What was good about the USSR? memories. When the USSR lived best USSR how ordinary people lived
30s
karinkuv:
Yes, living people who remember the 30s are unlikely to write here. But I remember what my grandmother told me, and then my aunt confirmed it.
They then lived on Krasnoselskaya, in the house where Utesov lived. The house was from Railway. My grandfather worked there. Well, I don’t think there’s any need to talk about what 37 is. They took everyone around!!! I don’t know why, maybe that’s why, but my grandfather didn’t work. And every day I went ice skating in Sokolniki. Grandmother said that they waited for the “funnel” every night. A bag of belongings stood at the door, awaiting arrest. Kaganovich warned. (honestly, I don’t know these relationships, my grandfather wasn’t even 30 at the time, I don’t know why Kaganovich was close to this “boy” - my grandfather, but my aunt prays for him, says that he saved my grandfather’s life, which means and me, my father was already born at 44) and “exiled” the family of my father’s parents to Kaluga. Something like that…
I have many more memories of life in Moscow from my ancestors.
50s
laisr:
Life was not a raspberry. My father returned from 4 years of German captivity at the end of the war. He was met in the village by his hungry wife and two children. And I was born in 46. To feed the family, the father and five equally hungry fellow villagers stole a bag of wheat during sowing. Someone pawned it, searched my father's place. The accomplices, more cunning, advised the father to take everything upon himself, otherwise, they say, they would all be imprisoned for 25 years in a group crime. My father served 5 years. I joke with my current mind that Hitler kept me for four years, but Stalin couldn’t give me less, so he imprisoned me for five years. In the 50s I didn’t eat enough bread, which is probably why today I eat everything with bread, even pasta, sometimes I joke to my friends about this that I even eat bread with bread!
***
In my second year (1962) in Ufa, in a department store, absolutely by chance, by luck, I bought Japanese nylon swimming trunks! Then ours were rag with two laces on the side for tying at the hip. The Japanese ones were shaped like shorts, beautiful, vertical striped, tight. I wore them for a very long time, and I still have them lying around somewhere. Here is a memory of my student life!
60s
yuryper, "about the bread shortage":
Somewhere in 63 or 64 in Moscow, flour was distributed through house management, according to the number of people registered. It wasn't in stores. In the summer we went to Sukhumi, it turned out that white bread was only for locals, with ration cards.
In Moscow, bread did not disappear, but the variety characteristic of the early 60s gradually decreased, and by the early 70s this difference had already become very noticeable.
70s
sitki:
Early 70s, my mother-in-law is a single mother, Krasnoye Selo, salary is 90 rubles.
Every(!) year I took my son to the sea. Yes, a savage; Yes, sometimes they brought canned food with them and ate it for the whole month. But now my husband tells me about those trips with gusto. This is his childhood.
What kind of cleaner these days can take a child to the seaside for a month?
pumbalicho (8-10 years):
For some reason, the 70s are etched in my memory... Those were good years. And not only economically (I suspect that abundance was not everywhere. But I still can’t forget the store windows of that time), but also with some special cohesion or something... I remember they reported the death of three Soviet cosmonauts at once - no one I didn’t order it, but people were actually crying in the streets...
matsea:
We walked in the courtyards from the age of 4-5 alone. I was about 8 years old (early 70s) when a schoolgirl was killed in Udelny Park next door. The children continued to walk alone. Well, that was life.
80s
matsea (born 1964):
I remember well the anticipation of the first spring salad (I was 1964). There was no fruit in winter. In autumn, apples are plentiful and inexpensive. By November they are sold brown speckled and expensive. By January they are gone. If you're lucky, you might catch some Moroccan oranges. Infrequently. St. Petersburg, winter darkness, vitamin deficiency. And at night I’ll take pictures of tomatoes with sour cream, so red. And here it is March and happiness - the hydroponic cucumbers were thrown away. They are long and dark green, like crocodiles. Three pieces in a kilogram, a kilo in one hand. Enough or not enough? Enough! We waited for about forty minutes and they brought it. Salad with onions, eggs, and hydroponic cucumbers - hurray, spring has come! Well, that's it, now you can calmly wait for the tomatoes. It won't be until June.
mans626262:
a leading engineer in the late 70s and early 80s had a salary of 180 rubles - this is me personally at the research institute.
michel62 (born 1962):
In 1982, I went to Donetsk by bus to buy sausage and butter from Rostov-on-Don. My mother’s watch factory organized these trips. To Donetsk, to Voroshilovograd.
