All the Clean Ones Are Married

May 28, 2001
Working as a newspaper reporter in upstate New York in 1991, Cidylo told her Ukrainian-born parents that she wanted to live in Moscow. The Cold War having only just ended, they were appalled. But she persevered, and for the next several years lived and worked in the capital as it quickly sold itself to the highest bidder. Fluent in Russian, Cidylo lived in a Muscovite apartment and immersed herself in the city's everyday life, which she describes with humor and compassion. For example, her efforts first to find a washing machine, then to use it, are poignantly funny. "What did you expect? This is Russia," is the usual refrain of her Russian friends to daily indignities. Many of her anecdotes focus on her experiences of close relationships and gender relations in Russia, which have been much less affected by feminism than in the West—though the Russians are enlightened in their own way. (In Russia, Cidylo writes, "what's important is not staying
married, but having been
married" as a sort of rite of passage.) Her feelings after the untimely death of a male friend and her relationship with a Russian grandmother who works for her as an upholsterer are poignant. Cidylo's light touch and wry humor make this a distinctive trip, offering insight into both sides of the formerly bipolar world. (June)Forecast:Fans of Andrea Lee's
Russian Journal will welcome this similarly personal account; Cidylo is as likable in person as she is in prose, her author tour will spur sales.

January 1, 2002
Cidylo, a New York newspaper journalist of Ukranian-Polish descent, made a life-changing move to Moscow in 1991. There she worked first as a translator, and, as economic conditions worsened, ended up a stringer for various U.S. newspapers. Despite continual frustration with everyday life in Moscow (her search for a washing machine, for example, takes on the fervor of a quest for the Holy Grail), Cidylo retains her sense of humor and makes every effort to adapt. She aptly sums up a foreigner's perspective when she writes, "Many of us don't realize just how ill prepared for life we are until we arrive in Russia." The title refers to the plight of a young woman in search of a "clean" male, made difficult because, according to Cidylo, Russian men largely ignored personal hygiene in the early Nineties. The only weakness here is the confusing chronology; Cidylo often confuses the reader by going back and forth between the early and the later years she spent in Moscow. Nevertheless, this fascinating glimpse of post-Soviet society during a time of turmoil and drastic change is recommended for large travel collections in public libraries. Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2001
Cidylo spent 1991 to 1997 living and working in Moscow, first as an editor and translator for the news agency Tass, then as a freelance journalist. She witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the subsequent horrible inflation and the 1993 coup attempt. But as her title suggests, her account of her six years in post-Soviet Russia is of a more personal nature--her experience of Russian hardship. Her breezy style and sense of humor give the book a sense of the live-and-let-live attitude that most foreigners living in Moscow during those years alternated with their sense of culture shock. One is unsure why Cidylo would put up with six years of "everyday calamities" until the final chapter, which describes the standoff between then-president Yeltsin and his recalcitrant parliament, the ensuing street fighting in Moscow, and the firing upon of the White House (where the upper house of the Russian parliament sits). That's when Cidylo's adrenalin kicks in and we discover what Moscow in the 1990s was like for a freelance journalist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)