How people lived in the last years of the USSR (photo). Back to the USSR: how and what a simple Soviet person lived How they lived in the Soviet years

Instructions

“The period of developed socialism,” as the era of stagnation in the USSR was officially called, was not as carefree as many people think now. Very low wages for the majority of the population and a shortage of high-quality consumer goods and food products added a very large fly in the ointment to the socialist ointment.

And yet there were many positive aspects to life in those years. First of all, life during the stagnant years was very calm. There was no crime. That is, it’s not that she was completely absent, but the press preferred to keep silent about her. Crime in the USSR, according to party ideologists, was considered a relic of capitalist vulgarity. And many Soviet people willingly believed in this. Indeed, it was almost safe to walk the city streets, and cases of bloody maniacs and other murderers were carefully hidden from society. For the same reason, there were “no” man-made disasters in the USSR.

Medical care in the Soviet Union was absolutely free and medicines were very expensive. But buying good, especially imported, drugs was very problematic.

The Soviet education system was considered one of the best in the world. It was also free. But in order to enroll in studies at prestigious university, Soviet applicants either had to have high-ranking parents or pay considerable bribes. And in the Central Asian republics, the bribe system existed in almost all universities and was almost legalized.

State free housing prevailed in the USSR. However, there was also cooperative and private housing. Every Soviet citizen in need of improved housing conditions had the right to receive an apartment free of charge. Another thing is that for this it was necessary to stand in a queue for many years. Sometimes her term reached two decades. People who wanted to speed up this process joined housing cooperatives. But in order to build a cooperative apartment, it was necessary to pay for it several annual earnings of a simple engineer or teacher.

The provision of food to the population in the Soviet Union was extremely uneven. The most secure in terms of food were the cities of Moscow and Leningrad. In stagnant years, a Moscow grocery store was considered good if its shelves included fresh meat and poultry, 2-3 varieties of boiled sausage, a couple of varieties of fresh frozen fish, butter, sour cream, eggs, chocolates, beer and oranges. But in many stores, even in Moscow, products in such an assortment were available only at certain times of the day and not every day. In the Russian outback, the food situation was much worse: meat on coupons, sausage on holidays. But almost all the products were high quality and very cheap.

Domestic manufactured goods were of extremely poor quality. Therefore, imports were held in high esteem. Imported items were often incredibly expensive, but they were still in crazy demand.

Soviet ideologists, proving the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist one, constantly emphasized that in the West money decides everything, but in the USSR there are other, much greater human values. And indeed, money for Soviet people was nothing compared to blat. The presence of useful connections, for example, in the areas of trade and catering, opened up real access to socialist benefits.

The holiday was approaching: my parents' wedding anniversary. Mom was categorically against me paying for dinner in a cafe. Then a brilliant plan was born. Set up a home nineties style party. Let me remind them of the past, because they got married in 1985, the dawn of their youth was during the Soviet years. She herself remained silent, it’s surprise. She invited guests, downloaded hits from the nineties and began decorating the living room in a retro style.

USSR: a bygone era

You can regret the past, remember fragments with a smile. But it cannot be returned. I propose to “take it out of my memory” good moments, because life goes on. Today I will tell you how they lived in the USSR. To confirm my words, I will give significant facts.

Life in the Soviet style:

• Parents dreamed that their children would become cultural workers in the future. Librarian, historian, teacher, cultural historian, musician - prestigious professions.
• Private taxi prohibited. Cab drivers who wanted to make money risked paying a fine. At any moment the car could be stopped and asked who you were taking and what route to take. And they even asked for documents to confirm the family connection. State taxi was available, average cost travel - one ruble.
• Soviet ballet became famous throughout the world. In the evening we watched performances in front of a blue screen. Loving this art is a sign of education.
• Fartsovschiki earned good money. Because they were secretly selling scarce goods. Today the word “fartsovka” is unknown to young people.

