Our Reactor is on Fire

Prostitutki

As Gorbachev draws back the iron curtain, western ideas and lifestyles are changing the Soviet Union. Not all of them are positive: there is a growing vice industry in the country's major cities. Soviet police claim there are 10,000 prostitutes in Moscow alone. The shops are empty and most women's lives are unrelentingly drab; more and more young girls are drawn by the 'high life'. A foreign currency prostitute can earn 1,000 roubles for one 'trick' - five times the national monthly wage. Inside Story goes under cover with the police and the women themselves tell their story.