30s
katrinkuv:
Yes, living people who remember the 30s are unlikely to be written here. But I remember what my grandmother told me, then my aunt confirmed it.
They lived then on Krasnoselskaya, in the house where Utyosov lived. The house was from the railroad. My grandfather worked there. Well, I don’t think it’s necessary 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 skating in Sokolniki. Grandmother said that the "funnel" was expected every night. The bag of belongings stood by the door, waiting to be arrested. Kaganovich warned. (honestly, I don’t know these relationships, my grandfather wasn’t even 30 at that time, why Kaganovich was close to this “boy” - my grandfather - I don’t know, but my aunt prays for him, says that he saved his grandfather’s life, which means and me, my father was already born at 44) and "sent" 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 raspberry. Father returned from 4 years of German captivity at the end of the war. He was met in the village by a hungry wife and two children. And I was born in 46. To feed the family, the father with the same hungry five fellow villagers stole a bag of wheat during sowing. Someone pawned, a search at the father. Accomplices, more cunning, advised the father to take over everything, otherwise, they say, they would put everyone in a group for 25 years. Father served 5 years. With my current mind, I'm joking, Hitler held him for four years, well, but Stalin could not give less, so he imprisoned me for five years. In the 1950s, 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 on the thigh. The Japanese ones were shaped like shorts, beautiful, vertically striped, tight. I wore them for a very long time, they are still lying around somewhere with me. Here is the memory of my student life!
60s
yuryper, "about the shortage of bread":
somewhere in 63 or 64 in Moscow, flour was distributed through house administrations, according to the number of registered ones. It wasn't in the shops. In the summer we went to Sukhumi, it turned out that white bread is only for locals, on cards.
In Moscow, bread did not disappear, but the variety characteristic of the early 60s gradually decreased, and by the early 70s this difference became very noticeable.
70s
sitki:
Early 70s, my mother-in-law is a single mother, Krasnoe Selo, pay 90 rubles.
Every (!) year I took my son to the sea. Yes, a savage; yes, sometimes they brought canned food with them and ate them for the whole month. But now my husband tells me about those trips with rapture. This is his childhood.
What cleaning lady can now take a child to the seaside for a month?
pumbalicho (8-10 years):
For some reason, the 70s stuck 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 shop windows of that time), but also some kind of special cohesion or something ... I remember that they reported the death of three Soviet cosmonauts at once - no one I didn’t order, but people really sobbed in the streets ...
matsea:
We walked in the yards for 4-5 years alone. I was 8 years old (early 70s) when a schoolgirl was killed in the Udelny park next door. The children continued to walk alone as well. Well, such was life.
80s
matsea (born 1964):
I remember well the expectation of the first spring salad (I am 64 years old). There were no fruits in winter. In autumn, apples are plentiful and inexpensive. By November, they are sold in brown spots and expensive. By January they are gone. If you're lucky, you can catch Moroccan oranges on occasion. Infrequently. Peter, winter darkness, beriberi. And shoot at night tomatoes with sour cream, so red. And here is March and happiness - they threw out hydroponic cucumbers. Long ones, dark green, like crocodiles. Three pieces in a kilogram, a kilo in one hand. Enough - not enough? Enough! We stood for about forty minutes, brought. Salad with onions, eggs, and hydroponic cucumbers - hooray, spring has come! Well, everything, now you can safely wait for the tomatoes. It's not until June.
mans626262:
the 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 for sausage and butter from Rostov-on-Don. Mom at the watch factory organized these trips. To Donetsk, to Voroshilovograd.
***
Struck!
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 on a clothes hanger next to each other ... It was simply impossible to buy something from clothes in Rostov. The queues have been busy since the evening. Everything is just from under the floor or by pull. I have a feeling that if jeans or something like that were freely sold during the USSR, then there would be no perestroika and subsequent collapse.