How they lived in the USSR: luxury

The concept of wealth then and now differs significantly. I would never conclude that the family is rich if I saw a crystal chandelier and a sideboard with dishes in their apartment. And before they were items of pride. If a family moved, carpets and dishes (especially crystal) were packed first. Soviet citizens who did not suffer from a lack of money tried not to display their wealth for show

A person who has an apartment, a car, a dacha, a TV, imported household appliances and one thousand rubles under the mattress. You won’t surprise us with a model seven car or a dacha where you have to bend your back.

Childhood memories of the USSR
kotichok :
my grandmother told me a lot about the 30s, 40s and 50s
I especially remember the story of how in 1939, when Soviet power came, half the village came running to see how the Soviets drank vodka with granchaks
Grandma told me that they used to have a wedding with a bottle of vodka - and everyone had fun
* * *
my father built the Moscow, Kharkov and Kiev subways
he worked a lot, seemed to earn money, but had no connections
everything had to be obtained
I remember when they “got” tangerines, bananas and “Evening Kyiv” candies, my parents watched so that I didn’t eat everything at once and get diathesis)))

topof , "Eaglet 1988 stew Chinese wall":
One of the lucky ones was in the All-Russian camp Orlyonok in the summer of 1988... there were many children from all over the country...
there were only 2 people from my city, after we were given a dry ration of Chinese stewed meat Great Wall... I realized that the USSR would soon no longer exist00))... at that time ours still knew how to make normal stewed meat.. .
I experienced the second shock a couple of years later, when, having arrived in the village to visit relatives, instead of cream from my cow in a 3-liter jar as usual, they began to spread Rama butter from a plastic jar... agriculture disappeared))))

tres_a :
Kyiv, late 80s.
White bread could be bought only in one store and only within an hour after delivery - in the morning and at lunch. I still don’t understand where there was a stale one among the loaves.
Chocolate ice cream was rarely brought in and only in milk (a special store with dairy products; other grocery stores rarely brought milk and it was stale).
In all the stores there was a smell of bleach and rot (even in the central ones).
Children stood on public transport if there was an adult (from 4-5 years old).
Few fat people, of the children there are generally only one or two for the entire school (in those schools that I know there were up to 1000 students at that time).
They could pull your ears for a cigarette and take you to your parents. The police did 150% of this.
Clean-up days and other voluntary-compulsory events (I still don’t understand why I have to clean if someone gets paid for it).
Politics and adult topics were not discussed in front of children.

tol39 (born 1975):
You could buy bread from us before lunch, and after lunch you could fly by, because bread was usually taken away during the lunch break, which was from one to two in enterprises, and from two to three in stores. We had four types of ice cream - in waffle cups, we didn’t have it on sale, my father brought it from the city. Eskimo, expensive and not very often found, still in bulk, very tasty, in such sleeves. And the products from our local dairy - in paper cups and with ice crystals. There was a specific smell in the stores, but it wasn’t rotten, that was the smell of the barrels that were always kept in the back rooms.
***
Well, first of all, it was my childhood, and it was good, I was born in 1975. Until 87-88, everything was generally wonderful, and then the word “deficit” appeared. Actually, it existed before, but it belonged to the category of things that were not very significant in Everyday life. There was a feeling of imminent change, exciting, like what happens when you roll down on a springboard in order to take off, but the takeoff did not happen. At full speed we crashed into the dirty mess of the nineties. Black T-shirts, chains, nunchucks, Royal alcohol and all that. How I survived, who knows.

