Childhood memories of the USSR
kotichok :
my grandmother told me a lot about the 30s, 40s and 50s
the story especially stuck in my memory, how in 1939, when Soviet power came, half the village ran to see how the Soviets drank vodka with granchaks
Grandmother said that earlier they could play a wedding with a bottle of vodka - and everyone had fun
* * *
my father built the Moscow, Kharkov and Kyiv subways
he worked a lot, he seemed to earn money, but he didn’t have cronyism
everything had to be delivered
I remember when tangerines, bananas and "Evening Kyiv" sweets were "gotten", my parents watched so that I didn't eat everything at once and didn't get covered with diathesis)))

topof , "Eaglet 1988 stew Chinese wall":
Among 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 dry Chinese stew on a hike in the All-Russian camp Great Wall... I realized that the USSR would soon be gone00)) ... at that time, ours still knew how to make normal stew ...
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 was gone))))

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 lunchtime. Where the stale one came from among the loaves - I still don’t understand.
Ice cream ice cream in chocolate was rarely brought in and only in milk (a special store with dairy products, in other grocery stores milk was rarely imported and stale).
In all stores there was a smell of bleach and rot (even in the central ones).
Children stood in public transport if there was someone adult (from 4-5 years old).
Few fat people, out of children, in general, one or two for the whole school (in those schools that I know, there were then up to 1000 students).
For a cigarette, they could be pulled by the ears and taken to their parents. The police 150% did this.
Subbotniks 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 the children.

tol39 (born 1975):
You could buy bread from us before lunch, after lunch you could fly over, because bread was usually sorted out during the lunch break, which was from one to two at enterprises, and from two to three in stores. We had four varieties 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 common, still weighed, very tasty, in such shells. And the products of our local dairy - in paper cups and with ice crystals. There was a specific smell in the shops, only it was not rotten, the barrels that were always in the back rooms smelled like that.
***
Well, firstly, it was childhood, and it was good, I was born in 1975. Until 87-88, everything was generally wonderful, and then the word "deficit" appeared. In fact, it was before, but it belonged to the category of things not very significant in Everyday life. There was a sense of imminent change, exhilarating, like when you roll down on a trampoline to take off, but the takeoff did not happen. All the way crashed into the dirty mess of the nineties. Black t-shirts, chains, nunchucks, Royal alcohol and all that. How I survived, who the hell knows.

true_frog (born 1952):
My year of birth is 1952. So, all my conscious life fell on the USSR.
Childhood. All the most interesting was on the street and in the yard. It was impossible to drive children into the apartment. In the evening, windows and vents were opened: mothers called the children from the yard. We played calm and active games, tennis, volleyball. On rainy days they played outside. 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 accepted to ride the bus. Fat children - "zhirtresty" - were a rarity and despised by all.
Starting from the first grade, schoolchildren first did a little cleaning in the classroom, and then they themselves washed the floors in the classrooms.
They collected either scrap metal, or empty bottles, or waste paper. It was not scary to send children to unfamiliar apartments.
There were a lot of different circles. Only at the music school education was paid, all the rest (sports and art) were completely free. A huge House of Pioneers, where you could do anything for free - even ballet, even boxing. Each child could try himself in any occupation.
Even preschool children were sent to pioneer camps. They lived there in one-story dachas, half for boys, half for girls. Toilet with a hole in the floor on the street, only cold water in the washstands, also on the street. In the morning, a mandatory general exercise. 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 under the rug" - it 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 wand 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 not closed all night. When we moved to a new apartment, at night the door was closed with a washing machine until the lock was inserted.
***
From youth. In the first two years of university - cleaning. We are a little surprised why the collective farmers bend their backs in their gardens while we throw grain on the current, but in general we have a great time: we learn to heat the stove, cook our own food on it, ride horses, drive a motorcycle, arrange concerts.
In the 70s, a brass band was still found at dances, which had not yet been replaced by electric music.
Girls and girls are supposed to walk with their hair tied up. "Ponytail" is cool. And loose hair - well, this is only in foreign films.
Dressed, of course, gray. I went to the first harvest in a quilted jacket, because jackets were rare, I sewed my first jacket in the atelier. It was strange to watch bright clothes in a movie Soviet heroes movies: never dressed like that in life. I remember being amazed by the bright red jacket of the professor's daughter from The Gentlemen of Fortune.
It was possible to dress not like everyone else only in the atelier, but it was not easy to get there: there was also a queue. Good, but worn things could be bought in thrift stores.
Well, I will contribute to the discussion of the food program. In the 60s we lived first on Far East. There were no problems with the products. In 1963 they lived in Tuva for a year. That's where the line for milk occupied from the night. In 1964 we moved to Tyumen and saw a food paradise. Banks of condensed milk decorated the counters, they bought 200 grams of sausage, fresh, all kinds of compotes in jars in bulk. I don't remember when it all disappeared.