***
Born in 1962 in Rostov-on-Don
Of course, the USSR for me is childhood, youth, growing up, the 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 the first jeans were bought for me when I was in my first year at the institute. But everything was somehow richer. This is my personal opinion and I'm not going to argue with anyone. I remember how, already working, the party organizer asked me at a reporting meeting (he worked as the chief engineer of one communal sharaga): "How did you M.M. reorganize? ..." lunch "demagogue")? What did I need to rebuild in myself if I, a young guy, worked conscientiously and wear and tear? ... In the family, when I was a boy, there was a sack of food. Food was in the first place. But my father altered my clothes from his own. By the way, my father 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 they told me - an officer of the Soviet army - shoot yourself for Stalin - I silently pulled I would have shot myself with a gun ... ". I remember in the year 72-74 there was a rumor along the street that they were selling pepsicol .... I stood in line for two hours and scored two shopping bags ... I still swear when I remember how her home. Memories of the pioneer camps are very warm. Every summer, three shifts to different camps. Vacation at home was only five days st-ten before September 1st....
And while working, he adapted, like everyone else, to be able to take his wife to a barbecue on the left bank of the Don on weekends and go on vacation in the summer. Now I have a vacation for a maximum of a week, if I'm lucky ... I remember how my mother came from a business trip to Moscow. We met her with the whole family. Poor - how she pearled all these bags of sausage and oranges ....
I also remember the Diet store, where my mother and I went when she was picking me up from the kindergarten. She bought three hundred grams of sausage (certainly not Moscow and not serverat) doctoral or amateur and asked to cut a little for me. And there was a bread shop nearby, where we bought FRESH bread. Here I was, chewing a sausage sandwich. I have never seen such a taste of sausage and bread. Of course, delicacies were always in short supply, but parents got them for the holidays. I remember the queues for carpets, dishes and clothes ... I lived right next to the department store "Solnyshko" and I remember it all well. The queue was occupied since the evening and the crowd was hustling all night (I lived on the second floor and it all happened under our balcony). I remember the store "Ocean" on Semashko, where carp and sturgeon swam in the aquarium. And then the same "Ocean", where there was nothing except for briquettes of shrimp and some kind of crap like seaweed. I remember coupons for vodka and oil. But this is already at the end of the USSR. But I worked in the road organization and "spun". (just don't say that because of people like me we have bad roads). Who wanted to live, then spinning. Everything was both good and bad. Now, of course, remember the good. The bad is forgotten. I forgot that I did not have a tape recorder as a child. But I remember New Year's gifts from the Christmas tree in DC. The queues for beer are forgotten, but its taste and the fact that it turned sour in a day and not in a month are remembered. With a smile, I remember how I was driving home from work in a crowded bus, holding a plastic bag with beer in my hand over my head, and there were many like me ... Everything was - both bad and good. You can argue about this time until the carrot spell, but it was and is remembered with a smile.
nord100:
I remember my first business trip to Vilnius. It was around 1982. He was shocked by what he saw abroad. Then I got coffee in beans, for a whole year in advance.
In those same years, I visited Moldova for the first time, where I was struck by the abundance of imports in stores. And the books! I have not seen so many scarce books since childhood!
I still 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 - I didn’t have local coupons ...
I remember many things about those years, but mostly with warmth. After all, it was youth :)
Second half of the 80s
Frauenheld2:
I remember that I was engaged in fartsovka, just somewhere in the 89-90s)
You go there - "Kaugumi, chungam", but because you're ashamed - sometimes it's just, you ask the time, in Russian, of course. But foreigners do not understand, and give something - sweets, chewing gum, pens. Now it seems - trifles, but at school I went godfather to the king with these colored pens, and for chewing gum (!), Classmates just didn’t kiss their feet.
alyk99:
Secondary school No. 1 in Zvenigorod near Moscow. I am 10 years old (1986), there is some kind of meeting in the assembly hall. The director broadcasts: "We vote. Who is for?"
We all raise our hands as one. "Who against?" Two lonely hands of some high school students are raised. The director starts shouting: "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 from myself that the high school students behaved shamefully. "Why?" she asks. "Maybe they had a different opinion. What's so shameful?" 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 (was 10 years old in 1988):
Something the stories of this lady, who rode abroad, about the absence 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. With my parents (with my father, to be more precise), we 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 was enough food in our local stores. Of course, there was no such abundance on the shelves as it is now, but no one went hungry. Of course, they can object to me here that a small, but a 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 deficit became quite active only in 1988.
