Moscow Soup Kitchen Gets 1st Taste of Leftover U.S. Rations

Lunch at the Lyublinskaya soup kitchen was clearly different on Tuesday. There was canned cream of chicken soup instead of borscht, pork chops and plenty of dental floss for the toothless crowd of pensioners.

The Moscow cafeteria, which has been operating as a soup kitchen since Jan. 1, served up the first of 100,000 American meals--mostly leftover military rations--flown in on Monday as part of “Operation Provide Hope.”

The United States plans to deliver about 2,000 tons of food, medicine and other supplies worth about $78 million during the two-week campaign. The European Community and 13 other countries will provide substantially more. All told, the airlift will bring 18,000 tons of food and other supplies to about 20 cities in the former Soviet Union.

At Lyublinskaya on Tuesday, in addition to the meal, Salvation Army volunteers passed out gift packages containing eyedrops, deodorant and dental floss--personal care items that are hard for Russians to obtain.

“Everything is wonderful here. It’s nice that people are worrying about us,” said 78-year-old Anna Kudinova as she inspected her disposable plastic plate and the gift package. “I don’t want to die because it’s wonderful to live when people are taking care of you.”

The meals include pork chops, fish sticks, beef with gravy, canned lasagna, fruit-flavored candy, fruit juice, pudding and apple pie filling.

“Is this something you can eat?” 86-year-old pensioner Olga Korolyova asked suspiciously of a can of pudding. Then she dipped one finger in for a taste.

“That’s very good,” she said.