true_frog (born 1952):
My year of birth is 1952. This means that my entire adult life was spent in the USSR.
Childhood. All the most interesting things were on the street and in the yard. It was impossible to bring children into the apartment. In the evening, windows and vents were opened: mothers called their children from the yard. We played calm and active games, tennis, volleyball. On rainy days they played in the entrance. Even in winter, in the dark, we girls were not forbidden to walk. We moved a lot. We only went to school on foot, no matter how far it was. For some reason it was not customary to travel by bus. Overweight children - "fat trusts" - were a rarity and despised by everyone.
Starting from the first grade, schoolchildren first did a little cleaning in the classroom, and then washed the floors in the classrooms themselves.
They collected scrap metal, empty bottles, and waste paper. It was not scary to send children to unfamiliar apartments.
There were a lot of different circles. Only at the music school tuition was paid; all others (sports and art) were completely free. A huge House of Pioneers, where you could do anything for free - be it ballet or boxing. Every child could try himself in any activity.
Even preschoolers were sent to pioneer camps. They lived there in one-story dachas, half for boys, half for girls. The toilet with a hole in the floor is on the street, the water is only cold in the washbasins, also on the street. In the morning, general exercise is mandatory. The children themselves were on duty at the gates to the pioneer camp and in the dining room. The dishes were not washed, but the bread was cut and the dishes were arranged.
***
Yes, “the key is under the rug” - this was everywhere in childhood, even in the city, and in the late 70s, in our youth, in a small village in the Far North, we inserted a stick into the latch when we left home. In the early 80s, again in the city, the entrance doors were locked only at night, sometimes I forgot, and they slept unlocked all night. When we moved into a new apartment, we closed the door with a washing machine at night until the lock was inserted.
***
From my youth. In the first two years of university - cleaning. We are a little surprised why the collective farmers work their backs in their gardens while we throw grain on the drain, but in general we have a great time: we learn to light a stove, cook our own food on it, ride horses, drive a motorcycle, and organize concerts.
In the 70s, at dances you can still see a brass band, which has not yet been replaced by electric music.
Girls are supposed to wear their hair tied up. Ponytail is cool. And loose hair - well, that’s only in foreign movies.
They dressed, of course, in drab clothes. I went to the first harvest in a padded jacket, because jackets were rare, I sewed my first jacket in a studio. It was strange to look at bright clothes in a movie Soviet heroes movies: they never dressed like that in real life. I remember being amazed by the bright red jacket of the professor’s daughter from Gentlemen of Fortune.
It was possible to dress differently only in the studio, but getting there was not easy: there was also a queue. Nice but worn items could be bought in thrift stores.
Well, I’ll make my contribution to the discussion of the food program. In the 60s we first lived on Far East. There were no problems with the products. In 1963 we lived in Tuva for a year. That's where people lined up for milk all night long. In 1964 we moved to Tyumen and saw a food paradise. Cans of condensed milk decorated the counters; sausages were bought in 200 grams, fresh, and all kinds of compotes in bulk in cans. I don't remember when it all disappeared.

razumovsky4 , "The key is under the rug....":
That's right. 1951. Hide and seek, catch-up, rounders, table tennis, badminton, wars with swords, swords, toy pistols, bicycles, a river in the weather, and, of course, the king of all games - football. From morning to evening. On the small gate.
And also girls in “hopscotch” and “shtander.” And so on until dark. And it got dark - so some more games with running around with flashlights with Chinese or German daimons. On my feet are either Chinese, Vietnamese or Czech sneakers. Sports pants like harem pants and a shirt. Always covered in abrasions, bruises and scratches. In winter, skates - from snowmen - to knives, skis, sleds, hockey.
There was no time for lessons. An hour at most - and then somehow, you need to quickly run into the yard and kick the ball.
There are plenty of circles in the House of Pioneers. In the summer - yes, a pioneer camp, with hikes and a river and a forest and amateur activities - the same games and competitions. Is not boring.
That's right, there were practically no fat people. Thin and agile. And they almost didn’t swear (until a certain age). And there’s nothing to say about girls. They didn't smoke on such a large scale. And we’ve never even heard of pedophiles and drugs. You're flying home, there's a note at the door - "The key is under the mat"))))