razumovsky4 , "The key is under the mat....":
All 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 is football. From morning to evening. At the little gate.
And more girls in "classic" and "shtander." And so on until dark. And it got dark - so some other thread of the game with running around with flashlights with Chinese or German daimons. On the feet are either Chinese, Vietnamese or Czech sneakers. Sports panties such as harem pants and a shirt. Forever in abrasions, bruises and scratches. In winter, skates - from snowmen - to knives, skis, sleds, hockey.
There was no time for lessons. A maximum of an hour - and then somehow, quickly, you need to run into the yard, drive the ball.
Circles - full in the House of Pioneers. In the summer - yes, a pioneer camp, with hikes and a river and a forest and amateur performances - the same games and competitions. Is not boring.
That's right, there were practically no fat people. Skinny and mobile. And they almost didn’t swear (up to a certain age) And there’s nothing to say about the girls. Don't smoke that much. And about pedophiles and drugs - they have not heard at all. You fly home, there is a note in the door - "The key is under the rug"))))

lexyara :
But I'll draw. A little. (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 (more precisely, they were, but some "clumsy".)
By "clumsiness" it is meant that ... Everyone wanted butter that was not salty, and the shops were packed with salty. There were no bananas or oranges. There were no batteries for the flashlight either (junk workers came and changed the junk for batteries, caps and other nonsense).
Bread and buns in the "Bread" store were always fresh. Vegetables, pasta (long ones like a modern ballpoint pen), sugar, salt, matches, soap, etc. have always been in stores. Even if the rumors were crawling - "Tomorrow - the war, there will be no salt." She was.
Deficit of course was not to buy. These are toilet paper (important), glazed curds, a cake like "Bird's Milk", sweets "Bear in the North" or "Squirrel". This dad brought from Moscow. Ice cream has always been there. "Leningradskoye" appeared quite rarely (once or twice a week, everyone knew in advance when they would bring it). Cereals - this was a blockage. That's the trouble with sausages and sausages. But sometimes it was not lying on the floor. I was not familiar with alcohol in those days, so I will not say anything. Cigarettes were always on sale (although I did not smoke, but I remember).
Shmotye somehow did not interest me. I did not iron a pioneer tie every day. There was no uniform at school.
Here's what was interesting. The streets could be walked at any time. Without fear that they will stop you and shake out all the little things from your pockets. If there was some kind of incident in the area, then they would gossip about this case for months. Children could go to all sorts of "circles", "studios", etc. Is free. I went to the "circle of aircraft modeling". Ely-paly, Gazprom has not dreamed of financing such a circle to this day (the toad will suffocate).
And the machines were there, and they provided the material (pleasure is expensive), and they took us to various competitions.
In the summer it was possible (again free of charge) to go to a pioneer camp. Fed "for slaughter". I did not observe any "hazing" there.
About life. In the evenings, the neighbors would gather in the yard and play dominoes, bingo... well, and just chat in a friendly way. Neighbors (who had children) staged theater performances for us (with our participation). A puppet theater was organized, slide shows on a sheet, etc.
Yes. There were no cars for everyone (someone had, of course).
FROM material point the view (sausage, delicacies, clothes, cars, roads) was all rather unfortunate. I don't deny it. But there were also many positives.

