Bye-bye Babushka

Directed by Rebecca Dreyfus

In contrast with their granddaughters, babushkas (grandmothers) do not own a thing, but complaining is not in their nature. This generation of women was born during the Russian revolution, reached adulthood under Stalin, and now that they have come to the end of their lives, they establish that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has fallen apart. American Rebecca Feig lived in Russia for two years and talked to farmers‘ wives, female party leaders and intellectuals about communism, femininity, love and work. ‘Women in the Soviet Union are horses,‘ an old metal worker says. ‘They do the most arduous work. The only fact that distinguishes them from men is their ability to bear children.‘ While the young people are playing sports, the babushkas are working. ‘It keeps us healthy‘, a former party leader thinks. Various witness reports about communist Russia, with a rigid standard as an echo from a closed era.