lexyara :
But I’ll draw a note. A little bit. (63-76 years of the last century)
I was born and lived in the city of Krasnoyarsk. My father was a pilot and often flew to our capital. From there he brought all sorts of goodies. There were no goodies in Krasnoyarsk (or rather, there were some, but they were kind of “clumsy.”)
By “clumsy” it is meant that... Everyone wanted unsalted butter, and the stores were full of salted butter. There were no bananas or oranges. There were no batteries for the flashlight either (junk dealers came and exchanged scraps for batteries, caps and other nonsense).
The bread and rolls at the Bread store were always fresh. Vegetables, pasta (long ones, like a modern ballpoint pen), sugar, salt, matches, soap, etc. were always in stores. Even if rumors were spreading - “Tomorrow there is war, there will be no salt.” She was.
Of course, there was no shortage to buy. This is toilet paper (important), glazed cheese curds, a cake like "Bird's Milk", candies "Bear in the North" or "Squirrel". Dad brought this from Moscow. There was always ice cream. “Leningradskoe” appeared quite rarely (once or twice a week, everyone knew in advance when they would bring it). Cereals - there was a lot of that. It's a problem with sausages and frankfurters. But sometimes it was not lying on the floor. I wasn’t familiar with alcohol at that time, so I won’t say anything. Cigarettes were always on sale (although I didn’t smoke, I remember).
The clothes somehow didn’t interest me. I didn’t iron my pioneer tie every day. There was no uniform at school.
That's what was interesting. You could walk the streets at any time. Without the fear that they will stop you and shake out all the change from your pockets. If some incident happened in the area, then people talked about this incident for months. Children could go to all sorts of “circles”, “studios”, etc. For free. I went to the “aircraft modeling circle”. As a matter of fact, Gazprom has never dreamed of financing such a circle to this day (the toad will strangle).
And there were machines there, and they provided us with materials (the pleasure is expensive), and they took us to various competitions.
In the summer it was possible (again for free) to go to a pioneer camp. They fed "for slaughter". I didn’t observe any “hazing” there.
About everyday life. In the evenings, the neighbors gathered in the yard and played dominoes, lotto... and just chatted in a friendly manner. Our neighbors (who had children) gave us theatrical performances (with our participation). There was a puppet show, slide shows on sheets, etc.
Yes. Not everyone had a car (some of them did, of course).
WITH material point the view (sausage, delicacies, clothes, cars, roads) was all quite deplorable. I don't deny this. But there were also many advantages.

General impressions and thoughts

alexandr_sam :
1965 USSR. Mom is a railway worker, dad is an electrician in a mine, then due to health reasons he left as a refrigeration unit operator. Salary for the whole family is 200 rubles. I am 7 years old, my sister is 5. No one has ever given us any apartments. All their lives they lived in their hut and also built something like a house, if you could call it that - amenities in the yard.
I bought the refrigerator when I was already married in the mid-80s. We only dreamed about smoked sausage as children. There was never enough money. They bought us ice cream once or twice a year. They kept their own chickens - eggs, meat. They planted potatoes, corn, and seeds in the garden (outside the city). Oil (unrefined) was obtained from the seeds.
Television appeared in the late 60s. It was called "Zarya". Black and white. The screen size is the same as the iPad now. ;-)
I don't even want to remember. I dreamed of a Penza bike. True, they still bought a used "Eaglet". I used it to go to State Farm to plow in the summer. He carried water and watered the cucumbers. They paid about 40 rubles a month. I bought myself a watch. And the stupid teacher forbade them to be worn to school. Unacceptable luxury, they say.
Only employees of the city committee, the city executive committee, and all the trade and audit scum lived and lived in our city. Until 1974, beggars constantly walked our streets. Their mother usually gave them a piece of bread and a couple of eggs. And there was nothing more to give. There was food in stores until 1977, but there wasn’t enough money. And by the end of the 70s, everything began to disappear for us. We carried sausage and butter from Ukraine, fortunately it was nearby.
They stole everything. It was possible to steal from the state - no one condemned it. The land of nonsense.
Then the army. Hazing, lies about Afghanistan, the CPSU, political studies, drills and stupidity.
Finally, Perestroika and glasnost. Glory to Gorbachev! He delivered us from that shameful and gray life.
I felt free only in the late 80s - early 90s. It was difficult, I don’t argue, but it was better than with advice.
Now Russia lives as it has never lived before. Putin is a chance for Russia. At the same time, I ask my future critics to note that I have never held government positions and have nothing to do with oil and gas. He didn’t steal a single budget ruble and never had anything to do with budget money either.
That's it in a nutshell. I lived 55 years and I know what I'm talking about. I've seen a lot on my life's journey. And I laugh at thirty-year-old idiots who praise Soviet power and the Soviet Union. You wouldn't even live there for a week. They would burst out of there like eagles!
I don't need this USSR. God forbid my children from such an artificial and deceitful country.
***
Everything was mixed up with lies and hypocrisy. Still hiccups. Do you think today's corruption is the invention of Yeltsin and Putin? Horseradish! Its foundation was laid by Lenin and Stalin. Just dig deeper, gentlemen, and don’t point at the kings. There was little left of them after October 1917...

