What Life in the Soviet Union Was Like

Here's the standard high school history class summary of the Soviet Union: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a communist state from 1922 to 1991 and was a big rival of the US from WWII to the end of the '80s. But what was the Soviet Union really like? What was it like living in the Soviet Union? That same history class probably told you that it was awful, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

#USSR #SovietUnion #WeirdHistory

[jarrodtedder]

I had a history teacher who grew up in the Soviet union, she was mid to late 20s when it fell. She talked about all the issues and problems growing up in it and this one girl flat out called her liar and said the soviet union was the most prosperous and crime free society in exsistance

[karlvonbahnhof]

I grew up in communistic Czechoslovakia, I guess it wasn't that bad as in Russia or Poland, we never suffered with lack of food, but variety was poor, Bananas were available only on Christmas, oranges were not orange but green (from Cuba), Kiwi I've seen first time after revolution, for me as a kid, was no problem to buy alcohol and cigarettes for my parents, learning Russian language was obligatory, we had to choose a friend from Soviet Union, to write letters to each other, my letter friend from was from today's Kazakhstan, it was quite interesting, he described his ordinary life, I described mine, later, we could choose other language, but English was not available in my school, TV had 2 channels, everyone, completely everyone watched the same movies and TV series, colour TV we bought in 1988, 20 inch, the price was like 3 monthly wages of my father, and he earned well above average, because he was working with dangerous chemicals, listening to foreign radio was illegal, we did it anyway, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America(it was broadcasted on AM frequency in Czech language, but sometimes it was so heavily disturbed, you couldn't hear, what they say, we knew, our communism was one big lie, but my parents made it clear to me, I shouldn't talk about it in school, for landline people waited up to 10 years, same for car, the planned economy didn't work well, there were times, you couldn't get some essential stuff, like toilet paper, for months, so people used newspapers, wiping their @sses with communist propaganda, literally, to get other things, like spare parts for bicycle, was extremely hard, not going to work could get you to jail, so everyone had job and many people did nothing there, corruption was everywhere, the motto of ordinary people was "Who doesn't steal from state, steals from his family", holiday we spent in Eastern Germany, Poland (in these countries our family had good friends), Bulgaria, Hungary, but going to Yugoslavia, for our family, was impossible, for this, you needed permission, and my parents were not in Communist party, western music wasn't much played on radios, owning a LP with Depeche Mode and Alphaville was for me like winning lottery in that time 🥳

[alexcorona]

I have several soviet cameras from the 1950s and they're built so well and still work flawlessly 70 years later...

[mikethespike]

In 1973 visiting Prague me and a couple of my friends decided to buy Crimean Champagne. The Czech shops didn't sell the stuff, but we were finally pointed to a huge modern looking building in the middle of the city where we were told we can buy Crimean Champagne. What we were not told, it was a shop exclusively for the top Soviet brass in the city.
We knocked on door and a sort of uniformed waiter opened to us. After a lot of explaining in a mixture of Russian, English, Czech and German we were finally allowed in. Inside, the place didn't look like a shop, more like a sort of club with thick red carpets, amazingly elaborate crystal chandeliers and full of exquisite furnishings.
While we were waiting women wearing fancy evening dress (this was the middle of the day), a lot of jewellery and holding glasses of wine kept appearing and passing by us and there was music, conversation and laughter coming from some nearby room. At last the waiter returned with two boxes, each with 6 bottles of Champagne, and a bill. I can't remember how much we paid, but it was well within our means.
I have always wondered what the place really was, clearly something more than just a shop. A club? A high class Soviet brothel? Surely not!
Years later, working in the Soviet Union as an engineer for Siemens none of the people living there believed me, they were all certain that I'd had the wrong impression.

[whatisheartscontbe]

Not just cars were made to last but other machines as well. My grandmother has a Soviet-era fridge from 1976. It still works fine. We call it jokingly "the tractor". 😄

[maryaltshuller]

My late husband grew up in the USSR. He told me that most Soviet citizens were incredibly poor and that operating an independent business could land you in jail. Both of his parents (with PhDs) ran an illicit business out of their apartment. They prepped students for their college entrance exams. Of course, everyone had to be careful not to get caught.

He also told me that by the time he reached secondary school (what we in the U. S. call high school), he had on average five to six hours of homework every night. Students had to attend school six days a week. All work turned in had to be perfect.

[fieryapple]

My mother tells me a lot of stories about her Soviet life and upbringing. It wasn't perfect for sure, many things people needed were in deficit and really expensive for an average person, but there were a lot of good things. Kids could do any education they wanted for free, when she wanted to learn how to swim, she just went to the pool and enlisted herself. The Soviet people were humble, very simple and hardworking.

[joermnyc]

The use of x-rays for bootleg records was also because you could roll them up and hide them up your sleeve.

[PrairieWolff]

4:24 is a Volga car. My father had one, and it was a tank!
Here's a joke from that era:
A young newlywed couple, the man works in the baby stroller factory that produces them for export.
They're expecting a baby, but cannot afford the stroller, so the woman tells her husband to bring home small parts, and put it together when all the parts are there.
He does that, and says, Honey, no matter how I put these parts together, all I get is a tank!

