MoldovAnn

It’s not uncommon to encounter a shortage of something in Ukraine. At any given moment, our office may be out of staples, or scotch tape, or batteries for the camera. At the moment, we have a shortage of working computers, which hasn’t proven to be much of a problem yet since with holidays, vacations, and school schedules, we haven’t had the full complement of full-time staff and volunteesrs (university students) in the office in a few months. These shortages, called “deficits” in the Russian vernacular, occur in many sectors of society here – negotiation problems with Russia last year threated a deficit of natural gas supplies; there’s a deficit of affordable housing in Kyiv; the store didn’t get it’s bread supply today (OK, that’s an extreme example; people would riot in the streets if there was a deficit of bread). Well, you get the picture.

Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to find a sector in no short supply of essential goods – the Ivan Franko Theatre in central Kyiv. I bought two tickets to a Russian-language production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Now, I’ve bought tickets to other theatres before that are printed-up with basic generic information (as in theatre name, address, and ticket location- row, seat, etc), so I wasn’t surprised when the tickets I bought had that general information pre-printed, with the specific performance information stamped onto the ticket – date, name of the play, start time, and price. It’s a rather brilliant cost-cutting measure, if you ask me.

If you look closely at these tickets (and if you’re lucky enough to be able to read Ukrainian), you will notice that it says the “October Culture Palace”, on October Revolution street, and the tickets cost 2 rubles 40 kopeks. Now, keep in mind that the theatre has been called Ivan Franko theatre for I-don’t-know how long, the street is Instytutska, and the tickets 150 hrivnas. I’m trying to imagine how many tickets they must have printed during Soviet times.