Continuing the store theme now about manufactured goods. I remember somewhere in the middle of the 80s - in our local department store I saw on the shelves and TVs, and refrigerators, and washing machines, and 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 the average salaries of that time (this is about 200-odd rubles for the mid-80s), these household appliances were quite expensive. I remember our first color TV - a hefty and heavy Rubin, bought only in 1987, cost well for 300 rubles.
***
But if we compare it with today, then the most radical difference from that time is people. Then, too, 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 alone to walk even in the neighboring yard, but then they were not afraid to let us go. And not only in the next yard. And until late at night.
***
The USSR of the 88th model is no longer the same country as it was back in 83-85. Although it would seem that only a few years have passed, the differences were already quite striking.
***
So I'm saying that the general shortage of everything and everyone with absolutely empty counters and kilometer-long queues for them with coupons and cards came only at the very end of the 80s! And the author (meaning the author of the vg_saveliev project) 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 1 million a year.
***
Yes, I still remember in the summer of 1988 we went on vacation with my aunt and her son (that is, my cousin) to the village to her relatives somewhere on the border of the Moscow and Tula regions. The village was alive. There was work in the village. And 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 are left, but summer residents have appeared.
General impressions and reasoning
lamois (born 1956):
Tell me, do memories have to be negative? Judging by the posted - yes, you started just such a selection.
And if I write that I am happy that I was born in 1956 and saw many difficulties, but also a lot of happiness, as at any time. My parents are teachers, they opened a secondary school in a virgin village. People were sincere in their enthusiasm and unfeigned love for each other. I do not regret that those times have passed, everything ends sooner or later. But I will never throw a stone at the history of my country. And you don't hesitate.
They write how they hated school rulers, but I remember the fun and exciting game Zarnitsa, hiking, songs with a guitar. Each person has his childhood and youth and they are good at any time. And now it is infinitely difficult for many, the current difficulties are not much easier, but for many more difficult than then. For the majority, the loss of cultural identity is a greater tragedy than the then shortage of sausages for some especially hungry, although it was precisely that there were no hungry then, but now they are. But I don't trust people who remember their childhood with hatred or regret. These are unfortunate people, and they are always biased, just like you, in fact.
I am sure that you will never publish my opinion on your own.
vit_r
Well, queues, well, shortage.
A person with a backpack, coming to any village, to any village, and even to any town, could find shelter and lodging for the night. They gave keys to an acquaintance of acquaintances and left them in an apartment where money and crystal lie on a shelf.
And to compare. I know those who now do not have enough money for bread. The ceiling has gone up. But not for everyone. The population has shrunk and oil prices have skyrocketed. The Union fell apart when there was no longer enough oil to import goods and export communism. And the party and economic bosses then lived abruptly than the current oligarchs.
The only problem with the union was that there was no way out. It's true.
chimkentec:
No, the party and economic bosses then did not live abruptly than the current oligarchs. 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 that was engaged in the supply of three Kazakhstani regions.
But he, just like all the other townspeople, could not buy normal coffee, he could not repair the TV for half a year (there were no necessary spare parts). He had to convert his own built bathhouse into a barn.
He had a dream - he wanted to grow a lawn in the country. And even the seeds of lawn grass, he managed to get. But he could not get the simplest electric lawn mower - someone decided that Soviet citizens did not need lawn mowers.
There will also be a rubric "Without an exact designation of time" and "Discussions". Until these materials fit.
There are a lot of stories without a clear indication of time and age. Try to be specific about the timing.
- made here an interesting selection of photographs from 1989 and 1990. In 1991, the USSR ceased to exist, and those who claim that the Union collapsed "unexpectedly" are wrong - everything was quite expected, people were waiting for changes and knew that Soviet power would soon be gone. Suffice it to recall at least the fact that in 1990 (more than a year before the collapse of the Soviet Union) Minsk schools no longer accepted first-graders in October - it ended.
