Red Belt of Love.(Russian life)

Byline: Valery Drannikov

No doubt about it! this is a match! Look at yourself--a graceful, beautiful woman. And now look at him. A king--33 centimeters! Have you ever seen anything like it? A breakthrough for our industry!"

Here I am, sales assistant for a day in a sex shop in provincial Bryansk, in western Russia, trying to persuade a tall, gray-haired lady to finally buy this thing she likes--a huge pink dream of love. The pride of our Special Forces is emblazoned on the transparent box.

She holds the product a bit at a distance, but her blue eyes behold it so gently that suddenly I am proud. Not for our Special Forces, though they are great guys, but for the Russian manufacturer. We can do it! We can adapt! For almost 100 years, the rubber plant here, Red Giant, made galoshi , or rubber boots, for the entire country. But today it makes new products, such as this lady desires, so needed for the people and the country!

My sex shop has a cozy name: Alkov, located right by the Bryansk hotel on Lenin Prospect. To the right stands the beautifully restored red-brick Church of the Transfiguration, to the left another cathedral in which, according to the real salesclerk at the store, Nadezhda, four young nuns have settled. They don't come to Alkov, of course. Hardly anybody does. "But why?" I ask. "Are our products not in demand?" Salaries in Bryansk are small and unemployment is high, Nadezhda explains. Her "boys" are beyond most people's means.

"Do you have anything smaller?" the gray-haired lady asks. Smaller means cheaper. Then with some asperity she adds: "My husband died three years ago, and I don't want to be unfaithful to his memory. But this"--she nods to the item--"this is not unfaithfulness."

I bring out our catalog . "Here! Number 7 Phallus with a suction cup. The ...