***
Amazing!
When I arrived as a young specialist in the Penza region and, working as a road foreman, wandered around the villages, maintaining local roads, I saw so many different imported clothes in the village shops that it took my breath away. I bought shoes and a coat for my wife there... The villagers looked at me like I was crazy. You know, it’s impressive when there are galoshes and Italian shoes on the same counter, and a sweatshirt and a Finnish coat hang next to each other on a clothes hanger... Here in Rostov it was simply impossible to buy any clothes. The queues had been busy since the evening. Everything is done under the counter or through connections. I have a feeling that if jeans or something like that had been freely sold during the USSR, then there would have been no perestroika and subsequent collapse.
***
Born in 1962 in Rostov-on-Don
Of course, the USSR for me is childhood, youth, growing up, my first child...
I look now at how my son (16 years old) lives and it seems to me that we were happier in childhood. Even if I didn’t travel abroad with my parents and they bought me my first jeans when I was in my first year of college. But everything was somehow richer. This is my personal opinion and I am not going to argue with anyone. I remember how, already at work, the party organizer asked me at the reporting meeting (I worked as the chief engineer of one municipal sharaga): “How did you M.M. restructure?...” How and what should I answer to the party fool (by the way, the first quitter and " lunchtime "demagogue")? What did I need to rebuild in myself if I, a young guy, worked conscientiously and exhaustively?... In the family, when I was a boy, there was a sack of food. Food came first. But My father altered my clothes from his own. My father, by the way, was the head of the enterprise, but there was no chic in our house. But my father’s attitude towards the USSR was this: “If only I, an officer, Soviet army they said - shoot yourself for Stalin - I would silently pull out a pistol and shoot myself..." I remember in 1972 - 1974 there was a rumor on the street that they were selling Pepsicol.... I stood in line for two hours and picked up two string bags.. . I still swear when I remember how I brought her home. The memories of the pioneer camps are very warm. Every summer there were three shifts in different camps. There were only five to ten days of vacation at home before September 1st....
And while working, I adapted like everyone else so that I could take my wife to a barbecue on the left bank of the Don on weekends and go on vacation in the summer. Now I have a maximum of a week of vacation, if I’m lucky... I remember how my mother came from a business trip to Moscow. We met her with the whole family. Poor thing - how she stole all those bags of sausage and oranges....
I also remember the “Diet” store, where my mother and I went when she picked me up from kindergarten. She bought three hundred grams of sausage (of course not Moscow or cervelat) doctoral or amateur and asked to cut it a little for me. And next to it there was a bread store, where we bought FRESH bread. So I walked, chewing a sausage sandwich. I have never encountered such a taste of sausage and bread. Of course, delicacies were always in short supply, but on holidays my parents got them. I remember the queues for carpets, dishes and clothes... I lived right next to the Solnyshko department store and remember all this well. The queue started in the evening and the crowd was noisy all night (I lived on the second floor and all this happened under our balcony). I remember the “Ocean” store on Semashko, where carp and sturgeon swam in the aquarium. And then the same “Ocean”, where there was nothing except briquettes of shrimp and some crap like seaweed. I remember coupons for vodka and butter. But this is already at the end of the USSR. But I worked in a road organization and was “cool”. (just don’t say that it’s because of people like me that our roads are bad). Those who wanted to live spun around. There was everything - both good and bad. Now, of course, I remember the good things. The bad is forgotten. I forgot that I didn’t have a tape recorder as a child. But I remember New Year’s gifts from the Christmas tree in the cultural center. You forget the queues for beer, but you remember its taste and the fact that it went sour in a day and not in a month. I remember with a smile how I was driving home from work on a crowded bus, holding a plastic bag of beer in my hand above my head, and there were many like me... Everything happened - both good and bad. One can argue about this time to the point of a carrot conspiracy, but it was and is remembered with a smile.
nord100:
I remember my first business trip to Vilnius. This was around 1982. I was shocked by what I saw abroad. Then I collected coffee beans for the whole year ahead.
In those same years, I visited Moldova for the first time, where I was amazed by the abundance of imports in stores. And the books! I haven’t seen so many scarce books since childhood!
I also remember my trip to Kuibyshev in the late 80s. In the evening I checked into a hotel and decided to buy food for dinner at the grocery store. Nothing came of it for me - I didn’t have any local coupons...