So, in today's post I will show you a photo from the life of people in the late USSR (deficit, rallies in support of Yeltsin, Soviet public catering, etc.), and in the comments I will be glad to read your memories of this period of history)
02. At the very end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, various international catering enterprises began to appear in the USSR. Perhaps the most famous was the opening of McDonald's in January 1990. The picture shows a poster about the imminent opening of a cafe, the photo was taken in Moscow in December 1989.
03. January 1989, car factory, workers rest. Production schemes remained largely Soviet, although during the time of perestroika, enterprises began to introduce all sorts of modern things, plus real trade unions began to appear in places.
By the way, I wonder if in 1989-1990 it was already possible to freely buy a car, or were there still Soviet "queues"? Haven't seen any information about it.
04. February 1989, school. Children studied according to Soviet programs, but with the beginning of Perestroika in 1985, the ideological component in education began to gradually fade - for example, in Minsk in 1990 (more than a year before the collapse of the USSR), first-graders were no longer accepted in October. Much depended, among other things, on the personal initiative of teachers - until 1991, someone continued to talk about "good grandfather Lenin", someone scored and simply taught the subject.
05. Exercise bikes, photo 1989. At the end of the eighties, there was a general fashion for aerobics and sports, everyone bought “health” circles for themselves, and in some institutions they installed such simulators. Back in those years, "rocking chairs" were finally allowed, which began to open en masse in basements and at gyms.
06. Another foreign fast food company, this time Soviet-Finnish. Specializes in the sale of burgers (an unusual and fashionable product in the late USSR).
07. Ladies dry their heads at the hairdresser. In the late eighties there was a fashion for bouffant hairstyles and perms), and the hairdressers themselves were among the first to switch to semi-commercial cooperative work.
08. Winter in one of the Moscow microdistricts, photo 1989. Please note that there are practically no cars in the yard - they began to be massively bought already in the nineties.
09. With the beginning of Perestroika (especially after 1987), all sorts of meetings and rallies were allowed in the USSR - which immediately began to be held in large numbers, mainly against the Soviet government, the USSR and for Yeltsin.
10. Car repair in one of the Moscow yards. In those years, there were no normal car services, and many car enthusiasts were at the same time good auto repair masters. Somewhere since 1987, private cooperative car services began to appear.
11. Lady with an accordion on the Arbat - which at that time became a prominent tourist attraction in Moscow.
12. This is also the Arbat, the poet reads his poems, photo 1990. With the beginning of the policy of glasnost, it became possible to read anything - even obscene poems about Stalin and Gorbachev.
13. What international news worried Soviet citizens in those years? In January 1990, they talked in some detail about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from united Germany, and a year earlier they showed a lot about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
14. They talked a lot more about Chernobyl and its consequences, the topics of product contamination with radionuclides and nitrates began to be raised. This photo was taken in 1990 in the fields near the Thirty-Kilometer Exclusion Zone, a guy measures radiation levels with a RKSB-1000 dosimeter. By the way, this is a household dosimeter not designed to detect soil pollution)
15. 1990, queues at Sberbank for deposits - around this time, the Soviet monetary system began to burst at the seams, many deposits were frozen.
16. An uncle without legs begs for alms in one of the passages in Moscow, photo 1990. Yes, in the USSR there were also homeless people with disabilities and homeless people.
17. Homeless. Also Moscow.
18. In 1989-1990, there were literally empty shelves in stores - something could only be bought in the markets, and even then not always. The photo shows a queue of customers for a small batch of meat that was "thrown out" in one of the Moscow stores.
19. Scarcity.
20. May 1990, completely empty shelves in one of the Moscow supermarkets. By the way, the signs are very modern, more characteristic of the year 1993-1994 in design.
21. Empty market stalls, also photographed in 1990.
22. Those who had money could go to a restaurant, but dinner there was quite expensive - most often all sorts of anniversaries, family holidays, etc. were celebrated in restaurants, the Soviet people didn’t go to restaurants just like that)
23. Public catering in 1990 - in the photo, apparently, one of the Moscow dumplings. A woman in a scarf ordered a version with broth (just dumplings in the water in which they were boiled, sometimes bay leaves and black pepper were added there), from an uncle in a cap - a version without water, mixed with mustard. There is also tea in disposable cups.
