On the Road

Many Americans who regard their roadside landscapes as a wilderness of neon-lit motels and fried-chicken stands may or may not be cheered to learn that two wandering Russians have found these same roadside landscapes to be a paradise of--well, neon-lit motels and fried-chicken stands. The two wanderers--Boris Strelnikov, Washington correspondent of Pravda, and Vasily Peskov, a visiting journalist from Komsomolskaya Pravda--spent six weeks driving 10,000 miles from coast to coast and discovered all manner of things to be praised and emulated.

"We should learn from America how to build such highways," they wrote, impressed that even minor arteries on their road map were paved.

They found the highway restaurants "faultlessly clean" and staffed by "smiling waitresses," and the motels inspired them to say, "We can and must learn a lot from the example of the American 'overnight industry.''" They found that Cokes "really did make things go better," so they drank 300 of them. As for catsup, they claimed that it turns "every meal tastier." They added: "What happened to catsup in the Soviet Union?

The recipe is not an American military secret."

All these wonders might seem strange to the pair's 40 million readers back in Russia, where roadside restaurants are hundreds of miles apart and gas stations are scarce, but some of the Russian discoveries are strange to.

Americans too. Colonel Sanders, they reported, "was given his title for the merits" of his fried chicken.

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