I remember a lot of things about those years, but mostly with warmth. After all, that was youth :)
Second half of the 80s
frauenheld2:
I remember I was involved in blacksmithing - right around the 89-90s)
You walk there - “Kaugumi, chungam”, but because it’s embarrassing - sometimes you just ask for time, in Russian of course. But foreigners don’t understand, and they give me something - candy, chewing gum, pens. Now it seems like little things, but at school I was godfather to the king with these colored pens, and for chewing gum (!), my classmates didn’t kiss my feet.
alyk99:
Secondary school No. 1 of Zvenigorod near Moscow. I am 10 years old (1986), there is some kind of meeting in the assembly hall. The director announces: “Let’s vote. Who’s in favor?”
We all raise our hands as one. "Who's against it?" Two lonely hands of some high school students rise. The director begins to shout: “How can you? Hooligans! Get out of the hall! Shame on the school!”
In the evening I tell the story to my mother and add on my own that the high school students behaved shamefully. “Why?” she asks. “Maybe they had a different opinion. What’s shameful about that?” I remember very well that it was at that moment that I first understood what it was like to be one of the dumb sheep in the herd.
Childhood memories of the USSR
roosich (10 years old in 1988):
Somehow, the stories of this lady, who traveled abroad, about the lack of bread in the USSR (apparently we are not talking about the 20-30s, but about the 70-80s) do not inspire confidence.
My childhood was in the 80s. I was born and still live all my life in a small town near Moscow. My parents (my father, to be more precise) often went to Moscow on weekends. But not for food, like supposedly the rest of the USSR, but just for a walk - VDNKh, Gorky Park, museums, exhibitions, etc. And there were enough products in our local stores. Of course, there was no such abundance on the shelves as there is now, but no one went hungry. Here, of course, they can object to me that a small town near Moscow is far from the same thing as an equally small town, but somewhere in a remote province.... But the majority still did not live as hermits in distant villages. The shortage began to manifest itself quite actively only in 1988.
Continuing the store theme, now about manufactured goods. I remember somewhere in the mid-80s - in our local department store I saw on the shelves televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, players (cassette recorders only began to appear in the late 80s), and radios, and clothes with shoes, and stationery.... Another thing is that by the standards of average salaries at that time (this is about 200-odd rubles for the mid-80s) this cost Appliances quite expensive. I remember our first color TV - a hefty and heavy “Rubin”, bought only in 1987, it cost well for 300 rubles.
***
But if we compare it with today, the most radical difference from that time is the people. Then, of course, different people could meet in life, but now - man is a wolf to man. Today's parents are afraid to let their children go for a walk alone, even in the neighboring yard, but back then they were not afraid to let us go. And not only to the neighboring yard. And until late in the evening.
***
The USSR of 1988 is no longer the country it was in 1983-85. Although it would seem that only a few years have passed, there were already quite striking differences.
***
So I say that the general shortage of everything and everyone with absolutely empty counters and kilometer-long queues for them with coupons and cards only began at the very end of the 80s! And the author (meaning the author of the project vg_saveliev) apparently thinks that under the USSR people lived like in the Stone Age, and when the democrats came, happiness immediately came. But the Russian people did not believe this happiness and began to die out at a rate of 1 million per year.
***
Yes, I also remember in 1988 we went on vacation in the summer with my aunt and her son (i.e. my cousin) to a village to visit her relatives somewhere on the border of the Moscow and Tula regions. The village was alive. There was work in the village. And there are a lot of hard-working middle-aged people, and a lot of children.... I think now in most of these rural places only a few old people remain, and summer residents have appeared.
General impressions and thoughts
lamois (b. 1956):
Tell me, do memories have to be negative? Judging by what you posted, yes, this is exactly the kind of collection you started.
And if I write that I am happy that I was born in 1956 and saw a lot of difficulties, but also a lot of happiness, as at any time. My parents are teachers, they opened high school in a virgin village. People were sincere in their enthusiasm and unfeigned love for each other. I don’t regret that those times are gone, everything ends sooner or later. But I will never throw a stone into the history of my country. But you won’t be ashamed.
They write how they hated school rules, but I remember the fun and exciting game Zarnitsa, hikes, songs with a guitar. Each person has his own childhood and youth and they are good at any time. And now it is endlessly difficult for many; current difficulties are not much easier, but for many they are more difficult than then. For the majority, the loss of cultural identity is a greater tragedy than the then shortage of sausage for some especially hungry people, although it is precisely that there were no hungry people then, but now there are. But I don't believe people who remember their childhood with hatred or regret. These are unhappy people, and they are always biased, just like you, actually.
