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in Russia in the first quarter of the 21^st century and as a means of reaching the highest level of the pyramid of human needs that is self-realization (a special case).

      Thesis for a candidate’s degree in sociology.

      Scientific specialty 22.00.08

      Well, something like this.

      So, we proceed and start, perhaps, with purely theoretical reasoning, as far as vertical displacements in the social environment are possible, and, if possible, to whom they are available.

      Long ago, in the early seventies of the last century, when I was still in high school, I was fond of books on politics, preparing myself for international economic activity. I, like many, adored the books of international columnist Valentine Zorin. His books were like a window into an alien world, into which we, simple Soviet people, could watch the life there behind the iron curtain. Of course, the information presented in these books was hundreds of times checked and re-checked for political correctness, but against the backdrop of socialist realism and slogans like “Five Year Plan in Four Years!” his books were a revelation. In one of his books, it seems “Misters billions” I found classification of American society. Of course, it was not his classification, but rather, it was borrowed from some American publicist, or forgive me my ignorance, maybe it is a classic and everyone knows it. Anyway, at that moment, for a Soviet schoolboy who knew firmly that there were only two classes that have the right to life, workers and peasants, well and a small layer of the intelligentsia was permissible, that the other classes and gradations of society existed, was a complete revelation. According to Zorin, there were three classes in the US: the Low, the Middle and the Top. Each of the classes in turn is divided into subclasses with the similar names, I e, for example, there are Low-Low, Low-Middle and Low-Top subclass and the same, in Middle and Top classes. If with the Low and the Middle classes everything seems to be clear, at least, I with my high school education immediately determined that my family is likely to belong to the Middle-Middle subclass. Accordingly, as it seemed to me then, there was no Top class in the Soviet Union at all, although a bit later, when I was still living in the USSR, I realized that there was a Top class in our country also. Otherwise, where, then, we should refer the entire political, economic and artistic (creative) elite of society on the one hand and the Underground guilds and Thieves in Law on the other hand. They formed our very diverse Top class.

      When I was in the first year of university, my classmate Kiev Jew Yasha Brotsman invited my friend Andrey Panin after a winter session to stay with him in Kiev. The thing was that Andrey’s mother, a teacher of mathematics at our University at the time helped Yasha to enter the University. And then she supervised him almost the entire period of study, because to protect Yasha constantly it was much necessary. The fact is that Yasha, despite his Jewish origin, was slacker and was constantly on the verge of expulsion from University.

      Well, and Andrey of the friendliest motives decided to take me with him. Yasha, after a short hesitation and, apparently, negotiations with his parents, agreed. So, we flew to the glorious city of Kiev for the winter holidays. Yes, I will tell you, dear sirs, I did not have such a grandiose vacation neither before nor after. The fact is that in Kiev, just on the eve for a reason; that I still have not understood, Kegelbahn or as we call it now Bowling on 4 tracks was opened. Now it is difficult for anyone to surprise with this, for example, I go to bowling, very rarely, if my friends drag me in. But then, in the mid-seventies of last century, it was the highest delight and indescribable pleasure. By the way, this very Bowling alley was not officially opened yet, and the only we played this bowling. Yasha invited his local friend Marek and we together with Andrei spent whole days, as we joked between us, were fighting against the Jews in this very bowling alley. The theme was topical, because at that time with variable success there was a permanent Arab-Israeli war, and we certainly were for the Arabs. Once, when the game was in full swing, the members of the Supreme Council of Ukraine were brought for viewing Bowling alley, and we, with the air of connoisseurs, explained to them the basics of this bourgeois game. A responsible Jew from bowling explained to the deputies that we were experienced experts on the game of bowling from Moscow, and we behaved accordingly, especially since in four days of continuous play we actually became such.

      In addition to bowling, we watched the play in Russian Drama Theater with the incomparable Ada Rogovtsev, naturally in the first row, visited the concert of Sofia Rotaru, again on the first row. All the rest time we studied the Kiev restaurants. On rare evenings at Yasha’s family home, we got drunk Muscat champagne Abrau-Durso.

      – Yashenka, run down to the shop, bring the champagne, our beloved one, – usually said Yasha’s papa Abram Samuilovich before dinner. And Yashka, one foot here, the other there, in three minutes was coming back with 3—4 bottles. Well it was short way to go down to the shop from the second floor to the first in their two-story house.

      Before that I did not even know the name of Muscat champagne and I tried it for the first time then and I adore it until now, however, now, mainly in Italian performance. And the secret of providing of this entire VIP rest was that Abram Samuilovich had a private wine shop in the Podol area. That is, just only imagine, in the middle of the seventies, in the midst of socialism, a private wine shop. First, how? Secondly, can you imagine else what a gold mine it was?!

      Then Yasha and I crossed closely once more at military training after the fourth year of the university. I, as person with artistic abilities, was sent to the headquarters to draw visual agitation, and Yashka simply bought for himself a place for a clerk at the headquarters. Our comrades trained to dig trenches and shoot from the tank, and we in the breaks from exhausting labor of “rear rats” reminisced with a bottle of port wine that wonderful vacation at the first-year study.

      A few years later, in the early eighties, their entire family successfully immigrated to the United States of America, and, as I heard, they even very much there thrive. Apparently, Yasha’s father was able to take out those considerable assets that they had. Let me remind you that the dollar in those days cost sixty kopecks at the official rate and three rubles at an unofficial rate, that is, they had a lot of these dollars. How he managed to do it, a mystery covered in gloom, but on this account in those years among the people the fable was prevalent that it was relatively simple to do. Let us say you have a million dollars. You invite to your home or other place where you keep these dollars two representatives of the American Embassy and with the registration of the relevant act, you simply burn these very dollars. Then, if you have a visa for permanent residence safely depart to sunny America. And there the Ministry of Finance or the Federal Reserve Bank, or who is authorized there, give you another million new crunchy dollars on the basis of the act of burning.

      Actually, with all this, I just wanted to say that, even on my unenlightened opinion of the Soviet schoolboy and then of the student of the 70^th of last century, the Top class in the USSR, after all, was.

      I remember that I was struck by the gradation in the Top class. The Top-Low subclass includes all millionaires. You earned a million dollars and you are already in the elite of society. Further rudely Top-Middle subclass, I do not exactly remember, but let us say it started from 100 million dollars of personal capital, well, and to one billion. However, the most interesting thing is that becoming a billionaire does not mean getting into the Top-Top subclass. The Top-Top subclass according to Zorin includes the families of the Rockefellers and Kennedy, but the upstart Howard Hughes is a representative only of the Top-Middle class, despite all his billions. That is, the Top-Top class includes the families with centuries-old traditions of billionaires, at this level there is already a complete fusion of capital and power. The Kennedy clan is, in this sense, a textbook example.

      Zorin also argued that if movement within the class is still possible, then moving between classes, and even more moving up, is more an exception, and quite rare and deserves a separate study in each case. Zorin gives an example of the talented student Henry Kissinger, whom the Rockefeller’s collector remarked and provided him with a successful start, appointing

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