mariyavs :
I won't be original. Those of my grandmothers who did not have problems with food and clothes due to the positions they and their grandfathers held, have only joyful memories. Sanatoriums with trade union vouchers, free travel to and from vacation destinations, children's vouchers to camps, order tables, officer's department stores... And who was "simpler" - shortages, queues, give - take (whether you need it or not, you'll figure it out later) , "sausage tours" in Moscow time. But, of course, there were some good things. Children's leisure was organized and accessible to the majority; there was an atmosphere of friendship and trust in one's neighbors. Of course, there were plenty of nasty things back then too. But the children were allowed into the courtyards alone and were not afraid.

psy_park :
There was a lot of bad and a lot of good - as, indeed, always and everywhere in the world. But about the bread - it was much better than the current one. There were no leavening agents, flavorings, taste improvers, etc. back then. I especially miss wholemeal rye for 16 kopecks - there is no such thing in Moscow now. And, of course, hearth white - 28 kopecks each. and gray - 20 kopecks each. They don't exist now either, unfortunately.
Yes, in bakeries there were special large two-pronged forks or spoons tied or simply lying around to check the “softness” of the bread, and many poked and crushed the bread with them. Although the bread was almost always from the same machine and all the same, but since the fork was there, many people used it. True, these were mostly old women. In our bakery, in the next department - in the "grocery", you could not only buy sweets, gingerbread cookies, but also drink a glass of tea or coffee (black or with milk) near the standing table. Tea with sugar - 3 kopecks. Coffee - 10-15 kopecks. The taste is not great, of course, but quite tolerable. And if you also buy a bun - from 10 to 15 kopecks - then you could easily have a snack. It’s banal, but now there’s no such thing, which is a pity. All this is Moscow. In Leningrad it’s about the same. And in other places the food supply was not so good, unfortunately. Although, no one has ever gone hungry. Naturally, in the period from the late 50s - early 60s. until 89-91. Yes, I can’t resist - and the ice cream was not made with palm oil.

raseyskiy :
In Soviet times, there were no chocolates in stores; people had to line up for dairy products at 6 am (Moscow doesn’t count). There was no meat in the stores, and there was no sausage either. There was a term for “throwing out” a shortage on sale, well, for example, instant coffee - there was a queue of hundreds of people, although there were people queuing for coffee in Moscow.
***
... a number of cities were supplied relatively well, while in others even sprat in tomato was a rarity. ...70s and 80s. In those years, for the most part, everyone and everything was bought in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Minsk... i.e. on vacation, business trip, etc.

