Intergirl: A Hard Currency Hooker

by Vladimir Kunin

Recounts the exploits of Tanya, a prostitute, who works in foreign-only hotels, and her life in Sweden after marriage to one of her clients

Genres: Russia

162 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Ju · Rating 5 out of 5]

Чего ж так грустно стало?

[Ylva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the Finnish translation of the book.

This novel, originally published in the Soviet Union in 1988, is the tale of a Soviet prostitute, Tanya, who gets married to a Swedish businessman who has been one of her regular "customers" each time he has visited the Soviet Union on a business trip. One of the interesting aspects the novel shows is how certain things (e.g. prostitution) "do not exist here in the Soviet Union, they belong only to the decadent, immoral, and corrupt non-Communistic West" — officially, that is; in reality those things were very much present even in the Soviet Union, their existence just was denied.

I have studied not only Russian language, but also the customs, culture and the way of life in both the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Even though I've never lived in the Soviet Union, there were lots of little things in the novel that I recognized from my studies, and from the stories I've heard from my Russian friends who were born and grew up during the Soviet era.

To Tanya, a young Soviet woman, working in a profession that officially didn't exist in the Soviet Union, but still living an almost-normal Soviet life, a new life married to a Swede and moving to Sweden prove to be full of various cultural shocks. Through her eyes we, children of the West, can get not only a glimpse of the life in the Soviet Union, but also a new, fresh look at our own life and ways here in the West.

Even the novel itself, and the way the story is written, tell something about the Soviet Union: even though it was published at a time when glasnost and perestroika had already been introduced, the Soviet authors still had to write their novels in certain ways in order to get them published, and not to get the author classified as "an enemy of the Soviet state and Communism".

I'd like to recommend this book to everybody, even to those who haven't even heard or read what life in the Soviet Union was like — or, perhaps especially to such people. Tanya's life in the Soviet Union and her cultural shocks in the West, and the way her story is told, can tell at least something about what the life in the Soviet Union was like for the ordinary citizens.

[Daria Birina · Rating 5 out of 5]

даже сильнее, чем фильм.

[Jakub Thoruniensis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unikalna tematyka i bohaterka. Takie książki poszerzają nieco nasz obraz ZSRR i rzucają światło na zapomniane tematy.

Backlog z 2018, ale pamiętam, że był to ciekawy tekst.

[dddddddddddd dddddd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Просто грустно стало, даже другого слова нет

[Mary Chaiko · Rating 5 out of 5]

great rythmn, amasing characters, sceptical about the message, but ending is good
veronika stepanova was right

[Oksana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Образцовая повесть: емкая, меткая, динамичная, жизненная; она читается так, будто слушаешь чей-то разговор по душам на кухне. Написанная на излете Союза, она сочетает в себе критические замечания о советской действительности с вневременным сюжетом о бесмыссленном побеге от себя. Проституция выступает здесь лишь в качестве кичливого фасада, за которым скывается щемящая история о лжи себе и всем вокруг, о неприкаянности и людской жестокости.

Кунин отлично работает с языком персонажей - уже по их речи можно многое сказать и об их социальном статусе, и о характерах. Что главная героиня Таня, что ее товарки получились настолько правдоподобными, будто речь идет о реальных людях, о чьих-то знакомых или соседях. В этой истории нет практически ни одного случайного или лишнего персонажа, все они иллюстрируют тот или иной аргумент в споре Тани с окружающей ее действительностью. Всего за сто с лишним страниц "Интердевочке" удалось затронуть вопросов больше, чем получается у некоторых романов объемом в четыре-пять раз больше.