24. In 1989-1990, protests took place in Moscow and other major cities of the USSR for any reason - here, for example, demonstrators with a poster in support of the independence of Lithuania.
25. And these are street protests in support of Yeltsin, the protesters are carrying a poster "B.N. Yeltsin for President of the RSFSR."
26. Rally against the CPSU. The guy has an interesting poster, on which the font "KPSS" consists of bones.
27. Student strike.
Do you remember the last years
From the author: “Remember kindergarten? Hamsters, nap time, pea soup with croutons? Christmas trees, obligatory bunnies. 
Who was accepted as a pioneer at the Museum of the Revolution? In the first wave or in the second? Blacks in the USSR were considered people before it became mainstream. 
Circles of the USSR, sports schools, sections, music and art schools. How many did you visit at the same time? Me: swimming, art school, carving, ship modeling and aircraft modeling. How much does it cost now to send a child to so many circles? 
Practically guaranteed employment, they were persecuted for parasitism. In the honor of the specialty of the "real sector" - turners, welders - an economist in the department is considered a squint. In the photo Goblin - before we all worked with our hands, not with our tongues. 
Army. Enough of everything, the Belarusians smacked the Kirghiz, the Chechens of the Muscovites, the crests of all the rest, barely getting a snot on the shoulder strap. But it was a cohesive machine, where yesterday's peasants became real universal soldiers entering Afghanistan (read how the border guards seized the bridgehead, let the line units in and also brought them out, clearly, professionally) or operations in Angola together with the Cuban "Black Wasps". 
Police. They were respected, until the 70s the murder of a policeman was a sign of complete lawlessness, they were shot like mad dogs. Yes, they drank, the traffic police constantly muddied with cars, but you will be surprised to compare the level of work of the then police and the modern police, with all the means of electronic espionage and the capabilities of digital technology. Policemen after a major scandal with bank robberies with massacres in the United States for the first time saw a fax and a radio station in the car - then they changed the whole style of work. And now everyone has a mobile with the Internet and “grouse-grouse-grouse”. 
Culture, art, Soviet ballet. Censorship - then nailing eggs to Red Square and setting fire to doors was not considered art, gaining paint in the ass and soiling canvases in this way went to Napoleon and those who saw aliens. Therefore, now there is our new bad cinema, with rare exceptions from old Soviet directors, and the golden film library of the USSR. 
Do you remember Soviet sports? Affordable, successful, bright. 
The medicine. And in general, social security, there is no need to shout that in the USA they were and are better. They treated, performed the most complicated operations, they also did it there, if there is medical insurance, and they will do it, and then a bill for $ 20,000 is still an unbearable amount there. Resorts, sanatoriums, you could get from the factory, now this is not there either.
Therefore, the USSR is already history, it cannot be returned, we lived there. Who was not - he will be, who was - will not forget. Everything goes to the fact that the quasi-USSR, crooked, not the same as they wanted, will be built again. But why was it to destroy that one?
The more people want to return to it. Life in the USSR was not ideal, but people get bored, remember and compare. Today, this era still excites and excites compatriots. Sometimes serious debates unfold in society, finding out how happy the Soviet people were and how they lived in the USSR.
Differently
According to the recollections of most compatriots, it was a simple and happy life for millions of people who were proud of their great power and aspired to a brighter future. Stability was a hallmark of that time: no one was afraid of tomorrow, or rising prices, or layoffs. People had a strong foundation under them, because, as they say, they could sleep peacefully.
There were pluses and minuses in the life of the USSR. Someone remembers the endless queues and the shortage of that time, someone can’t forget the availability of education and medicine, but someone continues to nostalgic for kind and trusting human relationships that had nothing to do with material values and status.
He had a very close and friendly relationship with each other. It was not a question to sit with the neighbor's kids or run to the pharmacy for anyone. The laundry was free to dry outside, and the keys to the apartment lay under the rug. No one thought about the bars on the windows and iron doors, there was no one to steal. On the streets, passers-by willingly helped the lost to find their way, carry heavy bags or cross the road for the old man. Everything was attended to and taken care of. It is no wonder that visiting foreigners fell in love with this country, shocked by the warmth that they met here.