[katrinat]

There were difficulties, I was a child but remember. You forgot to tell that the government provided apartments almost for all the citizens of he country, there were not homeless people at all. And after 1991 all the people were allowed to turn these apartment into private ones.

[andyginterblues]

I remember a story that I heard long ago about a visit that Nikita Khruschev made to Washington D.C. in the 1960's. He was invited to a state dinner at the White House where potato chips were served. He sampled a few, and then described them as "thin wafers of perfection". Apparently, potato chips were an unknown commodity in the U.S.S.R. until Khruschev returned from his trip to the U.S.

[kesvir]

There is a very powerful Soviet-era rock band called “Kino” that I would like to see a video made about. I don’t believe that it gets enough credit for its contributions. Some of you have probably even heard of them without realizing it thanks to GTA: IV in the form of their song “Gruppa Krovi” on Vladivostok Radio.

Definitely look into this band. It would be excellent if we could have a video dedicated to Kino and its singer who died tragically before his time, Viktor Tsoi.

[SuperDrewH]

With the car portion you forgot to mention getting one could take a decade, if you were important enough to own one. And one of the reasons they lasted so long was they were not driven tons of miles as fuel could be hard to get.

[lemonacidrounds]

I've waited on a queue for food from 4 am to 11 am. Just imagine the queue that was. All people have been given vauchers and they were arranged on a paper like small squares for cutting with a scissors. Monday, you cut for Monday and the Monday vaucher says: Today your family gets 1 bread, 4 eggs, 1 small bag of rice, 2 bottles of cooking oil, 1 sausage and 2 bananas. Tomorrow is something a bit different, Wednesday vaucher had 1 whole chicken, 1kg potatoes... I forgot what it was cause that was 35 years ago. My parents and grandparents said it was even worse during the 60's and 70's. My country was one of the countries under communist regime.

[scottrobinson]

I am a live sound engineer. I have toured much of the world with various artists/bands.... I have been to former communist countries. Its interesting the stories people tell about how hard it was to get certain things.

I met a Russian sound engineer. He said in the days of the Soviet Union, they did have lots of nice sound equipment. But he said it was impossible to get things like casters (wheels for road cases). So he said when equipment was loaded into a venue, it had to be entirely carried into the building. Whereas the rest of the world pushed cases on wheels... It was a seemingly insignificant thing, but made working with arena and stadium sized sound systems very difficult, and would require twice the labor to get a job done.

He said if you figure across other industries, restaurants, hotels, factories, hospitals, warehouses, etc...just think of all the equipment that on casters in all those industries, and how hard they were to get... Just think of how many heavy things had to be lifted and carried instead of rolled or pushed.

You could take that one example and expand it across many many things... And thats what life was like in Russia. His point was that no matter what you did, you may have 99% of what you needed, and it may have been excellent stuff... but that 1% that you lacked, could jack your whole entire way of doing things.

[RhythmAddictedState]

Life in the USSR varied a lot according to when you were born, where you lived and how privileged your family was. The voucher thing happened in the 80's, early 90s, and during wartime. The 70s were ok when it came to getting goods (and no vouchers needed), but during the 30s and 40s there was a famine (because of collectivisation and war), and in the 80's there was a big lack of certain products because of how the economy started opening up and how the planned economy system simply didn't work. For the alcohol one, people made their own alcohol (samogon), so getting alcohol wasn't much of a problem during the dry periods. Also, things that were sold weren't actually made to last, they were simply made to exist. People just kept them for a VERY long time because 1. they didn't know when they could get a new item (because of the planned economy - goods were produced only when the government said so) 2. there weren't any companies, since it was a closed economy, which meant there was no competition, just one "brand" for each product, and no incentive to make products with better quality. 3. some products cost a fortune (especially cars!). People couldn't just buy a new car when it broke down (and most people couldn't afford to buy one in the first place!), so they just did everything they could to repair their car. There were no services that could do the repairing for you, so you had to do it yourself with the help of books/manuals/a friend. By the way, to buy a car, apart from money, you needed to get an authorization from the right government people. For other products, people did everything to fix them up, they even mended torn up stockings!

[grahamherbert]

My Father was a nuclear physicist. After his retirement, he was privately headhunted by a Russian agency, to oversee the safe removal of sensitive components and materials from several well known facilities. Although being in the mid 1990s, on his return, he reported his experiences as being like from a bizarre 1960s time warp. He was paid insanely well but refused several offers of return trips.

[mrttripz]

How about life in Saudi Arabia before oil? (Or life in the Arabian peninsula in general before oil)

[DaveWasHere]

Me and my parents were born in Ukraine, so that means all of my relatives lived through the USSR. I was born a few years after the collapse of the USSR. Even though many were poor, many great memories were made. The old soviet cartoons, the soviet apartment I lived in, the food, the KVAS, etc. These all contributed to my parents childhood and even mine. Life was very simple, yet surprisingly enjoyable.

[monty]

A man walks into a car dealership in Moscow, he buys himself a new car. The salesman says "great, it will be delivered to you 10 years from tomorrow" and the man asks "morning or afternoon?" "Why?" The salesman asks, "Because I have a morning appointment with the local electrician that day." 😆