5 Weird Things About Everyday Life in the Soviet Union

Discover the WEIRD side of life in the Soviet Union! From the bureaucratic nightmare of car ownership to the quirky world of air travel, militarized education, grocery shopping, and the unexpected prestige of being a taxi driver. Get ready to be amazed by 5 Unusual Things About Life in the Soviet Union!

[gungaldin]

A man was called to see his boss to be told he had been accepted to get a new car. He was to pick it up in 10 years' time. " Morning or afternoon?" he asked. Boss replied, "Why does that matter?"
"Well, I have a plumber booked for that morning."

[hughjass]

A friend who grew up in the USSR told me that used cars were in fact, more valuable than new ones since you didn't have to jump through any of the hoops to get one.

[ondrejkratochvil]

With the grocery shopping it reminds me of one of the Radio Yerevan jokes:
- I've heard there was meat in Moscow - will it be in other cities as well?
- Yes, it will be, it's a touring exhibition.

[Mobius]

I don't if it was one of your channels, but I heard the joke about the guy buying a car. He had to go through the bureaucracy for many years to get permission to buy it. Then they made him pay and wait for 10 years. So he asked when he had to pick up the car. In the morning or afternoon in 10 years? The salesperson asked what difference did it make?
He stated that the plumber was coming that day in the morning.

[timmy]

My moms uncle was the only family member who got stuck at the eastern side of the iron curtain. He didn't see or hear from his own sister (my grand-mom) for multiple decades, until the curtain's fall in 1991. Everyone in the family thought he had died, years prior. In 1991 he suddenly found out that his little-sister had a 31 year old daughter, and set daughter had a newborn child (me).

When I was 12 he joked about east German parents of a newborn baby ordering a car for their child, hoping it would arrive by the time their child turned 18.

[RalfSteffens]

As you mentioned that, I remember that as a West German teenager visiting our East German relatives. (Large family, visited at least once every year.)
Looking back, I experienced a lot of strange things that I didn't comment on at the time.

Strangely tough rolls, tough trips on bad roads on or in old-fashioned vehicles. Not to mention the service in department stores.
But the people were always friendly and helpful in private.

[jordanpeters]

A friend of mine who was a teenager in Latvia towards the end of the Soviet Era told me about the tactics the authorities employed with youngsters who tried to avoid military service ... groups of them would be taken on a guided tour of a mental hospital.

[JackDecker]

My father was a chair of a psychology department at an American university and once he sponsored three psychology professors from the USSR. This was in the late 70s. Just as he did whenever he hosted visiting professors, he took them for a tour of our college town. Part of this tour was of our local grocery store. It was a regional chain and we were very proud of it. That evening my father hosted a big backyard BBQ party for these honored guests with all his psychology professors and their wives attending as well as the university's other chairs, deans, and chancellor and their wives. Let us just say the booze flowed unimpeded. After sunset, the three Soviet professors cornered my father and whispered, "Where do you really buy your groceries?" You see the Soviet professors thought our local grocery store was a propaganda tool and not a real grocery store. My father assured them that was the only place he bought groceries. They loudly countered with, "Sure, you are the head of a university department BUT where do the professors under you shop?!" Everyone heard this and it got a huge laugh from all. The Soviet professors were confused and seemed a bit insulted. My dad challenged them, "Pick any direction you want. We will drive that way until we hit a town or city, and we will then go into the first grocery store there." The Soviet professors laughed and shouted, "The first?! The first?! Not the second, third or last?!" My dad smiled and said, "Any you wish." The lead Soviet professor said, "Challenge accepted! BUT we leave now! You cannot make any phone call that we are coming! Everyone must come so none can make a call after we leave!" [This was before cellphones existed.] Everyone cheered and the whole party stumbled into all the cars ... all the sober wives drove ... and off we all went. It was a blast. We got to the first major intersection downtown and the lead Soviet professor, my dad, his dean, and the chancellor walked right into the middle of it. The Soviet drank empty the booze in the bottle, spun it on the ground, and that was the direction we all drove. This was the first spontaneous road trip I ever took. Twelve miles or so later we entered a small town that had only one grocery store: a Piggly Wiggly. In we all went and the Soviet professors were stunned. Shelves all fully stocked. Meat department fully stocked. Liquor department fully stock. It even had a gal handing out free samples of a new pizza brand. All three Soviet professors were in shock. We then all the walked across the street and into a Pizza Hut for pizzas and beer. Sodas for us kids. The Soviet professors kept saying, "How is this possible?" My dad smiled and, over pizza, he explained capitalism to them. I was so in awe of my father. It is one of my most cherished memories.

[skorza]

My parents took a holiday to the USSR from the UK in the 1980 (my mam was a civil servant and had to be interrogated about her intentions before she was allowed to go, then debriefed on what happened when she got back). They were eating a communal dinner with all the westerners at their hotel and my dad accidentally ate 8 people’s worth of meat, it was such a small plate everyone assumed it was an individual serving and more would be coming……it didn’t.

One guy in their hotel had brought a load of cheap jeans, biro pens and plastic belts to sell, but there was no way to get the money out of the country (you brought your rubies at customs, every item you bought was recorded and if you had more rubies than you should have when trying to leave there’s be some serious questions asked) so he invited all the westerners to help him burn through the massive amount of roubles he had acquired on champaign, caviar, trips to the bolshoi ballet, anything that could be bought and consumed there and then really. Must have been a crazy experience.

[matthewa]

Simon is struggling not to do his Russian accent

[Neakal]

In answer to your question as to why Aeroflot (or any Soviet state monopoly companies) advertised, the way I understood in my Propaganda Studies class, it was essentially a way for Soviets to tell their citizens "hey, those products you see advertised in the West, we have them too." Essentially, keeping up a facade that looks comparable to the West to hide the deficiencies and differences between the systems.

