BORIS and Natasha, backyard bomb-shelters, Sputnik, AK-47s, the Gulag and now first-class air travel? Yup, from the folks who brought us Mir -- the poster child for extended warranty programs -- comes Aeroflot. In this week's Time magazine an ad for the Russian National Airlines touts a ''high level of service, quiet comfort, spacious room and gourmet cuisine.'' Russia enters
the air travel bizHow times have changed. The official airline of the classless society now offers travelers both business class and ''First class -- really classy'' (no, not ''really bourgeois,'' comrade).
The ad pictures a passenger, presumably a businessman. On his tray table is an obsolete-looking laptop computer. Mystifyingly, the computer screen shows a picture of a flying elephant -- trunk and ears extended against a blue sky and white clouds. The passenger is enjoying coffee from a ''porcelaine'' (sic) cup and smoking a (gasp!) cigarette.
It's not fair, I suppose, to expect the former Soviet Union to develop the advertising savvy of Southern California -- or even of France -- in just the few breathless years since the Yeltsin Revolution.
Still, isn't someone helping them with this stuff? After all, a full page in Time costs its weight in Faberge eggs.
Aeroflot might at least consider a new logo. Its red, winged hammer and sickle won't entice many capitalists to upgrade to the front cabin. Marketing, after all, is more than cigarettes, ''porcelaine'' and flying elephants.