Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Minister Tells Rotary Club

Life in Russia was the topic of the day for Gurdon's Rotary Club Thursday, Jan. 18.

Charles and Vernell Sandlin, a Church of God minister and his wife, spent almost a year in Chelyabinsk, Russia, working with and helping educate the people there.

He said the children in class were always given the opportunity to ask questions regardless of what grade they were in.

The most often asked questions, he said, were his age and what he liked about the Russian city.

"I tried to be as honest as I could with them," Sandlin said. "I told them I liked the people."

Life in Chelyabinsk, he said, is very different than they were told it would be or expected. "They are the most unselfish people we've ever lived around.

"They entertained us in their homes, sometimes spending a week's wage on a meal for us. They were very kind, generous and loving."

During World War II, the region boasted having the largest tractor factory in the world. It was retooled to manufacture tanks, and produced one of every three tanks the Russian Army used.

All Russian cities have statues of Lenin, Sandlin said, and Revolution Squares. This is where people gather and meet during the week. On weekends, he continued, the square becomes a market place where goods are sold from the back of trucks.

In discussing the apartment where they stayed, there was no elevator. In fact, Sandlin said there are no elevators in buildings with less than seven floors.

The primary mode of transportation is a trolley bus inside cities, while trains are used between cities.

Chelyabinsk is located near the Ural Mountains not far from Siberia, Sandlin said during the slide show. It has a population of 1.5 million and offers a sports palace.

During their 10 months in Russia, Sandlin said they only met one devout Communist.

He said there were only two orthodox churches in the city, and these churches have no pews. The congregation stands throughout the services.

However, there are 14 other meeting places for other demonimations.

The main negative the Sandlins noticed in Russia was the amount of vodka the people drank. "If the Russian system fails," he said, "it will be because of alcoholism."

In some area, he continued, the alcoholism rate is more than 50 percent. It's not unusual to see drunks on the street at 7 a.m. "Everywhere we went," Sandlin said, "people offered us drinks."

He said it was a common practice during WW II for every soldier to get a bottle of vodka daily. The soldiers didn't always have ammunition or weapons for their battles, so the vodka was used to help them keep their courage up and be more willing to fight.

Another problem, he said, is the people want to govern themselves, but lack the initiative to do it. The citizenry has lived its entire life under communist rule until recently, and don't know any other way of life.

And they are getting some Americanization as well, Sandlin said. The Russians are getting "trash TV," he continued, including MTV. They get programs from the U.S. which aren't seen in America.

The Sandlins were invited to Russia by the Ministry of Education. Their primary purpose was to help develop an ethics program in education from a moral and ethical point of view.