Together
For today, isolation, seclusion and alienation are more and more characteristic - a person may not know who lives next to him on the site. The Soviet man, on the other hand, was very distinguished by a heightened sense of collectivism, the whole society seemed to be tightly soldered. Therefore, in the USSR they lived as one big friendly family. Everything was inculcated from kindergarten, then school, institute, production. Residents of an apartment building could easily know each other by last name. Everything was done together and together.
Collectivism is considered the greatest achievement. Everyone felt that he belonged to a great people, he lived by the interests and joys of his country, his city, his enterprise. A person was never left alone: weekdays, sorrows and holidays in the USSR were lived by the whole team. And the worst thing that could happen to a person is when he was excluded from society. The worst thing was to be "overboard" from everyone.
Learn, learn and learn
Indeed, Soviet citizens had the right to free education - this was another pride of the Land of the Soviets. Moreover, secondary education was universal and compulsory. And anyone could enter the university after successfully passing the entrance exams.
The attitude to school in the USSR, and to education in general, is very different from the modern one. It would never even occur to a schoolboy or student to miss classes. The main source of knowledge was his notes, his progress depended on how he would listen and write down the teacher.
A separate point worth emphasizing was the respect with which teachers were treated. There was always silence in the classrooms, no unnecessary conversations and noise, there was absolute concentration on the lesson. And God forbid someone be late for class - you won't be ashamed.
Now some are questioning the level of Soviet education, but scientists and specialists brought up in this “bad system” are selling like hot cakes abroad.
Free medicine
Another of the most weighty arguments in favor of the USSR. Soviet people could always count on qualified free medical care. Annual examinations, dispensaries, vaccinations. All treatments were available. And going to the clinic, there was no need to wonder how much money might be needed and whether it would be enough. The party took good care of the health of its workers - it was possible to get a ticket to a sanatorium-dispensary without problems and "going through the throes."
Women were not afraid to give birth, because there was no such puzzlement as to feed and "bring to the people." Accordingly, the birth rate grew, and no additional benefits and incentives were needed for this.
A normalized work schedule, the level of medicine, relative stability in life, healthy nutrition - all this led to the fact that in the 80s the USSR was in the top ten countries with high life expectancy (average life expectancy).
Housing problem
Life in the USSR was not sweet in many ways, however, every Soviet citizen from the age of 18 had the right to housing. Of course, we are not talking about palaces, but no one remained on the street. The resulting apartments were not private property, as they belonged to the state, but they were assigned to people for life.
It should be noted that the housing problem was one of the sore points of the Soviet Union. Only a tiny percentage of registered families received new housing. The apartment queues dragged on for many, many years, despite the fact that every year housing construction reported on the delivery of new microdistricts.
Other values
Money has never been an end in itself for a Soviet person. People worked and worked hard, but it was for an idea, for a dream. And any interest or desire for material goods was not considered worthy. Neighbors and colleagues easily lent each other "three rubles before payday" and did not count the days of her return. Money did not decide anything, relationships decided, everything was built on them.
Salaries in the USSR were decent, such that half of the country could afford to fly planes without compromising the family budget. It was available to the masses. What are student scholarships worth? 35-40 rubles, for excellent students - all 50. It was quite possible to do without the help of mom and dad.
The work of working craftsmen was especially appreciated. A qualified specialist at the plant could receive more than his director. And that was okay. There were no shameful professions, the janitor and the technician were respected no less than the accountant. Between the "tops" and "bottoms" there was not that insurmountable abyss that can be observed now.
As for the value of the ruble itself in the USSR, this is one of the most popular funds of that time. Its owner could afford to buy the following to choose from: two large packs of dumplings, 10 meat pies, 3 liters of kefir, 10 kg of potatoes, 20 subway rides, 10 liters of gasoline. This is impressive.
Well deserved rest
Through the law, the state guaranteed material security for Soviet citizens in old age. Pension in the USSR allowed the elderly to live in relative prosperity. There was no need to go to extra work. The old people nursed their grandchildren, took care of summer cottages, went to rest in a sanatorium. Nowhere was there such a picture that a pensioner was counting pennies for medicine or milk, and even worse - standing with outstretched hand.
