THE COST OF BEING BRIGHT

SOFIA BERKOVSKAYA used to think she was lucky. A professor of English at the prestigious Academy of Foreign Trade, she once made more than twice the average state salary to do a job that she loved. Now, 25 years after landing her dream job, she is struggling to survive.


Berkovskaya is not the average Muscovite. She has a Ph. D in linguistics and a privileged academic position. Years of dedication have blessed her with fluent and elegant English, a tongue many Russians venerate as the key to wealth and success. She has trained hundreds of United Nations representatives and has worked as a simultaneous interpreter for visiting celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren.


With such success, Berkovskaya, 56, should be living comfortably. Instead, she is worried about food for the winter. I used to be highly paid", she says. Since January, her salary has dropped from twice the average wage to poverty level. "Now I have nothing".


Berkovskaya is one of Russia's intellectuals whose standard of living has plunged in the new economy. As prices have skyrocketed and state funding has dwindled, the intelligentsia -- professors, scientists, artists -- have struggled to cope on meager state salaries.


The intelligentsia has never been materially wealthy: The Soviet regime was always far more generous in salaries for the blue-collar worker than for the intellectual. Professors have lamented for decades that bus drivers earned more than they do.


But for intellectuals, this newfound poverty is particularly rankling. They have invested long years in training and education. Many, fed by the proud state their whole lives, have now found themselves on their own. Forced to find funding for their projects, they are left bewildered. Scientists are abandoning important research because they cannot find sponsors. Top musicians scramble to pay their way to international competitions, if they go at all. Teachers cannot even afford to eat in their school cafeterias.


Berkovskaya's salary as of September was 3, 700 rubles per month, ($11. 25 at current exchange rates) ten times more than she was paid at the beginning of the year, but well below the current national average salary of 5, 900 rubles per month. Her husband, Konstantin Kvitko, 47, holds degrees both as a metallurgist and a Japanese translator, but pulls in only 2, 500 rubles per month at the Institute of Metallurgy Industry Information.


"Can you imagine? " she says. "Two degrees, fluent in Japanese, and that's what he makes".


According to a recent opinion poll, 63 percent of Moscow's intellectuals have significantly cut back on their expenses and 23 to 25 percent say they are eating less well.


Berkovskaya and her husband are among this group. Even without children, she says they have money only for food. and they depend more and more on produce they grow themselves and haul back to Moscow from a dacha they share a couple of hours away.


To buy a warm winter coat, for instance, would cost at least 15, 000 rubles -- about what Berkovskaya earns in four months. A kilogram of good quality sausage costs her a week's salary.


"I don't know where these prices come from", she says. "They've gone up at least a hundred times".


SOME INTELLECTUALS have abandoned their careers for more lucrative, although less gratifying, work. Gulia Samedova, for example, gave up teaching music to run a kiosk on Novy Arbat so that she could feed and educate her children. Historians are leaving the prestigious Academy of Sciences for careers in politics, business, consulting -- anything but state-funded historical research.


"The people who stay here work only out of enthusiasm", says Viktor Kotov, an Academy of Sciences historian in his late 30s who specializes in nationalities. Kotov, who is called on by the state frequently for analyses of thorny ethnic issues like the resettlement of the Crimean Tatars, makes a base salary of 1, 800 rubles per month. He has to rely on outside projects and tutoring to round out his income.


"I have thought about leaving", he admits. The Academy "has a big name", he says, but as a state institution runs shorter and shorter of funds every month. Part of the historic building's first floor has been rented out to a trading firm.


State funding and sponsorship for the arts also has been cut drastically. While the Soviet government once paraded its artistic pride and joy abroad at its own expense, artists have been left to handle their own financing.


Anatoly Dyomin, 60, has been a musician ever since his first lesson at an orphanage during the Leningrad blockade of World War II. A professor at the Moscow State Conservatory, laureate of several international competitions for his performances on the French horn, and a state orchestra member for 40 years, he is barely getting by on 3, 500 rubles a month.


"Music is my whole life", he says. "It's like being infected with a virus. I can't imagine anything else".


The state no longer keeps his royalties, but Dyomin is perplexed about how to support himself.


"Musicians have never learned to handle their own finances", says his daughter, Marina, 30. A trained musician, she is teaching herself to be a manager, handling publicity, finding sponsors, and renting concert halls.


With six children, Marina and her husband, Vitaly Matveyev, 33, a piano accompanist at the Conservatory, need more than the 2, 500 rubles Vitaly earns in a month. They formed an independent classical ensemble, The Russian Academy, in 1990, but have had little luck in finding sponsors.


"Rich companies give millions to beauty contests", she says with a wry smile, "but there's no money for culture".


Sponsorship is also a dream for Vyacheslav Uspensky, 55, a medical institute professor who is seeking funds to continue his cancer research. His salary of less than 5, 000 rubles per month is stretched to cover expenses for a family of three. The author of over 200 books does not make enough money to buy clothes for his 2-year-old son.


NOWHERE are salaries as low as in education. Galina Sergushchenkova, a Russian language teacher in her 30s, lives on 1, 760 rubles per month. Meat and fruit for her and her daughter are a luxury. She brings a bag of snacks to work every day because even a modest lunch at the cafeteria costs 100 rubles.


"I always thought at this point in my life that I would have something more stable", she says.


But she cannot give up teaching. The classroom, she says, is where she comes alive.


"Teaching is everything for me", she says. "I wanted to be an actress when I was young, and I guess it comes from that. I just feel this incredible excitement about the classroom".


It took her a long time to get where she is. Married while still in her teens, Sergushchenkova spent seven years commuting to night classes at Moscow State University to get her degree in philology.


While still in graduate school, she got a part-time teaching job at the Pushkin Russian Language Institute, a top language training center for foreigners, where competition for spots is fierce.


Although students lined up to study with the popular teacher, it took her nine years to be promoted from assistant to her current full-time teaching position. Now, with her career solidly on track, she is wondering what the future holds for her.


The Russian government has promised to raise educator's salaries, but only to 2, 500 rubles per month. The Pushkin Institute, now allowed to keep hard currency profits from its foreign students, has also promised to kick in extra pay.


But in the meantime, Sergushchenkova, like many other Russian teachers, has turned to giving private lessons. The practice, especially for teachers who have foreign contacts, is potentially lucrative. But students come and go, and competition is growing.


Until this year, she was hoping to finish her dissertation. She says now she has given that up, as all her time is spent either teaching or searching for food she can afford. She laments the loss of time to think, or even discuss important issues. The life of the mind is simply too costly. In today's rush for money and survival, Russia's once revered intellectual and cultural life seems to have fallen by the wayside.


"I dont know anyone who has time for research", she says. "All people talk about is how to survive".