tintarula :
I spent my childhood in a private house on the working-class outskirts of Vladivostok, and, like any childhood, it was full of sledding, tinkering in the garden, vegetables and berries “from the bush,” games, friendship and betrayal - in general, everything is normal. There were few books in the house, but children's magazines were subscribed to me, the school library, and the neighbors had a TV. Then there was almost no deficit, there was a small amount of money.
More or less conscious age is the end of the 60s, and then the 70s. I studied this and that, worked. In general, “what they don’t know, they don’t feel.” I was generally satisfied with everything. Well, yes, the sausage began to disappear (dry - almost completely, but Vlad is a sea city, there was a lot of fish (it never ran out, so even during the “Gaidar famine” we did not starve, and the stories of friends from Russian centers are strange to me, how it was difficult to get food).In 1974 or 1975, I think, they brought Mona Lisa to Moscow, and we (three friends) went to see it - in a common carriage back and forth. We wandered around Moscow for about a month, went to theaters, stopped by to Leningrad and Luga (where they knew each other, including acquaintances of acquaintances - they had to live somewhere).
The shortage of books was a big hindrance, but my friend’s sister worked at the Research Institute of Marine Biology, and the people there were advanced, the Strugatskys got them in manuscripts, and my friend and sister copied them by hand. And I rewrote The Master and Margarita. That is, we were “in the know.”
And yet it was youth, and therefore good. And in general, in my opinion, “good” and “bad” are personal, private feelings that are not too dependent on the circumstances of life. “The wild 90s” weren’t wild for me either; they arose in the 90s role-playing games- and in the same way we went to Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk (to Khabar - in a common carriage), and it was good.
Yes, it’s good now.

ular76 :
I come from two specifically counter-revolutionary families.
therefore, I have no complaints against the Soviet government.
childhood was happy and carefree.
I experienced no restrictions in education, sports, food, recreation and happy pastime.
for which I have deep gratitude to all the Soviet people.
no illusions to the liberal-thieves domestic policy I do not suffer in modern Russia, but calmly observe the natural course of changes and transformations.

Discussions

belara83 :
50% of some kind of nonsense was written, queues have been a phenomenon since 1989, before then there were 5-10 people there, they sat down to something like that. No one was starving, Everyone had work, but there was no luxury, there was a shortage of imported things, but now people have problems with a lot of choice.. I lived in the village, my mother bought us ice cream in boxes for our children.. Bread was always available and cost 16 kopecks , and the white one is 20 kopecks!!! Sausage 2.2 r kg, 2.8 kg - this is boiled meat.
But people lived more calmly, they understood that there is a tomorrow, today everyone is in nervous tension, they don’t know what will happen to them tomorrow. Nothing happened to us without imported clothes and everything else, there was no need to destroy the whole country, something could have been changed and a lot left, no, “to the ground and then” as a result, ordinary people suffered....

Over the seven decades of its existence, the USSR experienced a lot of hard times, but there were times in the history of the Soviet Union that the citizens of the USSR remembered as happy.

Brezhnev stagnation

Despite the negative name of the era, people remember this time with kind nostalgia. The dawn of stagnation came in the 1970s. It was a time of stability - there were no serious shocks. The stagnation coincided with the improvement of relations between the USA and the USSR - a threat nuclear war faded into the background. This period is also associated with the establishment of relative economic prosperity, which affected the well-being of Soviet citizens. In 1980, the USSR came out on top in Europe and second in the world in terms of industrial production volumes and Agriculture. Besides, Soviet Union became the only self-sufficient country in the world that could develop solely thanks to its own natural resources.

It was at the end of the 1960s - the beginning of the 1980s that the peak of the Soviet Union's achievements in science, space, education, culture and sports occurred. But the main thing was that for the first time in the history of the USSR, people felt that the state was taking care of them.
The apogee of the era was the Moscow Olympic Games, which took place in 1980, and its symbol (and bad omen) was the Olympic Bear flying away in balloons at the closing ceremony of the Olympics.