I am sure that you will never publish my opinion.
vit_r
Well, there's a queue, there's a shortage.
A person with a backpack, coming to any village, any village, and even any town, could find shelter and lodging for the night. A friend of a friend was given the keys and left in the apartment, where the money and crystal lay on the shelf.
And compare. I know those who now don’t have enough money to buy bread. Yes, the ceiling has risen. But not for everyone. The population declined and oil prices soared. The Union collapsed when there was no longer enough oil to import goods and export communism. And the party and economic bosses then lived better than today’s oligarchs.
The only problem with the union was that it was a zone where you couldn’t leave. It's true.
chimkentec:
No, the party and economic bosses then did not live better than the current oligarchs. The party and economic bosses were just as inaccessible to what was consumer goods for most people in developed countries.
***
...my grandfather was the “economic boss”, the head of YuzhKazGlavSnab, an organization involved in supplying three Kazakh regions.
But he, just like all the other townspeople, could not buy normal coffee, and for six months he could not repair the TV (there were no necessary spare parts). He had to convert the bathhouse he built himself into a barn.
He had a dream - he wanted to grow a lawn at his dacha. And he even managed to get lawn grass seeds. But he couldn’t get a simple electric lawn mower - someone decided that Soviet citizens didn’t need lawn mowers.
There will also be a section “Without an exact indication of time” and “Discussions”. So far these materials have not fit.
There are a lot of stories without a clear indication of time and age. Try to be more specific in time.
1. In the Soviet Union, hundreds and even thousands of people could drink sparkling water from a single glass from a vending machine. I drank the soda, rinsed the glass, and put it back. Everyone who lived at that time remembers that even those “thinking for three” very rarely took a cut glass from a soda machine.
2. In the USSR, we spent most of our free time on the street. These were parks, courtyards of high-rise buildings, sports grounds, rivers and lakes. There weren't many ticks in the forests. The lakes were not closed for epidemiological reasons. In villages, until the early 80s, children could run barefoot. Broken glass on the streets was very rare because all the bottles were given away.
3. We all drank from the tap. And in the largest city, and in the most distant collective farm. Sanitary standards in the USSR were such that there was no E. coli, hepatitis bacillus or any other nasty thing in the water supply.
4. It’s scary to think, but in the store the saleswoman served the pie or shortbread with her hands. Bread, sausage, and any other food was served by hand. Nobody thought about gloves.
5. Many children spent one or two shifts in the pioneer camp, without fail. Going somewhere to a resort was considered good luck; the main children's camps were located an hour's drive from home. But it was always fun and interesting there.
6. We rarely watched TV, compared to today. Usually in the evenings or on weekends: Saturday and Sunday.
7. In the USSR, of course, there were people who hardly read books, but there were very few of them. School, society, and the availability of free time pushed us to read.
8. We didn’t have computers or smartphones, so all our games took place in the yard. Usually a crowd of boys and girls of different ages gathered, and games were invented on the fly. They were simple and unpretentious, but the main factor in them was communication. Through games we became aware of social behavior patterns. Behavior was assessed not by words, and not even by actions, but by their motives. Mistakes were always forgiven, meanness and betrayal were never forgiven.
9. Were we fooled? Soviet propaganda? Have you suffered from the bloody regime? No no and one more time no. We didn’t really care about all this when we were 12-14 years old. What I remember is that each of us looked into the future with undisguised optimism. And those who wanted to serve in the army, and those who decided to become drivers and workers, and those who were going to enter technical schools and institutes.
We knew that there was a place in the sun for each of us.
Today a new wave of nostalgia for a bygone time is rising. And the complaints of the generation that is already over forty can be compared with the phrases uttered at all times: “In the past, sugar was sweeter,” “In our time, young people were better,” etc. And what has changed?
Yes, there were advantages during the existence of the USSR. There was free training, including higher education, there was free treatment when there was no need to take with you a health insurance policy and a certain amount for paid procedures. Everywhere there was the invisible spirit of the all-seeing party, directing the aspirations and thoughts of the workers in the right direction - treatment and training were of high quality.
