First question, do you write your story for any particular type of reader?
Your English is immaculate.
But the story itself is Russian to the core. In fact, I don't think the average American or West European has enough of a backround to appreciate many bits and pieces of the story. The part where the girl compares the life of the old Soviet era, with its petrified social mores, deadening routines and pioneer's red ties, and the freer current era, and the way the pensioners and the hobo are described is written in a way only a Ukrainian or Russian enamored with the West would write. From the perspective of a person who was also born under communism and lived through the aftermath of its demise, but in a country which is already tightly integrated with the West, such as a Croat (myself being one), a Hungarian or a Czech the idealizing of the new era seems naive, as there is a lot of negative stuff and stuff that is sometimes just as idiotic as something from the communist era (like solving the problems caused by economic liberalization by more economic liberalization, sleazy bureaucrats crawling at the feet of similarly sleazy bureaucrats from more developed countries, pooh-pooing one's own culture and generously ignoring one's own interests while the West stubbornly and ungenerously preserves theirs). An American or a Brit, on the other hand, would find it difficult to understand the powerful symbolism of the act of wearing jeans, a piece of clothing that was difficult to obtain and carried great prestige in the Soviet Union, or the angry reaction of the bussinessman at the sight of Alisa, because the concepts of spite, of blood-boiling jealousy, and the concomitant lashing out of unreasonable vengenance on others is alien to him. But most of all, it is difficult to tell whether Alisa feels liberated only from industrialized Russian culture, or modern human culture in its entirety. If it is the later, then the remark on red ties and jeans loses much of its value.
