shame of Rambo is that we did that by our own spontaneous imagination. The kids in credit, they have a real issue here. A few Russians were in town about a week and a half ago, and saw the film, and they said that they had never seen anything, so disgustingly propagandistic in the Soviet Union compared to that. It's very easy here for them to explain it away, because it's really a Marxist interpretation of the American film industry. Here you have violent American capitalism to begin with. Its propagandistic arm is the film industry, and what are they doing? They're trying to create a situation where the Soviet Union looks bad. How about this issue of cultural domination, though? The Soviets made a great play about that. Do you think they're really concerned about American movies?

This is something that's important, not only in the Soviet Union, but it's important all over Europe. There's a whole phobia about American words creeping into the language. French don't like it. The Soviets are worried about it. Even in Israel, they're worried about it. It's a multi-dimensional thing. This was kind of the Soviet Union taking the voice of European culture, and you catch that line of, France, where are your cinematographers today? And these Americans are just... Wasn't it also tied to Gorbachev's trip to Paris to say, well, perhaps it didn't go well because the French are becoming more American. Where are some hidden messages in there? I'd like to remind you, too, that Sesame Street was announced about six years ago, and the Cookie Monster was a single doubt as being the embodiment of the American concept of theft, and merchants especially were apparent because they weren't found. They were the people who were extolled in Sesame Street, and working people were said to be frowned upon. So there was a very extensive critique of Sesame Street that did take place.

And Stephen, why the change, then? Well, I don't know if there is such a change. It seems to me that there is a continuity in line here, but the cultural aspect is perhaps something new. One change, though, that strikes me, and it's more a matter of tone, is we've... Yeah, and I've particularly been watching the Russian TV off and on now for six months. And it seems as if they're beginning to pull our punches a little bit about the United States. Their nastiness is not quite so nasty. Did you detect anything like that? Well, this month's footage struck me as we're being portrayed much less as those incorrigible devils and much more of the fallen angels. I mean, there's even a kind of a sympathy for the fall of the problem of the Statue of Liberty. And... Does the Americans call it the old lady? The old lady. So I think this is all related to a much more sophisticated approach in approaching the press, if anything. It's no longer the very hard line that you found in the Brezhnev era going through two administrations before you got the Gorbachev has taught them a lot of lessons.

And I thought the polish was really there at Geneva in the ultimate sense. Do you think this reflects any fundamental change in the Soviet attitude or approach towards the world? Really not at all, because I think it's part of the atmosphere of the summit. And maybe six months will be back to business as usual. I actually think, I mean, Norma may be right, but I think there's been a clear benefit for Gorbachev in the summit. And that is, he's creating the image of a siege has been lifted. And the change in tone on television, the coverage of the summit, it's all about the increase in American music. Of course, these things rise and fall. You know, we've had softer tones in the past. We've had harsher tones in the past. Is there anything different between that? What happens in the added state? Certainly our attitude towards the Soviets is friendly at the moment. Yes. I think they feel also they have the initiative in several areas. For example, they have in their own mind created human rights cases. Peltier case is one of the issue of the issue of people having the right to eat, the people having the right to work.

Do people have to stand in line in the open to get food in the Soviet Union? Well, as a matter of fact, yes, in certain cases, it depends what's in the man, but it's fine. I mean, that's sort of public feeling. They don't have charity. No. They don't have charity. Communism has had any success. It's sort of reduced the top and the bottom has risen up. Yeah, no. Officially, they frown on charity. But you have to give them some credit to the Thanksgiving sequence. It is a case in point. Steve, I think, was referring to standing in line when there's shortages of food, but the point is they don't have mass starvation. And this is an issue by soup kitchens. This is an issue which our journalism has been picking up quite readily in the last two months as well. So it's nothing to be feeding anybody though. I don't know. Anyhow, you know, as far as your concern, you don't have that sort of mass hunger. There are problems in the rural areas in some of the small towns and distribution, but generally I would say no as far as I've seen.