There was also an active struggle for the quality of products in production - social networks were organized. competitions, there was strict control over the quality of manufactured parts or products, and they trained workers who were addicted to drinking alcohol or who were negligent in their duties. The trade union really worked, taking care of the health of employees: it provided them with vouchers to holiday homes and sanatoriums, and their children - vouchers to summer holiday camps. But, of course, it was not always possible to get a ticket - sometimes people waited for it for years.
But there were also disadvantages. Equalization of all employees occupying positions at the same level. Yes, there were certificates of honor, assignmenttitles - but this is a small share of encouragement, practically adding no material well-being. Many will grin: why any extra funds if the required minimum is free. The main thing is that there was enough food, and enough money for living. But not just breadIf a person is alive, he needs spiritual development. For some it consisted of reading books that were difficult to get at that time, for others it was necessary to create a good designhousing, adding comfort to the apartment, but there is also a problem with building materials.
And if you take a trip to, there was only one option - our south. Travel abroad was available to a limited number of people, and even those who had the opportunity to visit abroad were difficult to obtain.
I could list for a long time the positive and negative sides life in the USSR. And, most likely, they were equalized - people adapted, looked for opportunities to improve their lives, found various opportunities to get a scarce item or organize some kind of trip, and a chocolate bar given to a doctor added confidence in the quality of treatment.
However, there is something we have lost. This is the unity of the peoples living on the territory of the collapsed USSR. Today they are diligently trying to reshape history, passing off speculation as reality. But many people remember how friendly people of different nationalities lived in the neighborhood. And there was no division into Ukrainians and Russians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Most likely, this explains the nostalgia for the collapsed state, when the friendship of peoples helped to accomplish great things.
“We were lucky that our childhood and youth ended before the government bought FREEDOM from the youth in exchange for roller skates, mobile phones, star factories and cool crackers (by the way, for some reason soft)... With her own general consent... For her own (seemingly) good..." - this is a fragment from the text entitled "Generation 76-82". Those who are now somewhere around thirty are eagerly reprinting it on the pages of their online diaries. It became a kind of manifesto for a generation.
The attitude towards life in the USSR changed from sharply negative to sharply positive. Recently, a lot of resources have appeared on the Internet dedicated to Everyday life in Soviet Union.
Incredible but true: the sidewalk has an asphalt ramp for strollers. Even now you rarely see this in Moscow
At that time (as far as one can judge from photographs and films) all girls wore knee-length skirts. And there were practically no perverts. Amazing thing.
The bus stop sign is great. And the trolleybus pictogram is the same in St. Petersburg today. There was also a tram sign with the letter “T” in a circle.
The consumption of various branded drinks was growing all over the world, but we had everything out of the boiler. This, by the way, is not so bad. And, most likely, humanity will come to this again. All foreign ultra-left and green movements would be happy to know that in the USSR you had to go and buy sour cream with your own jar. You could return any jar, the sausage was wrapped in paper, and you went to the store with your own string bag. The most progressive supermarkets in the world today offer a choice at the checkout between a paper or plastic bag. The most responsible people environment classes return a clay yoghurt pot to the store.
And before there was no habit of selling containers with the product at all.
Kharkov, 1924. Tea room. He drank and left. No bottled Lipton.
Moscow, 1959. Khrushchev and Nixon (then vice president) at the Pepsi stand at the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki. On the same day, the famous argument took place in the kitchen. In America this dispute received wide coverage, but not here. Nixon talked about how cool it was to have a dishwasher, how many goods there were in supermarkets.
All this was filmed on color videotape (super technology at that time). It is believed that Nixon performed so well at this meeting that it helped him become one of the presidential candidates the following year (and 10 years later, the president).
In the 60s there was a terrible fashion for any type of machine gun. The whole world then dreamed of robots, we dreamed of automatic trading. The idea, in a sense, failed due to the fact that it did not take into account Soviet reality. For example, when a potato vending machine gives you rotten potatoes, no one wants to use it. Still, when you have the opportunity to rummage through an earthy container and find several relatively strong vegetables, there is not only hope for a tasty lunch, but also training in fighting qualities. The only vending machines that survived were those that dispensed a product of the same quality - selling soda. Sometimes there were also vending machines selling sunflower oil. Only the soda survived.
1961st. VDNH. Still, before the start of the fight against excesses, we were not at all behind the West in graphic and aesthetic development.
In 1972, Pepsi agreed with Soviet government that Pepsi will be bottled “from concentrate and using Pepsico technology”, and in return the USSR will have the opportunity to export Stolichnaya vodka.
