In the swank banquet room of the Hotel Vancouver, 170 new Soviet citizens sat down last week to eat a $2.50 dinner of bouillon, roast chicken, green peas, ice cream and coffee.
Then, well-fed and smiling, they settled back as Victor Shpihun, a 41-year-old shipyard worker, rose. With many a smile and glint of his gold-filled teeth, Shpihun carefully explained why he and the other 169 Canadian residents of many years preferred dictatorship to democracy. It was not that they loved Canada less, said Shpihun, but that they loved Russia more.
They had so decided last November, when Russia offered Soviet citizenship...
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