General impressions and reasoning

alexandr_sam :
1965 USSR. Mom is a railway worker, dad is an electrician in a mine, then, for health reasons, left as a refrigeration engineer. Salary for the whole family 200 r. 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 it could be called that - conveniences in the yard.
I bought a refrigerator when I was already married in the mid-80s. We only dreamed about smoked sausage in childhood. There was never enough money. Ice cream was bought to us once or twice a year. They kept their chickens - eggs, meat. Planted in the garden (outside the city) potatoes, corn, seeds. Oil (unrefined) was obtained from the seeds.
TV appeared in the late 60s. "Dawn" was called. Black and white. The screen size is the same as the current iPad. ;-)
I don't even want to remember. Dreamed of the great "Penza". True, the used "Eaglet" was still bought. I went on it in the summer to plow at the State Farm. Carried water and watered cucumbers. They paid about 40 rubles a month. I bought myself a watch. And the stupid teacher forbade them to be worn to school. Unaffordable luxury.
Lived and fattened in our city only employees of the city committee, city executive committee, and all the trade and audit vermin. Until 1974, beggars constantly walked along the streets. Mother usually gave them a piece of bread and a couple of eggs. And there was nothing more to give. Until 1977, there was grub in stores, but there was not enough money. And by the end of the 70s, everything began to disappear in our country. They dragged sausage and butter from Ukraine, since it was nearby.
They stole everything. It was possible to steal from the state - no one condemned. The country of nesuns.
Then the army. Hazing, lies about Afghanistan, the CPSU, political studies, drill 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’s better that way than with advice.
Now Russia lives in a way that 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 public office and have nothing to do with oil and gas. He didn’t steal a single ruble from the budget and never had anything to do with budget money either.
That's it in a nutshell. I've lived 55 years and I know what I'm talking about. I've seen a lot on my life path. And I laugh at thirty-year-old idiots who praise the Soviet government and the Soviet Union. You wouldn't even live a week there. They would burst from there like elk!
I do not need this USSR. God forbid my children from such an artificial and deceitful country.
***
It was all about lies and hypocrisy. It still hiccups. Do you think today's corruption is an invention of Yeltsin and Putin? Horseradish! Its foundation was laid by Lenin and Stalin. Just dig deeper, gentlemen, and do not nod at the kings. There was little left of them after October 1917...

mariyavs :
I won't be original. Those of my grandmothers who had no problems with food and clothes due to the positions they and their grandfathers held, have only joyful memories. Sanatoriums on trade union vouchers, free travel to and from the place of vacation, children's vouchers to camps, order desks, officer department stores ... And who was "easier" - shortages, queues, give - take it (whether you need it or not, you'll figure it out later) , "sausage tours" in Msk. But, of course, there were some good things too. Children's leisure was organized and accessible to most, an atmosphere of friendship and trust in a neighbor. All sorts of reptiles were enough, of course, even then. But the children were allowed into the yards alone and were not afraid.

psy_park :
There was a lot of bad and a lot of good - as, however, always and everywhere in the world. But about the bread - it was much better than the current one. Then there were no leavening agents, flavorings, taste improvers, etc. I especially miss rye from coarse flour for 16 kopecks - now there is no such thing in Moscow. And, of course, hearth white - 28 kopecks each. and gray - 20 kopecks each. They don't exist anymore, unfortunately.
Yes, special large two-pronged forks or spoons were tied or simply lay in bakeries - to check the "softness" of bread, and many poked and crushed bread with them. Although almost always the bread was from the same machine and all the same, but since the fork was lying, many used it. True, they were mostly old women. In our bakery in the neighboring department - in the "grocery", you could not only buy sweets, gingerbread, bagels, but also drink a glass of tea or coffee (black or with milk) near the standing table. Tea with sugar - 3 kop. 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 it was quite possible to have a snack. Banality, but now there is no such thing, which is a pity. All this is Moscow. In Leningrad - about the same. And in other places with products it was not so good, unfortunately. However, no one has ever gone hungry. Naturally, in the period from the late 50's - early 60's. until 89-91. Yes, I can’t resist - and the ice cream was not on palm oil.

