The Unfulfilled Promise of Reform Means That Working-Class Families Are Just Scraping By

By ANN M. SIMMONS VORONEZH

The saddest truism in Russia is that life is harder now. Not that ordinary citizens ever lived very well, but most could afford the basics. Today soaring prices and an almost totally worthless currency have reduced even that way of life to a bare minimum. Look at what the unfulfilled promise of reform has brought the Vaktin family.

The alarm clock rings at 5:30 a.m. Nadezhda Vaktin, a 41-year-old hairdresser, heads straight for the kitchen of her family's four-room apartment in a ramshackle high-rise in the industrial city of Voronezh, 340 miles southwest of Moscow. Before the water supply goes off at 9 -- for the next 10 hours -- Nadezhda must prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for the family of four, wash dishes and clothes and fill four buckets for drinking. Husband Alexander rushes to clean up before daughter Larisa and son Alexei commandeer the bathroom.

As the teakettle bubbles on the old tin stove, Nadezhda serves a breakfast of bread and butter while considering her shopping list. "You can't plan now," she says. "Things were more affordable before." Food costs the family nearly 4,000 rubles a month, a sizable proportion of their combined monthly income of 7,500 rubles. Money must also be set aside for rent -- 70 rubles now but set to rise soon -- and for transportation, which runs about 80 rubles. Not a kopeck is left by month's end for saving. Education and health care are still supplied free by the state.

The Vaktins are no worse -- and no better -- off than most working-class families these days. The promise of Western-style capitalism has brought them little more than rising prices and a shriveling ruble. Hard-to-get products might be more plentiful, but average citizens cannot afford them. The falling ruble has reduced paychecks to a pittance. With no hard-currency income to fall back on, families like the Vaktins scramble for the bare necessities.

Learning to live with the changes has not been easy. "I simply don't understand what is going on now, and I'm not alone," says Alexander, 42, a truck driver for a collective farm 30 miles away, who earns between 3,000 and 4,000 rubles a month. "When prices were fixed, bread cost this much, milk that much. Now in one shop there is one price, in another shop a different price."

Nadezhda earns 3,000 rubles styling men's hair 39 hours a week in a no- frills state shop that serves as one of the neighborhood's social centers. Larisa, 19, also a hairdresser, was unemployed for eight months but now brings home 1,500 rubles from her job; Alexei is in high school.

Nadezhda holds the family purse strings. She spends three to five hours a day scouring the local shops and farmers' market for the best bargains. "In the past, 10 rubles could have bought me 6 lbs. of meat," she says. "Now I can't even buy 2 lbs. for 100 rubles." Her monthly shopping list is short: 6.5 lbs. of meat at 125 rubles per lb.; 13 lbs. of sausage at 100 rubles per lb.; 22 lbs. of potatoes at 7 rubles per lb.; 90 eggs costing about 38 rubles for 10; and 3 lbs. of butter totaling 300 rubles. Sugar costs 40 rubles per lb. and requires a ration card allowing the purchase of 4 lbs. a month. The seasonal fruits and vegetables that supplement this diet come from the Vaktins' own country garden. Some cash is usually put aside for a few bottles of vodka.

Clothes are a luxury. Nadezhda shares her only raincoat with Larisa. Alexander and Alexei, 16, have learned to go without anything new. The Vaktins have no telephone, so contact with friends is limited. The wooden cabinet and rickety set of armchairs in the living room, which also doubles as master bedroom, were bought 17 years ago. There will be no money to replace the furniture anytime soon. The family's only entertainment is an old Russian- manufactured TV on which Alexander watches the latest sports and Nadezhda her favorite soap opera.

Since the Vaktins have no car, rising fuel prices do not directly affect them. But the cost of train and plane tickets has curbed any vacation plans; a single train ticket from Voronezh to Moscow has jumped from 10 rubles to 230. Holidays are strictly limited to the family's dacha 16 miles away, which they reach by a special bus costing 14 rubles.

The Vaktins spent their lifetime savings to build the two-story country house four years ago. Alexander's sister supplied construction materials cheaply, since she worked in the trade. His mother helped pay for the bricks. The dacha cost about 10,000 rubles, a sum that could have bought two cars at the time. But the property is debt free, and the Vaktins relax there every Sunday.

Though life is more difficult than ever, the Vaktins still trust that the future will bring better times. For now, their children have enough to eat, their flat is cozy, and they have Elsa, an Alsatian, to keep the family smiling with her playful tricks and antics. "We can't complain," says Nadezhda. "But we hope things will get better." That is still mostly just a dream.

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CAPTION: THE VAKTINS' MONTHLY BUDGET