#39 | May 21 - June 4, 1998  

By Abram Kalashnikov

Don't go to the well too many times. A saying true in almost every profession. Even a minor league baseball player knows it: if you throw the fastball too many times, guys are eventually going to hit it. You could throw that bad boy 110 miles an hour, and eventually you'll be watching balls do the bleacher dance. Tough job.

Pro journalism is different. You can toss your go-to pitch right over the plate every time and stay in the league forever. Just ask Vanora Bennett of the Los Angeles Times, the all-time champion of the "Times Have Changed Since Communism" lead.

I have been searching for nearly a year now for the right way to demonstrate forcefully just how little imagination it takes to be a foreign correspondent posted in Russia. Now, finally, I've found a way.

What follows is a short list of the virtually identical leads Bennett has sent home in the course of the last year or so. When Bennett wasn't writing breaking news stories about Boris Yeltsin's health, or about the mir Space Station, she was telling us how things have changed since 1991. So here it is, a chilling record of an entire career built on the repeated use of one 800-word story:

"Dentistry Has Changed Since Communism"
Monday, December 15, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
An old cliche about Soviet Russia was that no one here smiled. But one of the secrets long hidden behind the Iron Curtain was the millions of gapped, iron-toothed mouths, mauled by the most basic of dentistry techniques and the most primitive of Warsaw Pact equipment.

"Music Has Changed Since Communism"
Monday, February 9, 1998
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Downstairs, scruffy musicians are picking up violins to start their daily rehearsal.
Upstairs, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra's General Manager, Alexander Krauter, is picking up the phone to start his daily battle-to extract money from unwilling government officials to keep his orchestra going.

"Armenia Has Changed Since Communism"
Monday, March 16, 1998
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
The earthquake struck first, destroying her home. Then came the Soviet collapse, independence, mass unemployment and hunger. Contemplating the ruins of her adult life, Amalya Digaryan blames it all on the president who ran Armenia from 1991 until last month.

"The Armenian Old Guard Has Changed its Expectations Since Communism"

"Teenage Dreams Have Changed Since Communism"
Thursday, May 7, 1998
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
When Oleg Podobryansky was a teenager, his dream was to become a top Soviet scientist, doing research that would expand the frontiers of Soviet knowledge to undreamed-of places.

"Caucasian Carpet-Making Has Changed Since Communism"
Sunday, May 17, 1998
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Under the fortress walls, the merchants of this honey-colored stone city at the crossroads of three empires are doing what their ancestors have done for 800 years: laying out hand-woven carpets for sale.

"Commercial Law Has Changed Since Communism"
Friday, January 10, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
The capitalism that has flourished in Russia since Soviet communism died finally has the full blessing of the law. Five years after Russians started flocking to the streets to buy and sell foreign goods and currency, a new penal code has been introduced that makes such commerce legal.

"Collective Farms Have Changed Since Communism"
Monday, March 31, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
The only crop in the fields is abandoned tractors rusting in the snow. The workers have not yet been paid the pittance they earned in November. Whole villages have emptied, rotted away or burned.

"The Reasons Politicians Are Suddenly Deposed Have Changed Since Communism"
Monday, June 23, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Russia's justice minister was suspended Sunday in a phenomenon new to post-Soviet politics: a sex scandal.

"Press Freedoms Have Changed Since Communism"
Friday, July 18, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
It has been seven years since journalists in Russia won liberty from Soviet censorship. But many liberals fear that free speech might be facing new-and, perhaps, unanticipated-fetters today, when Igor N. Golembiovsky is expected to walk away from his job as editor in chief of Izvestia, the grand dame of Russian newspapers.

"Caviar Trading Has Changed Since Communism"
In This Black Market, It's Caviar Emptor;
Russia: Post-Soviet poachers get rich smuggling fish eggs.;
Saturday, August 16, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
The wind lifts the nets drying on the beach. A caviar poacher's rowboat has been pulled up on the hot sand. Muscles gleam on a fisherman's bare shoulders, and his pale, watchful eyes reflect the dance of the tides.

"The Orthodox Church Has Changed Since Communism"
Head: Russia's Church: A Material Calling?;
Freed from communism, many turned to Orthodoxy in quest of spirituality. But critics accuse hierarchy of being out to make a ruble.;
Thursday, September 4, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Its factories are closed, its streets are pitted, and most investors go elsewhere. Just about the only people making money-and lots of it-in this shabby Volga River town are from the Russian Orthodox Church.

"Nomadic Reindeer Hunters Have Changed Since Communism"
Head: Reindeer Herders of Russia Hunt for a Future;
Untamed by the Communists, the Evenki of Siberia love life in the wild. But they hope to tap new markets for their animal products-and gain some modern conveniences.;
COLUMN ONE;
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Velvet-antlered reindeer are tethered outside the nomads' tents, trampling whitish moss underfoot and barking softly as the full moon rises. There's snow in the air. The autumn temperature is well below freezing in the austerely beautiful hills of the Russian Far North.

"TV Shows Have Changed Since Communism"
Head: From Russia-With a Bit Too Much Love
Although Soviet inhibitions are absent, the nation's first televised chat show about sex manages to mainly arouse embarrassment.;
Friday, October 10, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Those who can, do; those who can't, in Russia, tune in just after midnight on Saturdays to the country's first television chat show about sex.

"Bodyguards Have Changed Since Communism"
Head: Russians Paying for Protection;
Turf wars in post-Soviet grab for wealth fuel demand for bodyguards. But rash of fatal lapses raises questions about how good the freewheeling, gang-connected private forces really are.;
Monday, October 20, 1997
Byline: VANORA BENNETT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
It's a familiar sight in Russia these days: the nervous businessman in his tailored lilac jacket, with a mobile phone over his ear and an emaciated beauty on his arm-and a pack of beefy bodyguards at his back.