shalinialisha/ai-for-all · Datasets at Hugging Face

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nationalism, against racism is what makes it possible for a society
like this to function. And of course the next step in that process
must be the personal element. I don’t see anyone attempting or even
suggesting this phase, however, and that is troublesome, for without
this step socialism remains at the mercy of an incomplete vision,
imposed from the outside. We have internal desires but outside
controls. But at least there is a climate here that seems to encourage
those questions. I asked Helen about the Jews, and she was rather
evasive, I think, saying only that there were Jews in government.
The basic position seems to be one of a presumption of equality,
even though there is sometimes a large gap between the expectation
and the reality.
We visited a film studio and saw several children’s cartoons
which handled their themes beautifully, deeply, with great humor,
and most notably, without the kind of violence that we have come
to associate with cartoons. They were truly delightful.
After two very busy days of meetings in Tashkent, we started out
at about 7:30 one morning by bus for Samarkand, the fabulous city
of Tamerlane the Great. After a short snooze on the bus I began to
feel a little more human, to look about me and the countryside.
We’re heading southeast from Tashkent, and Tashkent was
southeast of Moscow. The countryside is very beautiful. It feels
strange and familiar at the same time. This is cotton country. Miles
and miles of it, and trainloads of students were coming south from
Moscow on a two-week vacation to party and pick cotton. There was
a holiday atmosphere all around. We passed through small villages
where I could see little markets with women sitting cross-ankled on
the bare earth selling a few cabbages or a small tray of fruit. And
walls, behind which you could see adobe houses. Even the walls
themselves reminded me very much of West Africa, made of a clay
mud that cracks in the same old familiar patterns that we saw over
and over again in Kumasi and south of Accra. Only here the clay is
not red, but a light beige, and that is to remind me that this is the
USSR and not Ghana or Dahomey. Of course, the faces are white.
There are other differences that creep through also. The towns and
the villages are really in very good repair and there is a powerful

railroad running parallel to our road. Long, efficient looking trains
and tanker cars and ten-car passenger trains pass by us, going
through switch houses with blue and white ceramic tiles and
painted roofs, all managed by women. Everything looks massive,
bigger, in Russia. The roads are wider, the trains longer, the
buildings bigger. The ceilings are higher. Everything seems to be on
a larger scale.
We stopped for a harvest festival lunch at a collective farm,
complete with the prerequisite but very engaging cultural
presentation, while vodka flowed. Then we all danced and sang
together with the busloads of students who had come to help pick
cotton. Later on along the roads there were literally hills of cotton
being loaded onto trains.
Each town that we pass through has a cafe, where the villagers
can come and spend an evening or chat or talk or watch TV or listen
to propaganda, who knows, but where they can meet. And all over,
in between very old looking villages, there are also new four story
buildings in progress, factories, new apartment houses. Trains full of
building slabs and other kinds of materials, coal and rock and
tractors pass by, even one with row after row after row of small
automobiles. There are three different Russian automobiles. This is
the cheapest, and most popular — hundreds and hundreds of cars
stacked, all the same lemon color. Obviously, that month the factory
was producing yellow.
I watched all of this industry pass and it came through to me on
that bus ride down to Samarkand that this land was not industrial so
much as it was industrious. There was a flavor of people working
hard and doing things and it was very attractive. On top of that, I
learned that this area between Tashkent and Samarkand was once
known as the “Hungry Desert” because although it was fertile, no
rain ever fell and it was covered with a coat of salt. Through
technology devised to lift the salt, and a great deal of human hands
and engineering, this whole area has been made to bloom, and it
really does bloom. It is being farmed, mostly with cotton. People
live here and there are massive irrigation ditches and pipes that
maintain trees where there are towns and collective farms. All

through Uzbekistan the feeling of a desert having been reclaimed
and bearing huge fruit is very constant. Later on, as we headed on
south after the great feast, we stopped at an oasis, and I picked
some desert flowers that were growing — small little scrub flowers
that were growing in the sand. And just for so, I tasted one of them
and as honeysuckle is sweet, so is this flower salt. It was as if the
earth itself was still producing salt or still pouring salt into its
products.
There’s very beautiful marble throughout Uzbekistan. The stairs
of the hotels and sometimes the streets have a beautiful pink and
green marble. That was in Tashkent, which means “Stone City.” But
on this ride from Tashkent to Samarkand I saw no stones or rocks of
any kind near the road. I don’t know why, except that it is a
reclaimed desert. The roads felt very good, and they were very
broad because of course there was always heavy machinery and
trucking traveling back and forth.
We had another glowing welcome in Gulstan, which means the
“Hungry Desert.” This is now the village of roses. We visited a
collective farm, went into a house, saw the kindergarten. The
woman’s house into which we went was very impressive, as I said to
someone later at lunch who asked me what I thought. I said, “She
lives better than I do,” and in some ways she did. The collective
farm in Gulstan, called the Leningrad Collective, is one of the
wealthiest collectives in the area. I will never know the name of the
very kind young woman who opened her home to me, but I also will
not forget her. She offered me the hospitality of her house, and even

nationalism, against racism is what makes it possible for a society

like this to function. And of course the next step in that process

must be the personal element. I don’t see anyone attempting or even

suggesting this phase, however, and that is troublesome, for without

this step socialism remains at the mercy of an incomplete vision,

imposed from the outside. We have internal desires but outside

controls. But at least there is a climate here that seems to encourage

those questions. I asked Helen about the Jews, and she was rather

evasive, I think, saying only that there were Jews in government.