1974 Some kind of boarding house for foreigners. Globe polka dots at top right. I still have a jar like this, unopened, and I keep thinking: will it explode or not? Just in case, I keep it wrapped in a bag away from books. It’s also scary to open - what if I suffocate?
On the very right edge next to the scales you can see a cone for selling juice. Empty, really. There was no habit in the USSR of drinking juices from the refrigerator; no one was showing off. The saleswoman opened a three-liter jar and poured it into a cone. And from there - by glass. As a child, I found such cones in our vegetable shop on Shokalsky Passage. When I was drinking my favorite apple juice from such a cone, some thief stole my Kama bicycle from the store's dressing room, I will never forget.
1982. Selection of alcohol in the dining car of the Trans-Siberian train. For some reason, many foreigners have a fixed idea - to travel along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Apparently, the thought of not getting off a moving train for a week seems magical to them.
Please note that the abundance is apparent. No exquisite dry red wines, of which today even in an ordinary tent there are at least 50 types sold. No XO or VSOP. However, even ten years after this photograph was taken, the author was quite satisfied with Agdam port wine.
1983. The worm of consumerism has settled in the naive and pure souls of Russians. True, the bottle, young man, must be returned to whom it was told. Drink, enjoy the warm drink, return the container. They will take her back to the factory.
The stores usually had “Buratino” or “Bell” on sale. “Baikal” or “Tarragon” were also not always sold. And when Pepsi was displayed in some supermarket, it was taken as a reserve - for a birthday, for example, to be displayed later.
1987 An aunt sells greens in the window of a dairy store. Cashiers are visible behind the glass. The ones you had to come to well prepared - know all the prices, quantity of goods and department numbers.
1987 Volgograd. In the American archive, this photo is accompanied by the comment of the century: “A woman on a street in Volgograd sells some sort of liquid for the invalids of the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet name for World War II)." Apparently, it was then in 1987 that the inscription on the barrel was translated, when there was no one else to ask, that WWII disabled people were served out of turn. By the way, these inscriptions are the only documentary recognition that there are queues in the USSR.
By the way, in those days there was no struggle between merchandisers, there were no POS materials, no one hung wobblers on the shelves. No one would even think of giving out free samples. If a store gave out a beach ball with the Pepsi logo, he considered it an honor. And he put it in the window sincerely and for free.
1990 Pepsi vending machine in the subway. A rare specimen. The vending machines on the right were found everywhere in the center - they sold the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia, and Moskovskie Novosti. By the way, all soda machines (and gaming machines too) always had the inscription “Please! Do not omit commemorative and bent coins.” It’s clear with the bent ones, but the anniversary coins cannot be omitted, because they differed from other coins of the same denomination in weight and sometimes in size.
1991. A veteran drinks soda with syrup. On the middle machine, someone had already scratched the Depeche Fashion logo. Glasses were always shared. You go over, wash it in the machine itself, and then place it under the nozzle. Disgusting aesthetes carried folding glasses with them, which had the peculiarity of folding during the process. The good thing about the photo is that all the details are characteristic and recognizable. And a payphone booth, and a Zaporozhets headlight.
Until 1991, American photographers followed the same routes. Almost every photograph can be identified - this is on Tverskaya, this is on Herzen, this is near the Bolshoi Theater, this is from the Moscow Hotel. And then everything became possible.
Recent history.
1992. Near Kyiv. This is no longer the USSR, it just had to be said. A dude poses for an American photographer, voting with a bottle of vodka to exchange it for gasoline. It seems to me that the bottles were given out by the photographer himself. However, a bottle of vodka has long been a kind of currency. But in the mid-nineties, all plumbers suddenly stopped accepting bottles as payment, because there were no fools left - vodka is sold everywhere, and it is known how much it costs. So everyone switched to money. Today the bottle is given only to doctors and teachers, and even then with cognac.
Things were pretty bad with food in the late USSR. The chance of buying something tasty in a regular store was close to zero. There were queues for the delicious food. Delicious things could be given “to order” - there was a whole system of “order tables”, which were actually centers for the distribution of goods for their own. At the order table I could count on something tasty: a veteran (moderately), a writer (not bad), a party worker (also not bad).
Residents of closed cities, in general, by Soviet standards, rolled around like cheese in Christ’s bosom. But in their cities it was very boring and they were restricted from traveling abroad. However, almost everyone was restricted from traveling abroad.