In the urban areas, I wouldn't say there's hunger. There's the question of malnutrition because of an inadequately balanced diet. And again, Joe, these are always accented towards what they see in us. And they come back to the knowledge that America is a very rich place, but yet we have homeless and hungry people. How Albert is twisting his arm around, we have to shift now to the Soviet domestic scene. And when it comes to covering domestic events, Soviet TV newscasts are very heavy on the good news. Factories meeting their quotas, workers awarded for their productivity, that sort of thing. But the domestic news can also provide glimpses of what every day life for Soviet citizens is like. This next segment begins with a story about students who are faced with a universal problem, not enough money. For the most part, Soviet students don't work while attending school. Instead, they rely on government-issued stipends to make ends meet.

But apparently, stipends alone aren't enough, as this report from November 3rd indicates. In institutions of higher education, you do get scholarships. Yes, we do. Is the scholarship enough? No, it isn't, but then my parents help all it. Would you like to work in your spare time? I wouldn't turn down the opportunity. Of course, I don't have enough money. When did a student ever have enough money? Have you yourself tried to get a job? Yes, but it's very difficult. You don't have enough time to study while you're out looking for a job. Have you tried to get a job? Of course. I tried calling a factory that had a signpost and saying that they needed assemblers. And you have all the right papers and everything, and then they ask you if you're a student and you say yes, then they say that they don't need you. What kind of work would you be able to do? Practically anything. A student can unload a truck at a warehouse. If sometimes we are taken out of class to perform certain tasks, why couldn't they do this officially in a job situation?

It would be more beneficial for them as well as us. So what is happening? On the one hand, the students want to work. On the other hand, businesses are not coming out to greet them. Let's help the students find work. This will be better for them and beneficial for the government. Since we began viewing Soviet television last summer, we've seen little reference to the Soviet military. But that changed on November 13th. On that day, we saw a number of military-oriented stories, including this commentary stressing the need to maintain military strength. We are living in a complex situation today. Explosive, as noted by Mikhail Sergeyevich Karabachev. It is known that this situation has not been created by us, but by the ruling class of the United States of America and their allies. They hold the key to intensifying international conflict. All of this naturally forces us sailors at the northern fleet to strengthen our military preparedness.

To maintain the military power of our ships in a word, as Vladimir Shirangov said, we should keep our powder dry. And I must say that the Marines at the northern fleet have successfully maintained military and political preparedness in this current year. Our missions have been more successful and for all practical purposes, you could say that our sailors sail in virtually all of the oceans of the world today. Soviet car makers have an advantage over their American counterparts. They don't necessarily need huge advertising budgets to sell their new models. Instead, they apparently rely on extensive reports like this one, which appeared in November 3rd, to get the job done. Speed, comfort, and a contemporary design. This is how one may describe the new Zaporozhsky model cars. The tests on the new Zaporozhits were successful. Today is its first appearance for our viewers. The Zasi-1102 will differ considerably not only from the one produced today, but will also be a front-wheel drive automobile.

This has been implemented on the eighth model of the Zhiguli, and is also being used in other cars. Mid-sized front-wheel drive cars will be in the majority over the next five years. As a passenger, I can say that I am more comfortable in this car. It seems that the ventilation will be much better in this car. Definitely, a big defect of the other car was its autonomic heater, which had a number of problems. Here, with the use of a new motor, and I haven't mentioned this earlier, there is a heater here because the new Zaporozhits is water cooled. Thus, the system of heating and cooling is certainly more effective than in the old model. And not only is it just the heating, it is for the comfort of the passengers. You can regulate the direction of airflow of the cooled air or warm air. There is only one windshield wiper. Yes, there is only one. This is dictated by the fact that a higher-angle windshield was used. Let's turn it on and show the people.

The higher-angle glass and the one wiper simplify the construction, but makes the wiper no less efficient. And in the back there is one too. Yes, in the back there is one too. You can move a refrigerator in this car. Yes, you can fold down the back seat and place the cushions down and make plenty of storage room. While Soviet cars may almost sell themselves, other products need a little boost. For some, promotion alone won't guarantee success in the marketplace. As this story from November 4 suggests. We, of course, have already met and received permission to come here. Our first question is to the director of the Universal Store, Li-Denia Kolayevna Ivanova. Could you please show us those winter coats that are currently being advertised to our viewers? Are you kidding? These kinds of winter coats couldn't be in a store. We have them only on very, very rare occasions. We simply aren't getting them. They don't give them to us. We don't have them anywhere.

