RUSSIAN NEWS TEAM SEEKS CAPE'S MIDDLE CLASS FOR DOCUMENTARY

What Russian videographer Nick Kupriyanov knew of America he learned from American movies, a number of which seem to begin with a scene flying over New York City.

But last week, Kupriyanov saw New York firsthand and from the ground up.

"Now I see it from the point of view of one who stands under the skyscrapers," he said. "It's like a fairy tale."

Kupriyanov and television reporter Irina Mikhaltchenko are in Cape Girardeau not in search of skyscrapers but of the American middle class. They are reporting a documentary about the American middle class that will air on Russian TV.

They came to Cape Girardeau at the invitation of Adele Kupchella, wife of Southeast Missouri State University Provost Charles Kupchella. Kupchella's brother, Mike Kiel, works for the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C.

Since 1991, the USIA has provided grants to members of the Russian media interested in pursuing stories about American life or stories that will help the country make the transition to democracy. "Otherwise they never would be able to come," says George Santulli, the USIA representative accompanying the team.

Most people in Russia are members of either the upper class composed of politicians and intellectuals or they struggle to get by. Few fall in between.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin has made small-business promotion a priority for the country as it forges a post-Communist economy.

"If you want to have a stable society you've got to have a middle class," Mikhaltchenko says.

Russians want what the American middle class already has, says the reporter, who has been to the United States twice before. "They want to give their kids a good education, build houses. They want to make real middle-class dreams."

The Russians have spent time with Cape Girardeau police Cpl. Charlie Herbst and his family and with dairy farmer Jerry Siemers and his family. Still to come are interviews with the family of baker Wes Kinsey, owner of My Daddy's Cheesecake.

In Siemers they encountered a dairy farmer who in 1992 decided to expand his herd so he could afford to hire help, freeing him for extracurricular activities like Scouts. Siemers and his wife, Patti, have three sons, Justin and twins Jared and Jonathan.

Siemers told them about doing all the finish work on the ranch house his family occupies west of Cape Girardeau. "I'm a typical farmer," he said. "A jack of all trades."

On leaving Cape Girardeau, the news team will go to California to interview families in Silicon Valley and on to Stanford, where they will meet with Shelby Steele. Steele wrote about the black middle class in his book "The Content of Our Character."

They also will meet with Stanford Russian expert Michael McFaul, who was in Russia when Yeltsin dismissed his government.

In Cleveland they will talk to the family of a man who works in a screw factory and in Boston interview Alan Wolfe, author of "One National After All," a book that concludes that middle-class families are the same no matter where they are.

Santulli has them on a tight schedule but not a tight leash, they say.

"If we had asked to do a story about poor people I'm sure he would help me," Mikhaltchenko said.

"We don't whitewash it," Santulli said. "It makes no sense. They're journalists, and we know we have a lot of problems."

Before joining the USIA, Santulli was a free-lance television producer and director in Los Angeles.

The documentary will air on Channel 5, the television station Mikhaltchenko and Kupriyanov work for in St. Petersburg. The station has seven million viewers.