Life was good for those who could be useful in some way. Let's say the director of the Wanda store was a very respected person. Super VIP by recent standards. And the butcher was respected. And the head of the department at Detsky Mir was respected. And even a cashier at the Leningradsky station. They could all “get” something. Getting to know them was called “connections” and “connections.” The grocery director was fairly confident that his children would get into a good university.
1975 Bakery. I felt that the cuts on the loaves were made by hand (now a robot does the sawing).
1975 Sheremetyevo-1. By the way, not much has changed here. In the cafe you could find chocolate, beer, sausages and peas. Sandwiches did not exist; there could be a sandwich, which was a piece of white bread, on one end of which there was a spoon of red caviar, and on the other - one turn of butter, which everyone pushed and trampled with a fork under the caviar as best they could.
There were two types of bread stores. The first one is with a counter. Behind the saleswoman, there were loaves and loaves of bread in containers. The freshness of the bread was determined by questioning those who had already bought the bread or in a dialogue with the saleswoman:
— For 25, a fresh loaf?
- Normal.
Or, if the buyer was not rejected:
- They brought it at night.
The second type of bakery is self-service. Here, loaders rolled containers to special openings, on the other side of which there was a sales area. There were no saleswomen, only cashiers. It was cool because you could poke the bread with your finger. Of course, it was not allowed to paw the bread; for this purpose, special forks or spoons were hung on uneven ropes. There were still spoons here and there, and it was impossible to determine freshness with a fork. Therefore, everyone took the hypocritical device into their hands and carefully turned their finger to check in the usual way how well it was being pressed. It’s completely unclear through a spoon.
Fortunately, there was no individual packaging of bread.
Better a loaf that someone carefully touched with a finger than tasteless gutta-percha. And it was always possible, after checking the softness with your hands, to take a loaf from the far row, which no one had yet reached.
1991. Consumer protection will soon appear, which, together with care, will kill taste. The halves and quarters were prepared from the technical side. Sometimes you could even be persuaded to cut off half of the white:
- Who will buy the second one? - they asked the buyer from the back room.
No one gave any bags at the checkout either - everyone came with their own. Or with a string bag. Or so, he carried it in his hands.
The grandmother has bags of kefir and milk in her hands (1990). There was no Tetrapak then, there was some Elopak. On the package it was written “Elopak. Patented." The blue triangle indicates the side from which the bag should open. When we first purchased the packaging line, it came with a barrel of the correct glue. I found those times when the package opened in the right place without suffering. Then the glue ran out, it was necessary to open it on both sides, and then fold one side back. The blue triangles remained, but no one has bought glue since then, there are few idiots.
By the way, then there was no additional information on the product packaging - neither the address nor the manufacturer’s phone number. GOST only. And there were no brands. Milk was called milk, but varied in fat content. My favorite is in the red bag, five percent.
Dairy products were also sold in bottles. The contents varied according to the color of the foil: milk - silver, acidophilus - blue, kefir - green, fermented baked milk - raspberry, etc.
A joyful queue for eggs. There could still be “Peasant” butter on the refrigerated display case - it was cut with wire, then with a knife into smaller pieces, and immediately wrapped in butter paper. Everyone stands in line with receipts - before that they stood in line at the cash register. The saleswoman had to be told what to give, she looked at the number, counted everything in her head or on the accounts, and if it matched, she gave out the purchase (“released”). The check was threaded onto a needle (on the left side of the counter).
In theory, they were required to sell even one egg. But buying one egg was considered a terrible insult to the saleswoman - she could yell at the buyer in response.
Anyone who took three dozen was given a cardboard pallet without question. Whoever took a dozen was not entitled to a tray; he put everything in a bag (there were also special wire cages for aesthetes).
This is a cool photo (1991), with video rental cassettes visible in the background.
Good meat could be obtained through an acquaintance or bought at the market. But everything at the market was twice as expensive as in the store, so not everyone went there. “Market meat” or “market potatoes” are the highest praise for products.
Soviet chicken was considered to be of poor quality. Hungarian chicken is cool, but it has always been in short supply. The word “cool” was not yet in wide use at that time (that is, it was, but in relation to rocks).
4.2 / 5 ( 6 votes)
This is the case when I quote someone else’s text. This is a rather ancient boyan. But it is very laconic, and clearly outlines the main realities:
Do you want to live like in the USSR?
