Claudia Erdheim has, with interruptions, spent almost two years in Russia, and has gotten to know the country with all its difficulties and absurdities. Her experiences are presented in this book in the form of five stories. Although each story stands on its own, the same persons are repeatedly encountered. "Kolya" is a crime story about a guitar instructor. Without his knowledge, his apartment is sold by one of his students. "Stomcomplex" tells about a stay at a dental clinic with Soviet-style sadistic doctors. In "Petersburg", life in a communal apartment is described. "Kasan" is about a six member family living together in a tiny apartment. The last story, "Fall Leaves" begins with the crisis of August 1998, and ends with the departure of the story-teller at the train

Back Then Everything was Better - Stories from Russia
Löcker Publisher

It was exactly during the time of the transitions occurring in Russia that Claudia Erdheim spent two years in the country. With only several interruptions, she not only lived in Moscow, but also traveled through the vast land. Her stay ended on September 29, 1998, six weeks after the beginning of the crisis. But even before this point, Russian life was not at all simple, and everday matters completely different than in the West, where things have remained peaceful and satiated for the last fifty years. Using five stories, strange stories about a strange country and its people, Erdheim relates her Russian encounters, adventures and impressions. Erdheim's gift for seeing the comical aspects of the greatest misery, to find the ludicrous within the greatest chaos, make these stories more powerful than other travel accounts. Her own account is accompanied by a volume of photographs. But Claudia Erdheim is a writer, not a photographer. Even when the snapshots are set close together, they hardly differ from the well-known pictures of Russia or the Ukraine. The fact, however, that they were not easily taken even in the (new) Russia because old-time functionaries still adhered to old rules is only one facet of the colorful mosaic depicting this colorful country so foreign to us. Since Erdheim's visit to Russia, life has not become easier for its people. This has certainly remained the same, and is fondly described by the author.

This time he is wearing a black leather coat from the seventies. Waisted, rather shabby. And again the plastic shoulder bag. He still has to buy something to eat. He buys a piece of disgusting sausage, looks like pork sausage, but is much worse. And a bottle of vodka. Not a good area. Sleep silo of the worst kind. Kolya lives in a one bedroom apartment, the apartment of his deceased mother. His two bedroom apartment was sold by one of his students.

- What?
- Yes, that's the bandit. He sold my apartment.
- How is that possible. That can't happen.
- Yes it can. They kidnapped me, held me for twelve days, and threatened to kill   my mother.
- Who?
- The bandits. Do you have a magnetophone on you?
- No. I forgot to take it.
- Too bad. You could tape the story that I tell you, and make a program out of it.
- Next time. But I'm an author, not a journalist.
- Maybe you know someone who works for television who would be interested.
- I could ask some time. How was the boy able to sell your apartment? I don't   understand that at all.
- Well, he's a bandit, a criminal. He worked out something with Armenians.

I don't understand that. I probably wouldn't have understood it in German either. The father of this boy is very well known and enormously rich. But he can't tell me who it is.

- Why can't you tell me that?
- I can't tell you.
- How was it exactly? You were kidnapped?
- I don't want to talk about that.

He covers his face with both hands.

- But if you want me to write about it, you have to tell me.
- The boy was supposed to show up for a guitar lesson.
- How old is the boy?
- Twenty, back then he was sixteen. He came with a friend. They tied me up,
  grabbed me left and right, and said that they would kill my mother if I wouldn't
  come with them. Then they pushed me into a car, and took me to an
  apartment on the thirteenth floor. In the North, in Altufyevo. They forced me to
  sign a paper that I would sell the apartment. They threatened each day to kill
  my mother. They kept me there for twelve days. I don't even want to talk
  about it. The boy has disappeared. His father doesn't know either where he
  is.
- And the other boy?
- He also disappeared.
- Is he just as young?
- No, he was older. Mid twenties, maybe twenty-three.