Would you like this kind of winter coat? No. And now I have a question for both the buyers and the sellers. Tell me, what kind of coats do you dislike and which should we advertise? These coats are too heavy. The nap is too long. They're too expensive. 260 rubles. You can buy a better coat for that kind of money. Would you like this winter coat? No, I wouldn't. Well, I think that the workers of the Vimple and Sadute factories are listening to us and will take measures to improve the quality of their goods. In October, and 60 years ago, Samula took a package. Computer technology is definitely a growing industry in the Soviet Union. But few in that country have access to computers outside the workplace. But that may be changing, since reports like this one from November 5th indicate that personal computers are now becoming available in the Soviet Union. The students of the computer programming correspondence school in Latvia

are young high school students of the Republic. They have successfully completed the course offered, which has been functioning for eight years, teaching principles of mathematics and cybernetics in the Latvian Republic of the USSR. This is the third graduating class. More than 600 programmers have already been trained. On the school computer at Timur, I wrote a program for preschoolers that with the help of a simple calculator, they can build a house out of cubes on the computer screen. The game is called Builder. Despite their obvious cultural differences, Soviet and American governments share some similar concerns, especially when it comes to educating the public about the potential hazards of smoking, as these next two stories illustrate. Several social organizations in the US have decided to unite to combat the advertising monopoly created by the cigarette industry. Using funds gathered from anti-smokers, they started a counter-propaganda campaign.

Among the many activities organized by those fighting nicotine poisoning, there have been health spots shown on TV, as well as a commercial against smoking, showing the sometimes surprising harm that nicotine can cause in a human organism. I think that some girls start because they just want to be like one of the boys, that a boy may be a role model. Boys start smoking for the same reason, then they get used to it, and then they can't quit. Do you think, in a woman's, a girl's ideal of a man smoking should be included? No, of course not. I don't feel that way about it. What do you think? Some people might think you are cool if you smoke, so that's their reason. They feel it is modern. I think it is because one person helps another to get the habit. They drag each other into it, but quitting is a lot more difficult. A cigarette is used to cover up for the fact that a person has nothing to say. It is a saving grace of sorts.

If you are smoking, it seems like you are doing something, and you don't have to participate in a conversation. I think that many adolescents copy their parents, because many parents smoke, so the kids can dump all of the blame for their own smoking on their parents. We've seen this childcare show before. It responds to parents' questions on a variety of topics. This particular segment from November 1st featured an eye doctor who offered strong advice for young TV viewers. A prescription, we suspect, please, most Soviet TV salesman. You must have certain doses of television. The children's program should be a maximum of 15 minutes maximum. Color TV is preferable as a nature, because grays and black and white are scarce in nature. So to be afraid of color TV is not only a mistake in notion, as some people say, it is simply better to watch color TV. It is imperative to remember that in a home situation, besides staggering physical exercise with TV watching,

and limiting the amount of TV watching, it is very simple, accessible methods to promote the proper function of the eyes. I must remind you that your child has to wear glasses to see its distances, like when he is playing outside with his friends or by himself. However, when he is in the house, glasses should not be worn as a rule, if the near-sightedness is not that serious. If it is serious, and there is a great difference between the right and left eye, then not only should glasses be used, but contact lenses as well. Right now, in the cities, there is every opportunity to get contact lenses for children. If the situation is such that a child is near-sighted and the situation is getting worse, then there are surgical methods available, which should not scare the parents. The surgery is directed at stopping the progression of the near-sightedness. Today, one can say that the surgical preventative methods for the prevention of near-sightedness are very effective, and are the simplest, the quickest, and the most accessible method of treatment. The quality of the patient's health and health is good.

It is possible that the best time for Soviet children to watch television is during coverage of a Soviet space mission. This report from November 22nd describes the reentry of the Soyuz spacecraft. We offer your attention to the report of our special correspondent, Alexander Galkina. We bring to your attention the story from our special correspondent, Alexander Galkina, from the landing point of the space vehicle Soyuz T-14. The wind was not strong at first, but gained intensity in the steps and the descending space vehicle was blown off course. The rescue team on the ground heard the loud noise of the parachutes opening. When it is quiet, the sound of the parachutes can be heard in a 70-mile radius. And here in the headphones of the pilot of the aircraft, the helicopter, could be heard all three voices of the cosmonauts. They told us that the reentry was successful, that they were feeling good, and were preparing for contact with the ground.

