Generation Next: Chance encounter at the vodka shop

Radio documentary by Karin Wells and David Gutnick

Martin Kubin and Lukas Steiner with a glass of vodka and "Communist Coke" in Havirov, Czech Republic. (CBC/David Gutnick)

Havirov, Czech Republic is a world away from the tourist Mecca of Prague. It was the Soviet version of a company town, built in 1955 to house thousands of coal miners and their families, and is full Stalinist architecture at its most ugly, its most brutal: empty streets lined with identical apartments.It was a Communist stronghold in the old days, and still is today. Older people still vote for The Party. However, young people like Martin Kubin and Lukas Steiner don't.This is an interview transcript from the CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentary "Generation Next: Young Minds, Bodies and Souls after Communism. From Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary"

Transcript

There is a cramped store in the basement of an apartment building in the eastern Czech city of Havirov that sells vodka in bulk. Two men in their 20s — good friends Martin Kubin and Lukas Steiner, who finish each other's sentences — shop there a couple of times a week.
They bring an empty two-litre plastic bottle and the shopkeeper fills it up. Two litres of vodka costs 100 crowns: about six dollars.
Martin and Lukas also pick up a bottle of Kofola, which they call "Communist Coke." Although they had planned to go watch "Czech Idol" on TV, instead we share drinks from a plastic cup in a nearby park and converse through our interpreter Nada.

"I am not so proud because I do a lot of stuff for culture and I think in this respect the Communists are still pretty conservative. So when I want to organize some event here or do something new they are resistant to change. It would be easier to do something like that in Prague or in other towns where the Communists are not leading the town because they are more open in other areas. In this area of culture the are resistant to change."

Martin says that he is getting bored talking politics. He would rather share a secret:

"One more thingI am not ashamed to say that I am a homosexual and I think that under the Communist regime it was very tough for these people. And that is why I have some reservations to the system."

And theres another secret they share with me but they don't want it recorded: Martin and Luki make their living performing on a porn website.

They tell me that typed instructions from paying clients pop up on the computer screen. Martin and Luki dance, kiss, drop their pants. They roll all over a bed … all for about the same money as a coal miner makes.

The Kofola's finished, Martin and Luki have had enough for tonight. Theyve had fun, they want to keep in touch with us. And then, off they go, with a half-full jug of vodka.
As we walk away, my interpreter observes:

"So they do not fear they would be seen or anything like that because it is people from Canada, Germany that are viewing this and they do not see anything wrong with it because everybody has sex anyway and it is pretty safe because you are not doing prostitution or anything. So Havirov is aging and young people who are here are leaving Havirov to go to work abroad or they leave Havirov to go to Prague and those that stay tend to make their living as they can.
Communism tried to keep the whole country alive but the situation has changed, mines were open now factories are closing down, the mines are not working as they used to, so times have changed and people have to move on. These young people are free to do whatever they want so if they feel like they have to earn some extra cash to be able to pay their rent then their option is to do porn over the Internet. Morality is not an issue for them I think."

About the radio documentary

Stone cold: statue of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin looks into a democratic future for Ukraine. (CBC/Karin Wells)

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was smashed. That marked the beginning of the end of a dream — for communists. For many people who lived under Soviet domination, it signaled the end of a nightmare.

Almost overnight, capitalism bloomed. Whole economies were redesigned. Free speech flourished. Unemployment soared. So did interest in organized religion. Billionaires popped up. Social safety nets were shredded. Neighbours found out who had been spying on whom. Real elections were held. Here was democracy, or something like it.

Now, from the ashes of the old — still warm, still combustible — the young are building new worlds in Eastern Europe. Theirs is the first post-Soviet generation. They carry the weight of the past, its secrets and lies. And like the young everywhere, they dream about a different future.

This is the second of three CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentaries that bring us the sounds, experiences, ideas and dreams of a special generation in a series called "Generation Next: Young Minds, Bodies and Souls after Communism, from Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary" produced by Karin Wells and David Gutnick.

LISTEN to Part 2 (51:20)