Thaw

The forerunner of this era was the death of Stalin in March 1953. The USSR government closed several fabricated cases and thereby stopped a new wave of repression. However, the true beginning of the “thaw” can be considered the speech of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, in which he debunked the cult of Stalin. After this, the country breathed more freely, and a period of relative democracy began, in which citizens were not afraid to go to prison for telling a political joke. This period saw a rise in Soviet culture, from which ideological shackles were removed. It was during the “Khrushchev Thaw” that the talents of poets Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, writers Viktor Astafiev and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, theater directors Oleg Efremov and Galina Volchek, film directors Eldar Ryazanov, Marlen Khutsiev, Leonid Gaidai were revealed.

Publicity

Nowadays it is customary to criticize Mikhail Gorbachev, but the period 1989 to 1991 can be called a standard in terms of democracy. Probably not a single country, even the most liberal, had such a level of freedom of speech as the Soviet Union did in its last years their existence - the leaders of the USSR were criticized both from high stands and at rallies of millions. During the era of glasnost, the Soviet person was literally bombarded with such a volume of revelations about the history of the country in which he lives, which in a matter of months devalued the cult of the October Revolution, Lenin, the Communist Party, Brezhnev and other leaders of the USSR. People felt that turning times were coming and looked at the future with enthusiasm. Alas, times have come even more difficult.

On the eve of Stalin's terror

“Life has become better, comrades. Life has become more fun. And when life is fun, work goes smoothly...” These words were spoken by Joseph Stalin in 1935 at the First All-Union Meeting of Workers and Workers - Stakhanovites. Later, Stalin was accused of cynicism, but there was some truth in the statement of the leader, whose cult was then just beginning to take shape. After the industrialization carried out in the USSR by the mid-1930s, the standard of living of citizens improved noticeably: wages increased, the food rationing system was abolished, and the range of goods in stores noticeably increased. The cheerful mood was supported by Soviet cinema: for example, the comedy “Jolly Fellows” with Leonid Utesov was filmed in the best traditions of Hollywood. However, the “fun life” ended in 1937, with the beginning of mass repressions.

Wave of enthusiasm after the Civil War

After graduation Civil War and the restoration of the country, Soviet Russia was swept by a wave of enthusiasm. The Bolsheviks declared that they were open to all advanced ideas: from psychoanalysis to industrial design. It was during this period that the dawn of the Soviet avant-garde in art, architecture and theater occurred. Rumors reached Europe and America that the Bolsheviks were not so bloodthirsty, and most importantly, very advanced. Emigrants began to return to the country, as well as creative people and scientists from all over the world to realize their ideas. For them, the USSR became a real creative incubator, an experimental laboratory.
True, not every idea was supported by the Bolsheviks: for example, in Soviet Russia representatives of the most radical trends in psychoanalysis found support, and at the same time the entire world of Russian philosophy was forcibly expelled from the country. The most unlucky thing at this time was the Orthodox Church, which was subjected to severe persecution and repression. True, the bulk of USSR citizens supported this campaign against religion. “Everything old had to die to open up the dear new.”

"Internal emigration" in the late 1960s

In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee thanks to an organized conspiracy of his “party comrades.” With his removal, the “thaw” ended. Many were waiting for the restoration of Stalinism, but it never happened. Although it was now impossible to talk about Stalin’s mass repressions publicly. During this period, when all social informal life froze, a new movement arose, which over time embraced millions of people - the “hiker movement.” Instead of relaxing at the Black Sea resorts, Soviet intellectuals packed their backpacks and went on long hikes - to conquer mountain peaks, go down into caves, and explore unknown places in the taiga. It was probably the most romantic time in the history of the USSR. Geologist has become a “cult” profession, and mountaineering has become a “cult” sport. In just a few years, the USSR became the most a large number of people with a qualification in sports tourism. IN major cities There was practically no family that did not have a tent, kayak and camping pot. Thus, the Soviet intelligentsia found, in “singing with a guitar around a fire in the wilderness,” its ecological niche, where there was no pressure from the countless and long-lost meaning of communist slogans hung on almost all buildings of the Soviet Union.

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. Was free education, 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 rest homes and sanatoriums, and their children - vouchers to summer camps recreation. 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.

One could list for a long time the positive and negative aspects of 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.