[kenmay]

I drove a Lada for one day but it seemed to me that the steering wheel wasn't connected to the steering rack.

[jimtalbott]

There’s a lot of this and more I’ve learned from a channel called “Ushanka Show” - a man born in Kiev in 1974 named Sergi Soutnikov, now living in the US. Really in-depth stuff!

[juliaspoonie]

I was born in East Berlin and my family history is a bit complex. My dad (who was forced at gunpoint to fight in WW2 as a teen soldier) was a Chemistry foreign trade CEO. He and his first wife lived abroad, basically like an ambassador. They lived in Finland, Egypt, Austria and other countries. When his kids were adults his wife and the kids had to go back to Berlin, my dad stayed in Vienna and fell in love with his secretary - my mom.

She gave up her life in Austria and moved to East Berlin. He was allowed to divorce his first wife and marry my mom, yes the Gouvernement had to allow that. He was only allowed to leave the country alone, not with us (obviously we were always allowed to leave and went to visit family regularly -still have old plane tickets.)

Regarding the DDR planes, they weren’t that bad according to my dad. He mostly traveled by train or car if it was Sovjet territory or flew with foreign planes. But he flew a few times with the regular DDR planes. You can see the interior in some YouTube videos!

Because they were suspicious he could be spying for someone they actually gave us an apartment next to an elderly couple and THEY were spying on us for 6 years- until the Berlin wall fell. They were like grandparents to me, my mom was never able to trust anyone ever again. Still want to look at the Stasi papers they have from us, Vienna is just not near enough for a spontaneous trip.

The cool thing was that mom could bring ALL kinds of things with her, she was one of 3 people in the whole country who drove a fancy Citroen ;) Retrospectively it feels a bit like cheating. But the people in East Berlin were generally treated differently compared to the rest of the country.

Since I was only a child I can’t comment on certain things. Waiting in a line wasn’t too bad in my eyes especially if we went to the bakery. We didn’t have to wait hours for milk or other stuff tough. Yes we absolutely had the specialized stores (still do in Germany and Austria to a degree) but there wasn’t a real food shortage. More that very specific items were sold out early. Bread and other basics were never an issue. There were shops where you could pay with West-Mark and other foreign currencies and get overpriced West goods. Music/vinyl records were especially popular.

I loved our house community, the inner courtyard and the freedom to roam around the house. Although we had enough other sweets I looooved that you got a cherry lolly in the pharmacy - the taste is unmatched. Some foods were unique (even if some were copy-cats) and my mom had many DDR recipe magazines.

My dad was not a 100% a communist, more a socialist but he believed until the last day that the flawed system could work. His world was shattered after the wall fell, when all the corruption came out and the bad planning. He felt sooo betrayed. His family went through enough during WW2, they were refugees in Silesia and lost everything they had. He and many of his age wanted to never let a war happen again. They were the perfect people to manipulate. He was really smart, had an education as an engineer/mechanic, worked as a teacher, studied Chemistry and foreign trade economics. His heart was in the right place.

What surprised me is that my parents officially earned a loooot of money. Much more than I had thought it was possible under a communist government. Sadly both of my parents are long gone but I found lots of income papers of the partly state-owned company. I still wonder what they did with the money and if my dad was involved as a spy. I know they helped their community a lot but they didn’t import much -mainly my diapers and milk powder and their cigarettes were from Austria. I still have most of the entry documents too.

One of the things I cherish is the Order of Merit my dad got from the Egypt Government in the 60s and the small artifacts he took with him.

[Steve-GMHUU]

Car insurance premium refunded at end of year if you don't claim. Can you imagine Western insurance companies adopting this practice? No chance - our reward for no claims is they keep the premium and then hike it up the next year.

[anthonyfamularo]

In around 1990 or so, I had a relative who visited my family in Canada from Ukraine. His first day, I took him to a mall in downtown Toronto, and in addition to his wonder at the whole scene, he was very surprised to learn that we didn't need to show ID in order to *enter a store*. On the other side of the equation, he was also very surprised to learn that I had no idea how to fix a gas lawn mower.

[igorudovychenko]

Speaking of Aeroflot:
1. The lion's share of its huge staff & fleet (primarily AN-2 biplanes) serviced local lines to small towns and even big villages. Due to poor road infrastructure this oftentimes was the only mean of transportation there, especially in Northern regions & Siberia. AN-2 requires only a small relatively flat lawn to land & take off.
2. 'Aeroflot chicken' used to be a meme denoting some inedible stuff.
3. The Soviet Union expectedly had strong paranoia concerning military things. This might be the reason of banning photo on board of civil planes because (surprise-surprise!) same constructor bureaus (Tupolev, Antonov etc.) produced military planes which utilized same concepts (like 'civil' AN-24 and its 'military' version AN-26, TU-114 airliner & TU-95 strategic bomber, ...)

[matejkovalcik]

To understand how it looked like in the USSR - My mom worked in the Central Bank in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia during comunism. Once they had a delegation from Moscow coming for visit somewhere around 1980. After work, she and her coleagues took those rusians to a "shoping center" nearby. Those people droped their jaws, saying that we have america here. You could actualy decide which piece of pork or cow you wanted, got a decent collection of sausages, and so on. As it was shitty comunism by us as well, this makes you wonder how miserable it had to be in the USSR.

[lexprontera]

My guess is that the advertising wasn't to get people to pick the airline, but to get people to choose to fly... or even just to remind them their country had air travel.

[reinikons]

Adding to the taxi part of the video, a similar story can be said about bus drivers. Practically all the money made from fares was pocketed directly by the bus driver, recieving a ticket after paying for the bus was actually rare and still did happen in my country well in to the 2000's