raseyskiy :
AT Soviet time there were no chocolates in the stores, and the line for dairy products was occupied at 6 in the morning (Moscow does not count). There was no meat in the stores, and sausages too. There was such a term "thrown away" a shortage for sale, for example, instant coffee - a queue of hundreds of people, although there was a queue for coffee in Moscow.
***
... a number of cities were supplied relatively well, while in others even sprats in tomato were 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 outskirts of Vladivostok, and, like any childhood, it was full of sledding, fussing in the garden, vegetables and berries "from the bush", games, friendship and betrayal - in general, everything is fine. There were few books in the house, but I was subscribed to children's magazines, a school library, a TV set from my neighbors. Then there was almost no shortage, 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, sausage began to disappear (dry - almost completely, but Vlad is a sea city, there were fish in bulk (it never ended, so even during the "Gaidar famine" we did not starve, and the stories of acquaintances from Russian centers how difficult it was to get food). In 1974 or 1975, it seems, Gioconda was brought to Moscow, and we (three friends) went to watch it - in a common carriage back and forth. They shied away from Moscow for about a month, went to theaters, stopped in Leningrad and Luga (where they knew each other, including acquaintances of acquaintances - you have to live somewhere).
The shortage of books was very disturbing, but my friend's sister worked at the Research Institute of Marine Biology, and there the people were advanced, the Strugatskys got 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, not too dependent on the circumstances of life. The "dashing 90s" were not dashing for me either, in the 90s there were 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 claims against the Soviet government.
childhood was happy and carefree.
I did not experience restrictions in education, sports, food, recreation and happy pastime.
for which I have deep gratitude to all the Soviet people.
no illusions about the liberoid-thieves domestic policy modern Russia I do not suffer, but calmly observe the natural course of changes and transformations.

Discussions

belara83 :
50% of some kind of nonsense is written, queues have been a phenomenon since 1989, until then, well, there were 5-10 people there, they sat down something like that. No one was starving, Everyone had a job, but there was no chic, there was a shortage of imported things, but now with a lot of choice people have problems through the roof .. I lived in the village, my mother bought ice cream home for our children in boxes .. Bread was always and cost 16 kopecks , and white 20 kopecks!!! Sausage 2.2 r kg, 2.8 kg, is a boiled sausage.
But people lived more calmly, they understood that there is tomorrow, today everything is in nervous tension They don't know what will happen to them tomorrow. Nothing happened to us without imported clothes and everything else, it was not necessary to destroy the whole country, it was possible to change something and leave a lot, no, "to the ground and then" ordinary people suffered as a result ....

“We were lucky that our childhood and youth ended before the government bought FREEDOM from the youth in exchange for roller skates, mobile phones, star factories and cool crackers (by the way, soft for some reason) ... With her common consent ... For her own (seemingly) good…” is a fragment from a text called “Generation 76-82”. Those who are now somewhere in their thirties reprint it with great pleasure on the pages of their Internet diaries. He became a kind of manifesto of the generation.

The attitude towards life in the USSR changed from a sharply negative to a sharply positive one. Recently, a lot of resources have appeared on the Internet dedicated to everyday life in the Soviet Union.

Unbelievable but true: the sidewalk has an asphalt ramp for wheelchairs. Even now you rarely see this in Moscow

At that time (as far as photographs and films can tell) all the girls wore knee-length skirts. And there were practically no perverts. An amazing thing.

Excellent bus stop sign. And the pictogram of the trolleybus is the same in St. Petersburg today. There was also a tram sign - the letter "T" in a circle.

All over the world, the consumption of various branded drinks was growing, and we had everything from the boiler. This, by the way, is not so bad. And, most likely, humanity will come to this again. All foreign ultra-left and green movements would be delighted to know that in the USSR you had to go for sour cream with your own can. Any jar could be handed over, the sausage was wrapped in paper, and they went to the store with their string bag. The most progressive supermarkets in the world today at the checkout offer to choose between a paper or plastic bag. The most responsible environment classes are returning the yogurt crock to the store.

And before, there was no habit at all to sell containers with the product.

Kharkov, 1924. Tea room. He drank and left. No Lipton bottled.

