A First Hand Look at Health and Nutrition in the Soviet Union

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Sara's group also visited a city-run Zona Zdorovia (Zone of Health) in Baku on the Caspian Sea. "It was particularly popular with retired people," she notes, "and featured early morning, outdoor exercises accompanied by accordian music, short sea voyages, hiking, and breathing the negatively charged ions of such 'curative' plants as rosemary, geraniums, and laurel. Massages and self-massages, music therapy (singing, to teach proper breathing techniques . . . and listening to carefully selected music, to relieve depression and effect cures), and games—volleyball, table tennis, basketball, etc. —were also on the Zone of Health's program. 'Coordination,' we were told, 'is not lost through old age . . . but through disuse.' "

Still another highlight of the journey through Russia (one that Celestial Seasonings' Mo Siegel probably had a lot to do with) was the spontaneous "herb walks" that took place almost everywhere the group went in the Soviet Union. "Since the region between the Caspian and Black Seas contains over 4,500 species of plants, including 550 wild herbs, these walks occurred at almost any time and in almost any place: within the ruined walls of a pagan temple . . . above timberline in the majestic Caucasus mountains . . . on a Black Sea citrus farm . . . or at any unscheduled bus stop along any country road. These impromptu inspections of the native flora-like so many other spur-of-the-moment things we did-were easy to work into our schedule because, as nearly as I could tell, no 'secret police' followed us around and we were free to come and go as we pleased."

Sara closed her report to the rest of MOTHER's staff by noting that, as much as everyone on the trip enjoyed seeing the sights of Russia, the "best part of all" was getting to meet and know some of the multi-racial, multilingual people of the Soviet Union. "They were surprisingly gracious, friendly, generous, and affectionate. And as interested in our manners, clothes, and customs as we were in theirs."

Now we bring this trip up here because, for some time, readers of this magazine have been asking if MOTHER has any plans to organize and sponsor tours of this nature.

Well, yes . . . MOTHER does. Which is why she sent Sara (who has both magazine and travel experience) on the trip mentioned here in the first place. It might very well be both interesting and educational if a group of MOTHER readers could get together for, say, a journey through the Amazon Basin (to see the environmental damage described by Anne and Paul Ehrlich in their column in this issue). Or a visit to the best biodynamic and other "organic" gardens of Europe. Or a tour of Alaska's North Slope to see exactly what changes the oil wells have wrought on the ecology of the area. Or—as outlined here—a firsthand inspection of the health and nutrition of the Soviet Union.

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