The basic position seems to be one of a presumption of equality,

even though there is sometimes a large gap between the expectation

and the reality.

We visited a film studio and saw several children’s cartoons

which handled their themes beautifully, deeply, with great humor,

and most notably, without the kind of violence that we have come

to associate with cartoons. They were truly delightful.

After two very busy days of meetings in Tashkent, we started out

at about 7:30 one morning by bus for Samarkand, the fabulous city

of Tamerlane the Great. After a short snooze on the bus I began to

feel a little more human, to look about me and the countryside.

We’re heading southeast from Tashkent, and Tashkent was

southeast of Moscow. The countryside is very beautiful. It feels

strange and familiar at the same time. This is cotton country. Miles

and miles of it, and trainloads of students were coming south from

Moscow on a two-week vacation to party and pick cotton. There was

a holiday atmosphere all around. We passed through small villages

where I could see little markets with women sitting cross-ankled on

the bare earth selling a few cabbages or a small tray of fruit. And

walls, behind which you could see adobe houses. Even the walls

themselves reminded me very much of West Africa, made of a clay

mud that cracks in the same old familiar patterns that we saw over

and over again in Kumasi and south of Accra. Only here the clay is

not red, but a light beige, and that is to remind me that this is the

USSR and not Ghana or Dahomey. Of course, the faces are white.

There are other differences that creep through also. The towns and

the villages are really in very good repair and there is a powerful

railroad running parallel to our road. Long, efficient looking trains

and tanker cars and ten-car passenger trains pass by us, going

through switch houses with blue and white ceramic tiles and

painted roofs, all managed by women. Everything looks massive,

bigger, in Russia. The roads are wider, the trains longer, the

buildings bigger. The ceilings are higher. Everything seems to be on

a larger scale.

We stopped for a harvest festival lunch at a collective farm,

complete with the prerequisite but very engaging cultural

presentation, while vodka flowed. Then we all danced and sang

together with the busloads of students who had come to help pick

cotton. Later on along the roads there were literally hills of cotton

being loaded onto trains.

Each town that we pass through has a cafe, where the villagers

can come and spend an evening or chat or talk or watch TV or listen

to propaganda, who knows, but where they can meet. And all over,

in between very old looking villages, there are also new four story

buildings in progress, factories, new apartment houses. Trains full of

building slabs and other kinds of materials, coal and rock and

tractors pass by, even one with row after row after row of small

automobiles. There are three different Russian automobiles. This is

the cheapest, and most popular — hundreds and hundreds of cars

stacked, all the same lemon color. Obviously, that month the factory

was producing yellow.

I watched all of this industry pass and it came through to me on

that bus ride down to Samarkand that this land was not industrial so

much as it was industrious. There was a flavor of people working

hard and doing things and it was very attractive. On top of that, I

learned that this area between Tashkent and Samarkand was once

known as the “Hungry Desert” because although it was fertile, no

rain ever fell and it was covered with a coat of salt. Through

technology devised to lift the salt, and a great deal of human hands

and engineering, this whole area has been made to bloom, and it

really does bloom. It is being farmed, mostly with cotton. People

live here and there are massive irrigation ditches and pipes that

maintain trees where there are towns and collective farms. All

through Uzbekistan the feeling of a desert having been reclaimed

and bearing huge fruit is very constant. Later on, as we headed on

south after the great feast, we stopped at an oasis, and I picked

some desert flowers that were growing — small little scrub flowers

that were growing in the sand. And just for so, I tasted one of them

and as honeysuckle is sweet, so is this flower salt. It was as if the

earth itself was still producing salt or still pouring salt into its

products.

There’s very beautiful marble throughout Uzbekistan. The stairs

of the hotels and sometimes the streets have a beautiful pink and

green marble. That was in Tashkent, which means “Stone City.” But

on this ride from Tashkent to Samarkand I saw no stones or rocks of

any kind near the road. I don’t know why, except that it is a

reclaimed desert. The roads felt very good, and they were very

broad because of course there was always heavy machinery and

trucking traveling back and forth.

We had another glowing welcome in Gulstan, which means the

“Hungry Desert.” This is now the village of roses. We visited a

collective farm, went into a house, saw the kindergarten. The

woman’s house into which we went was very impressive, as I said to

someone later at lunch who asked me what I thought. I said, “She

lives better than I do,” and in some ways she did. The collective

farm in Gulstan, called the Leningrad Collective, is one of the

wealthiest collectives in the area. I will never know the name of the

very kind young woman who opened her home to me, but I also will

not forget her. She offered me the hospitality of her house, and even