The average pension in the USSR ranged from 70 to 120 rubles. Military or personal pensions were certainly higher. At the same time, only 5 rubles were spent on housing and communal services. Pensioners then did not survive, but lived, and also helped their grandchildren.
But in fairness, it should be noted that not everything was so rosy for pensioners-collective farmers. For them, only in 1964 was the law on pensions and benefits adopted. And those were mere pennies.
Culture in the USSR
Culture, like life itself in the USSR, was ambiguous. In fact, it was divided into official and "underground". Not all writers could publish. Unrecognized creators used samizdat to reach their readers.
They controlled everything and everyone. Someone had to leave the country, someone was sent into exile for "parasitism", and the ardent petitions of colleagues could not save them from a foreign land. Do not forget the smashed exhibition of avant-garde artists. This act said it all.
The dominance of socialism in art led to the degradation of the taste of the Soviet people - the inability to perceive something else, more complex than the surrounding reality. And where is the flight of thought and fantasy here? Representatives of the creative intelligentsia had a very difficult life in the USSR.
In the cinema, the picture was not so sad, although here censorship did not doze. World-class masterpieces are filmed that still do not leave the TV screen: the adaptation of the classic "War and Peace" by S. F. Bondarchuk, the comedy by L. I. Gaidai and E. A. Ryazanov, "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" by V. V. Menshov and much more.
It is impossible to ignore pop music, which was of great importance for the Soviet people. No matter how hard the relevant authorities tried, but Western rock culture penetrated the country and influenced popular music. "Pesnyary", "Gems", "Time Machine" - the appearance of such ensembles was a breakthrough.
I remember
Nostalgia for the USSR continues to gain momentum. In view of today's realities, people remember everything: the pioneers, and the Komsomol, and the availability of kindergartens, and summer camps for children, free sections and circles, and the absence of homeless people on the street. In a word, a stable and peaceful life.
They also remember the holidays in the USSR, how they walked shoulder to shoulder in parades with their heads held high. Proud of their country, for its great achievements, for the heroism of their people. They remember how representatives of different nationalities lived together in the neighborhood and there was no division and intolerance. There was a comrade, friend and brother - a Soviet man.
For some, the USSR is the "lost paradise", while others shudder with horror at the mention of that time. Oddly enough, both are right. And the bygone era can not be forgotten, this is our history.
Today, a new nostalgic wave is rising for a bygone time. And the lamentations of a generation over forty can be compared to the phrases uttered at all times: “Sugar used to be sweeter”, “In our time, young people were better”, etc. And what has changed?
Yes, there were pluses during the existence of the USSR. There was free education, including higher education, there was free treatment, when there was no need to take a health insurance policy and a certain amount for paid procedures. Everywhere there was an invisible spirit of the all-seeing party, directing the aspirations and thoughts of the workers in the right direction - the treatment and training were of high quality.
In production, there was also an active struggle for the quality of products - social services were organized. competitions, there was a strict control of the condition of manufactured parts or products, brought up workers who were fond of drinking alcohol or were negligent in their duties. The trade union really worked, taking care of the health of employees: it gave them vouchers to rest homes and sanatoriums, and vouchers for their children to summer holiday camps. Only, 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 of the same level. Yes, there were diplomas, assignmenttitles - but this is a small share of encouragement, practically not adding material well-being. Many will chuckle: why any extra funds, if the necessary minimum is free. The main thing is that there was enough for food, there were enough funds for living. But not only breadIf a person is alive, spiritual development is needed. For some, it consisted of reading books that were difficult to get at that time, for some it was necessary to create a good designhousing, adding comfort to the apartment, but building materials are also a problem.
And if you take a trip to, there was only one option - our south. Foreign trips were available to a limited circle of people, and even so, the opportunity to visit abroad was difficult to get.
You can list the positive and negative aspects of life in the USSR for a long time. And, most likely, they were equalized - people adapted, looked for opportunities to improve their lives, found various opportunities to get a scarce thing or organize a trip, and a chocolate bar given to a doctor added confidence as a 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 trying hard to redraw history, passing off conjectures as reality. But many people remember how people of different nationalities lived together 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.