First, as was planned, the helicopter landed near the Soyuz T-14 vehicle. Even structures were at the ready, but did not get used. Vladimir Vasutin feels quite well and is ready to conduct a short interview. The second cosmonaut researcher, Alexander Volkov, sat down, followed by the third, cosmonaut Viktor Selenyev. How are you feeling? I'm feeling all right, the way I should after a landing. I'm very happy to see people. It has been just the three of us for so long and is nice to see so many people. Was your work successful? Well, not quite. What can I say? The flight is over, might have been accomplished. I like to keep working, but we can't stay up there forever. I'm glad I returned to my native land. I was satisfied with our mission. There are four million young people in Moscow.

Soviet seem to take their refrigerators very seriously. In an earlier edition of Channel 3 Moscow, we broadcast a report describing the variety of decorator colors and options available on new models. Last month, this story commemorating the production of the 4 millionth refrigerator appeared on Soviet TV. These cadres, we filmed today when the 4 millionth refrigerator was being assembled with a brand named Zil. 35 years ago, this factory turned out the first home refrigerator. It took 15 years to make the first million refrigerators, but the remainder in a cooperative effort took only seven years to complete. Models have been changed, production has been modernized, the refrigerators became more beautiful and spacious. But the most important feature is the continuation of reliable work and the longevity of the product. Many of the refrigerators made it the factory have served 15, 20 or more years.

They have served their owners well. This model has already received a mark of quality several times. The 4 millionth refrigerator was made by the brigade headed by Viktor Vasilyevich Semenov, who participated in the assembly of the first refrigerator. Now the 4 millionth refrigerator will be placed in the Zil museum. For the first time in our country, we have been following the refrigerator story for months. We have had the refrigerator complete, beer and we have the car that can carry a refrigerator. Now we have the crowning of the 4 millionth refrigerator. What is going on with the refrigerator? This is the final answer to the Khrushchev, Nixon Kitchen Debates. They are closing the refrigerator gap, right? Right, more seriously. In the 50s, what Khrushchev's metaphors for the new caveat is it was refrigerators. You have described comforts at home and refrigerators, refrigerators are one of the priorities. So now we finally have 4 million of them and I'm sure all of our... And they're all working too, apparently.

I'm still working for a long time. Certainly for tourists when they visit the Soviet Union, I know what I go. I'm going to the Zil museum to see the 4 millionth refrigerator. Just such a consumer thrust, we had these outspoken people complaining about the quality and the price of coats. And what seemed like a very barbed shot at the factory, factory of the coats. What's going on with that? Well, I think part of it is the Gorbachev's economic reforms. And also for the last 10 years, Soviets have been saving too much money in terms... There are no longer willing to buy junk. I'll keep my coat two more years, three more years, but I won't buy junk. This is why the black market has thrived so much in the last 10 years. People want to buy anything. They're willing to pay $200 for a pair of jeans. A comparable amount for a record. Isn't that interesting? How are problems in there seem to be mirror images so often? They have too much money being saved and not enough being spent. And we have a share of it. I'm sure you like the university economy. I'm sure that Robert Reagan would love to have that problem. Stephen, when we were watching this segment, you made a comment about the anti-smoking ads that they were showing or efforts that they were showing in the United States on Russian television.

And you made some interesting comments about the medical impact. It's the same thrust that you have with the anti-licker campaign. There's a big problem of physical health in the Soviet Union. Life expectancy has been declining in recent years. There have been tremendous problems that have affected the workforce because of this. Families have been broken apart because of the alcohol problem. I suppose this is the same problem we have in the United States with a greater amount of smoking by women. So it seems to me that what they're not telling you there is probably a greater rise in cancer level. And it's having a multiple effect in the society. But in both the American segment they showed, and in their own segment, all the thrust was about women and girls. And why they shouldn't smoke it. Why somehow it would make boys less attractive. Even more interesting, from the American point of view, they make it look like a conspiracy by the American tobacco industry and cooots with the federal government with the federal tax supports for tobacco.

