Soviets Urge Restrictions on Prostitution, Call It ‘National Disgrace’ : In Moscow, the World’s Oldest Profession Is Suddenly Being Exposed

In Russian, they are called nochney okhotnitsy, or zhena nanoch, even businessmenki-- night huntresses, wife for a night, business women. Soviet authorities have turned a blind eye to their evening patrols around the hotels used by foreign tourists.

But now, in the atmosphere of glasnost, or openness, being promoted by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the official press has started exposing the existence of the world’s oldest profession in the world’s first communist state.

In some circles these young women are still described not as prostitutes but as “young Aphrodites” and “designer-label girls,” but a demand for more candor is being heard.

“Let’s call a whore a whore,” Dina Isaihovna Gurvitch, a schoolteacher from Uzbekhistan, said recently in an article in the youth magazine Smena.

‘National Disgrace’

For the first time in memory, articles are appearing in controlled publications calling for a crackdown on prostitution in Moscow, Leningrad and other cities. Authorities are asking for a tough new law to stop what they call a “national disgrace.”

This official admission of prostitution as a social evil follows the earlier admission that drug addiction has become a serious national problem. Before that, there were revealing accounts of professional gambling and the impact of alcoholism on Soviet society.

In the past, the existence of such problems was either denied or minimized. Soviet propagandists tended to dismiss them as the byproducts of bourgeois morality and the capitalist system.

But now the people are being told that these are home-grown problems that must be faced and overcome, with emphasis on personal and community responsibility.

‘Doesn’t Disappear’

“If you refuse to call evil by its proper name, it doesn’t disappear,” Vladimir Fedulov, head of a police auxiliary force in the Frunze district of Moscow, told the Moscow newspaper Komsomolets.

At a recent meeting of the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in Moscow, Fedulov said that prostitutes were operating outside hotels from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., in the heart of Moscow, only a short distance from Red Square and the Kremlin.

“We’ve got to put a stop to prostitution,” Fedulov said. “We must speedily work out tough laws against buying and selling human flesh, even if the absolute dimensions (of the problem) are not so great as of now.”

The crackdown has yet to affect night life at some of Moscow’s leading hotels. On a recent evening in the World Trade Center, which is favored by foreign business representatives, there were more than a dozen unaccompanied young Russian-speaking women at the main bar, clearly looking for male company.

‘I Am Nick’

One, a tall blonde, hugged and kissed a man, addressed him as “Roger,” and spoke of their long friendship.

“I am Nick,” he replied, then bought her a bottle of Soviet champagne and lighted her cigarette, a foreign brand.

Most of these women are between 18 and 30 years old, and apparently for this reason the Communist Youth League has been directed to play a leading role in the campaign against prostitution.

Komsomolets recently carried an article about “Sveta” and “Vera,” who are said to have come to Moscow as students but became prostitutes. They wear fashionable clothes, frequent the best restaurants and spend money without counting it, the article says. They now call themselves “Stella” and “Viola.”

‘Money Doesn’t Smell’

Vera was questioned about the issue of personal morality, and was quoted as telling the interviewer: “Are you thick-headed, or what? You’ve never heard that money doesn’t smell? So don’t stick your nose in my life.”

The article recounted the experience of a reader, identified as Andrei O., who said he paused at a hotel entrance and heard a woman say: “Are you free? Let’s go to my place. We’ll have fun.”

Andrei confessed that he “succumbed to the temptation of this impromptu adventure.” Within moments, he says, a taxi arrived--a rarity at night in Moscow--and he and “Katya” were whisked away. Andrei said he was startled by her demand for 200 rubles--in advance. How the encounter ended, the article did not say.

Police officials were quoted in the newspaper as saying they are powerless to arrest anyone for soliciting or engaging in prostitution because there are no laws against it. But the police believe that women who earn what Russians call “crazy money” are also involved in illegal currency speculation and in the black market in consumer goods and pornography.

Light Punishment

Another article, in a recent issue of Komsomolskaya Pravda, reported that the police broke up a ring of prostitutes in Minsk but that the women were accused only of dealing illegally in currencies and were given light punishment.

“Next day, after appearing in court, they were back at their old places,” the article said. “We are silent, and they are getting bolder and bolder.”

Fedulov, the auxiliary police official, said, “We cannot go on allowing these priestesses of love to turn every Intourist hotel into an altar to their profession.”