Soviet-Style Bureaucracy: One Woman's Battle to Get Her Clothes Dry Cleaned

The World
The World
The Soviet Union was a bureaucratic nightmare. Even the smallest task involved piles of paperwork and forms to fill out. In modern-day Russia that is still the case if you want to get clothes dry cleaned. Moscow-based Guardian correspondent Miriam Elder wrote about the mountain of paperwork it took to get five sweaters dry cleaned. "The woman behind the counter takes a huge stack of papers," said Elder in an interview with Marco Werman. "She starts examining your clothes with the diligence of a doctor devoted to internal medicine."
Sign up for our daily newsletter

Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.