Word: chernenko
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...Konstantin Chernenko's funeral, TIME's Nancy Traver walked through the streets of Moscow asking many people for their thoughts about their former leader, about Mikhail Gorbachev and about their hopes for the future. Several of the citizens she questioned asked for her identification; one man threatened to call a policeman. The elderly were wary of talking to an American, the young relatively eager. Nearly all gave a strikingly uniform response: they knew little about their country's leaders and were not unduly concerned about what they did not know. "I'm afraid it is all a matter of utter...
...ginger-colored suit, insisted on walking to an empty bus stop before talking: "As one of your writers said, 'There are three kinds of lie: a small lie, a big lie and politics.' He was right, so I don't involve myself in politics. Of course, we presumed Chernenko was ill, but who knew how ill? They don't give health bulletins here, you know. This isn't America; we feed on news from the grapevine. So it was a surprise to hear he had actually died. Still, things haven't changed much since the Stalin days. Ever since...
...busy talking about our own livelihoods. It's up to us to make changes in our lives ourselves, not to wait for the leaders to do it for us. I'm not in the least interested in politics; I didn't even know Chernenko...
Yekaterina ("Auntie Katya"), a 90-year-old in a faded woolen coat and thick brown head scarf, carrying a bag of apples: "No, dear, my family didn't discuss the death when they came home; they were all very tired, so they just went to bed. Chernenko? Oh, we all have to die. They all die, and yet I live on. I'll always have bread. Why do you ask, dear? Was he a relative of yours...
Nina, 87, a woman with two rows of silver teeth, dressed in a blue coat and woolen scarf, in Moscow for the day to shop: "I don't know anything about Gorbachev; I only know that we had bread under Chernenko, and we will continue to have it under Gorbachev. There is meat in the shops too. I have a pension, and Gorbachev won't take it away from...