Moscow, 1959. Khrushchev and Nixon (then Vice President) at the Pepsi booth at the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki. On the same day there was a famous dispute in the kitchen. In America, this dispute has received wide coverage, we have not. Nixon talked about how cool it was to have a dishwasher, how much stuff there was in supermarkets.

All this was filmed on color videotape (supertechnology at the time). It is believed that Nixon performed so well at this meeting that it helped him become one of the presidential candidates the following year (and 10 years later, president).

In the 60s, a terrible fashion for any machine guns went. The whole world then dreamed of robots, we dreamed of automatic trading. The idea, in a sense, failed due to the fact that it did not take into account Soviet reality. Say, when a potato vending machine pours you rotten potatoes, no one wants to use it. Still, when there is an opportunity to rummage through an earthy container, finding some relatively strong vegetables, there is not only hope for a delicious dinner, but a training in fighting qualities. The only machines that survived were those that dispensed a product of the same quality - for the sale of soda. Still sometimes there were vending machines for the sale of sunflower oil. Only soda survived.

1961st. VDNH. Still, before the start of the fight against excesses, we did not lag behind the West in graphic and aesthetic development.

In 1972, the Pepsi company agreed with the Soviet government that Pepsi would be bottled "from concentrate and using PepsiCo technology", and in return the USSR would be able to export Stolichnaya vodka.

1974th. Some boarding house for foreigners. Polka dots "Globe" top right. I still have such a jar unopened - I keep thinking: will it explode or not? Just in case, I keep it wrapped in a bag away from books. It’s also scary to open it - what if I suffocate?

From the very right edge, next to the scales, you can see a cone for selling juice. Empty, really. There was no habit in the USSR to drink juice from the refrigerator, no one was chic. The saleswoman opened a three-liter jar, poured it into a cone. And from there - in glasses. As a child, I still found such cones in our vegetable shop on Shokalsky Drive. When I was drinking my favorite apple juice from such a cone, some thief stole my Kama bike from the store's dressing room, I will never forget.

1982 Selection of alcohol in the dining car of the Trans-Siberian train. For some reason, many foreigners have a fixed idea - to travel along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Apparently, the idea that you can not get out of a moving train for a week seems magical to them.

Please note that abundance is apparent. No exquisite dry red wines, which today, even in an ordinary tent, at least 50 types are sold. No XO and VSOP. However, even ten years after this picture was taken, the author was quite satisfied with Agdam port wine.

1983 The worm of consumerism has settled in the naive and pure souls of Russians. True, the bottle, young man, must be returned to whom she said. I drank, enjoyed the warm, return the container. They will take her back to the factory.

In stores, Pinocchio or Bell was usually on sale. "Baikal" or "Tarhun" was also not always sold. And when Pepsi was exhibited in some supermarket, it was taken as a reserve - for a birthday, for example, to be displayed later.

1987th. An aunt sells greens in a dairy store window. Cashiers are visible behind the glass. The very ones that had to come well prepared - to know all the prices, the quantity of goods and the department numbers.

1987th. Volgograd. In the American archive, this photo is accompanied by a comment of the century: "A woman on a street in Volgograd sells some sort of liquid for the invalids of the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet name for World War II)." Apparently, at the same time in 87, they translated the inscription from the barrel, when there was no one else to ask that WWII invalids were served out of turn. By the way, these inscriptions are the only documentary recognition that there are queues in the USSR.

By the way, in those days there was no struggle between merchandisers, there were no POS materials, no one hung wobblers on the shelves. No one would have thought of giving away free samples. If the store was given a beach ball with the Pepsi logo, he considered it an honor. And exhibited in the window sincerely and for nothing.

1990th. Pepsi vending machine in the subway. Rare copy. Here are the machines that are on the right, they met everywhere in the center - they sold the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia, Moskovskiye Novosti. By the way, all soda machines (and slot machines too) always had the inscription “Please! Do not omit commemorative and bent coins. It is understandable with bent ones, but commemorative coins cannot be omitted, because they differed from other coins of the same denomination in weight and sometimes in size.