Get a job at any dying research institute. Turn off the Internet and mobile phones, leave only the First Anal of Russian Television on the TV. Replace toilet paper with newspapers. For food you buy sausage, bread, powdered milk, canned seaweed, a bottle of inexpensive vodka, processed cheese, pasta and tea of the poorest quality, dilute beer with water, only rotten vegetables, only apples for fruit. Before buying anything, to simulate a queue, just stand in front of the store from 20 to 2000 minutes. If possible, you can find and repair a Lada-Kopek car. To work only by tram. Do not wear benign clothes. Shoes should always be wet. Ask to treat your teeth without painkillers. And most importantly, there is a feeling of meaninglessness and endless melancholy. If we manage to reproduce it, there will be almost complete immersion in the USSR.
He himself answered a similar question, although not about specific decades:
No need to embellish! Life in the USSR was not as bad as in this lampoon. We lived well without the Internet and mobile phones - no one died. You can compare death statistics in the USSR and today. There were 2 television channels. We watched what was shown - everyone is still alive! Sausage, bread, milk were natural and tasty, not like now. No one died without toilet paper! Men bought inexpensive cheese and NORMAL vodka to drink around the corner - but not FANFURIKS from the pharmacy, as in modern times! The beer on tap was often watered down. There were long queues only in Moscow in large shopping centers - GUM, TSUM, Detsky Mir for fashionable clothes and shoes. Well, going to work by tram is a WEST for today's youth, but it was very good for us then - after all, not on foot! AND THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is that no one had a feeling of melancholy and meaninglessness! We all wanted to raise the PRESTIGE and AUTHORITY of our HOMELAND!!! Otherwise they write all sorts of nonsense about life in the USSR!!!
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You see, what does it matter, “better” is a concept partially related to subjective sensations.
I conscientiously gave pluses to Lekha the Wise and Boris Popov. I quite vividly remember my feelings and the mood of my parents and their colleagues. Yes, there are a lot of outrageous things to tell. In addition to what has been said, buying books was a problem in our most reading country in the world.
But. People's feelings are greatly influenced by how they feel, not individual pictures, but the sequence of changing pictures.
The 70s were still very active development. Production, institutions, housing - all this is being built. There are a lot of discoveries in fundamental science. People expect to live better.
And the 80s... serious problems began and it was no longer development, but even what there was that became questionable.
79th - troop entry into Afghanistan. 80th it is already clear that things did not go as expected. People are seriously concerned about this. What is there to fight for? Brezhnev is already in a state that his relatives will later describe as “he wanted to retire, but they didn’t let him go.”
82nd Brezhnev died, Andropov came. A mass of problems with corruption in power has begun to be uncovered.
The 84th Andropov died, Chernenko came. Died in '85.
The party itself already publicly acknowledges problems with food, problems with housing, and with the economy as a whole.
At this point, everyone thought for themselves as best they could what awaited us. But the majority were not optimistic. Jokes about half-dead general secretaries and their hearse races.
As usual, many different things are mixed into one question...
20 years is a serious period of time. Different people V different time lived differently. In the second half of the 70s things were relatively good.
It is very difficult to compare life now and almost half a century ago. Then there were completely different conditions.
There was one TV channel and one newspaper instead of dozens and hundreds, not counting the Internet.
Most people went to work as if it were a holiday, because they fooled around at it, celebrating birthdays and showing off new clothes.
The people were healthier due to the lack of TV series, mobile phones and Odnoklassniki.
There was no future, but there was “confidence in the future.”
And then oil prices fell...
If you look closely, the heyday is more likely to be the first half of the 1970s, rather than the second. From the second half, melancholy and gradual fading began. Because at the same time Brezhnev began to fall into insanity. Just look at films from the early 1970s. In general, this is a kind of fantastic ideal world that finally turned out to be. Before that there were the brave and energetic 1960s. Well, after the last spurt of enthusiasm, they decided to arrange a general relaxation. Here she is at last happy life Russian people in the socialist system! Then there are only attempts to consolidate what has been won. I hope someone understands...
But my second grandmother (God bless her) was a simple controller at a factory, she was not entitled to any thanks. To buy oranges and good sausage, she went to Moscow (since those days, the wonderful Voronezh-Moscow trains have been running at night, arrived in the morning, stocked up, went home), she bought decent meat from the back door through connections, and the only decent shoes she had were those that her son brought from tour, and now she has a pension of 23 thousand, children and grandchildren doing their own thing business and the same hundreds of varieties of sausage and cheese within walking distance. She likes it better now than in the USSR.
