ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two descriptions of poor and socially marginal milieux written by two men from different Soviet Russian generations. 'Mikhail Ivanov' talks about incest and about promiscuous milieux of the 1950s, and 'Aleksei Lukashin' about Leningrad suburban gang and rock subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s. Ivanov's life story evolved away from an acultural setting towards established Soviet middle-class life, while Lukashin's social mobility is horizontal. Ivanov's autobiography is full of descriptions or mentions of sexuality as a means of exchange. It appears in two forms: prostitution and sexual blat. A specifically Soviet phenomenon, blat relations were a middle form between gift and exchange, corruption and friendship. Lukashin's misogyny is matched by strong homosocial ties. Men are the self-evident frame of reference, and Lukashin often notes how he had been respected and feared on account of his physical strength, courage and success with women.