1991st. Veteran drinks soda with syrup. Someone had already scratched the Depeche Moda logo on the middle machine. Glasses were always shared. You come up, wash it in the machine itself, then put it under the nozzle. Fastidious aesthetes carried folding glasses with them, which had the peculiarity of folding in the process. The photo is good because all the details are characteristic and recognizable. And a payphone half-box, and a Zaporozhets headlight.

Until 1991, American photographers followed the same routes. Almost every photo can be identified - this is on Tverskaya, this is on Herzen, this is about Bolshoi Theater, this is from the Moscow hotel. And then everything became possible.

Recent history.

1992 near Kyiv. This is no longer the USSR, just by the way I had to. A dude poses for an American photographer, voting with a bottle of vodka to trade it for gasoline. It seems to me that the photographer himself issued the bottles. However, a bottle of vodka has long been a kind of currency. But in the mid-nineties, all plumbers suddenly stopped taking bottles as payment, because there were no fools left - vodka is sold everywhere, and you know how much it costs. So everything has gone to the money. Today, a bottle is given only to a doctor and a teacher, and even then with cognac.

With food in the late USSR, everything was pretty bad. The chance to buy something tasty in a regular store was close to zero. Queues lined up for tasty treats. Delicious food could be given "in order" - there was a whole system of "order tables", which were actually distribution centers for goods for their own. In the order table, he could count on tasty things: a veteran (moderately), a writer (not bad), a party worker (also not bad).

Residents of closed cities in general, by Soviet standards, rolled around like cheese in butter in Christ's bosom. But they were very bored in the cities and they were restricted to travel abroad. However, almost all of them were restricted to travel abroad.

Life was good for those who could be of some help. Let's say the director of the Wanda store was a very respected person. Super VIP by recent standards. And the butcher was respected. And the head of the department in " Children's world»respected. And even a cashier at the Leningradsky railway station. All of them could "get" something. Acquaintance with them was called "connections" and "ties". The director of the grocery was reasonably confident that his children would go to a good university.

1975 year. Bakery. I felt that the cuts on the loaves were made by hand (now the robot is already sawing).

1975 year. Sheremetyevo-1. Here, by the way, not much has changed. In the cafe you could find chocolate, beer, sausages with peas. Sandwiches did not exist, there could be a sandwich, which was a piece of white bread, on one end of which there was a spoonful of red caviar, and on the other - one round of butter, which everyone pushed and trampled under the caviar with a fork as best they could.

Bread shops were of two types. The first one is with a counter. Behind the saleswoman, there were loaves and loaves in containers. The freshness of bread was determined in the process of questioning those who had already bought bread or in a dialogue with the saleswoman:

- For 25 a fresh loaf?

— Normal.

Or, if the buyer did not cause rejection:

- Delivered at night.

The second type of bakery is self-service. Here, loaders rolled up containers to special openings, on the other side of which there was a trading floor. There were no saleswomen, only cashiers. It was cool because you could poke the bread with your finger. Of course, it was not allowed to touch the bread; for this, special forks or spoons were hung on uneven ropes. The spoons were still back and forth, and it was unrealistic to determine the freshness with a fork. Therefore, each took a hypocritical device in his hands and gently turned his finger to check in the usual way how well it was pressed. It's not clear through the spoon.

Fortunately, there was no individual packaging of bread.

Better a loaf that someone gently touched with a finger than tasteless gutta-percha. Yes, and it was always possible, after checking the softness with your hands, to take a loaf from the back row, which no one had yet reached.

1991st. Soon there will be consumer protection, which, together with care, will kill the taste. Halves and quarters were prepared from the technical side. Sometimes it was even possible to persuade to cut off half of the white:

Who will buy the second one? - asked the buyer from the back room.

No one gave packages at the checkout either - everyone came with his own. Or with a string bag. Or so, carried in the hands.

The grandmother is holding bags of kefir and milk (1990). Then there was no Tetrapac yet, there was some kind of Elopak. On the package was written “Elopak. Patented." The blue triangle indicates the side from which the bag must be opened. When we first purchased the packaging line, it came with a barrel of the right glue. I found those times when the package opened in the right place without torment. Then the glue ran out, it was necessary to open it from two sides, and then fold one side back. The blue triangles remained, but since then no one has bought glue, there are few idiots.