But on the other hand, they don't have any explanation of it in their own society. Who makes your cigarettes in Russia? Exactly. It's a government. There's a vague blame on parents and young men, I suppose. Now, Norma, let me jump back to the top of this segment. And that whole issue with the students. Can you help explain a little bit as to what that was all about? Well, having lived in a student dorm for one year and, you know, really having known a lot of students, my feeling is that this is an official attempt to reverse the traditional attitudes about students not working. And it's too prong. The first one is aimed at the factory managers who don't want these part-time workers three times a week. And the second one is aimed at the students. Say, see, you could have more money if you were willing to work. But they need the student to increase productivity to get some live energetic bodies into the factory. And so this is a two-pronged propaganda aim. It's so odd that it's so married. My kids would love to have the government pay their way through a school and not have to work.

But apparently, that's not quite the message we're supposed to be getting from the Soviet students. Well, it is a very, very austere life, you know, so that you live in the dorms and the modest. No. No. No, very austere. Did you catch, I caught one little anecdote there from the student. One of the students, the young woman said, you know, we're, we volunteer to do these types of projects on occasion. And that's a catch because the students have these, they're called subordinates, they're volunteer days. They go out to help with the harvest and this is all part of her role. I'm sure they all do. They all do. They all for joy at the chance. And what she's saying quite frankly, and this probably corresponds to what the Ministry of Higher Education wants to say, is stop this nonsense about sending them out to the harvest if they're going to work, pay for it, otherwise let them study. And there's another problem too. At the top of the top of the show tonight, we saw this little thing with the kids taking the marbles out of the jar. Now, these are probably the managers that they're dealing with here at the factory. The people who've been educated that way, not to buck the system, not to change the labor relationship, not to hire part-time people.

And all of a sudden, here is this great group of students who want to be hired and they don't know how to deal with it. We just have one minute left and there are a couple of other topics. I think we have to get your ideas on, for example, the doctor talking about television and eyesight and so on and so forth. Out of that children's problems for kids. Yes, an eye surgery. I mean, really, there seem to be the pushing of the eye surgery to solve near-sightedness. Is that promotion of their medical technology? I'm not an ophthalmologist, but I know there's been some coverage of this in American technology. In American television lately, this is an operation which is highly suspect in the United States. And when it's simply a correction which can be made with glasses or contact lenses, the question is why risk this type of surgery and why risk the secondary effects which could show a 5, 10, 15 or 20 years later? We have just seconds left. So Nick, I'm going to throw the last question to you. How impactful on the people are the messages that are so clearly part of much of what we see on Soviet television in influencing them?

You mean the messages that you can see where they work? Did they work? Very quickly, I think, but the message that does work is that it's a time for candor. You can talk more frankly about things. Nick Hayes, Norman and Steven Feinstein, thank you very much for joining us. Absolutely. That's it for this edition of Channel 3 Moscow. As we mentioned earlier, tonight we will be giving you a chance to browse through a recent edition of Pravda, translated into English by associated publishers of St. Paul. If you have your VCR ready, start recording now and we will just take a few seconds so that you can take a look at it later on at high speed. After the show, you simply use your freeze frame advance to slow the images down to read them. Okay, here we go. We hope you have enjoyed the program and we hope you'll feel comfortable calling us with your comments or suggestions about tonight's show. The number to call is 642-1980. You will be talking to an answering machine so there's no reason to be shy. That number again is 642-1980.

We will be back with the January edition of Channel 3 Moscow on the 22nd of next month and Joe and I will be back here Friday night at 7 for Almanac until then we leave you with this interpolitical look at popular music. Something we call Moscow does Motown. Have a good evening. We will be back here Friday night at 7 for Almanac. We will be back here Friday night at 7 for Almanac.

We will be back here Friday night at 7 for Almanac. We will be back here Friday night at 7 for Almanac. We will be back here Friday night at 7 for Almanac.

Channel 3 Moscow is a production of KTCATV Channel 2 for stations of the Minnesota Public Television Network.