By the way, at that time there was no food packaging additional information- no address, no phone number of the manufacturer. Only GOST. And there were no brands. Milk was called milk, but differed in fat content. My favorite is in the red bag, five percent.

Dairy products were also sold in bottles. The contents differed in the color of the foil: milk - silver, acidophilus - blue, kefir - green, fermented baked milk - raspberry, etc.

Joyful queue for eggs. Krestyanskoye oil could still be on the refrigerated display case - it was cut with wire, then with a knife into smaller pieces, wrapped immediately in oil paper. In the queue, everyone stands with checks - before that, they stood in line at the cashier. The saleswoman had to be told what to give, she looked at the figure, counted everything in her head or on the accounts, and if it converged, she gave out the purchase (“let go”). The check was strung on a needle (it stands on the left side of the counter).

In theory, they were obliged to sell even one egg. But buying one egg was considered a terrible insult to the saleswoman - she could yell at the buyer in response.

Those who took three dozen were given a cardboard pallet without question. Whoever took a dozen was not supposed to have a pallet, he put everything in a bag (there were also special wire cages for aesthetes).

This is a cool photo (1991), here you can see video rental cassettes in the background.

Good meat could be obtained through an acquaintance or bought in the market. But everything in the market was twice as expensive as in the store, so not everyone went there. "Market meat" or "market potatoes" is the highest praise for products.

Soviet chicken was considered to be of poor quality. Here is the Hungarian chicken - it's cool, but it has always been in short supply. The word "cool" was not yet in wide use (that is, it was, but in relation to the rocks).

4.2 / 5 ( 6 votes)

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. It 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 houses and sanatoriums, and their children - vouchers to summer camps recreation. 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 they were certificates of honor, 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.

It would take a long time to list the positive and negative sides life in the USSR. And, most likely, they were equalized - people adapted, looked for opportunities to improve their lives, found various possibilities to get a scarce thing or organize some kind of trip, and a chocolate bar given to a doctor added confidence in the quality of the 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.

Childhood, as a rule, is always happy. In the summer, you might as well not dress up. They ran in shorts and barefoot. Some of the boys took out a piece of bread with margarine and shouted loudly - forty-one eat one. But if someone shouts ahead - forty-eight we ask for half, we had to share. Salary depends on the industry in which you work. For example, in trade or light industry, he was "light". In the early 60s, after the monetary reform, it was 30 rubles. An engineer, a doctor and a school teacher received about 80-90 rubles. A motorcycle with a sidecar "Ural" or "Irbit" was an unprecedented luxury and one for the whole street. Televisions with lenses went to the agitation centers to watch. There were televisions for free sale in the villages, since there was no broadcast at all. For example, TVs "Yenisei-2" or "Record" cost 160 rubles. The program was one and only local from 19:00 to 23:00. They went to work on the horns of factories. At what each had his own. The last, third beep was given already 5 minutes before the start of the shift. According to the Labor Code of 1957, for absenteeism, one could get corrective labor for up to 6 months with the deduction of part of the salary and lose the queue for housing. But there was no unemployment. All information boards and pedestals were covered with advertisements - "required, required." The unemployed were classified as parasites and sent to forced labor at construction sites. National economy". Restaurants, except for the railway, were empty.

On days of pay and advance, men flowed in streams to the pubs after their shifts. Or they were upset with one to three under the bushes in the squares, discussing their "evil" bosses along with questions foreign policy. They sympathized with Partis Lumumba, they cursed Eisenhower. The ubiquitous boys snooped around there with string bags of collected empty bottles. Cleaned them from sealing wax, labels and traffic jams. And then, if they had time before closing, they carried them to the glass container collection point. One bottle - one ice cream or a movie ticket. They themselves made ball-bearing scooters, bows, crossbows, sticks, pugachi and igniters. Leather balls in the yard were rare. Played rubber for 90 kopecks. For one game, 2-3 balls were required, as for some reason they were quickly pierced and blown away.

But almost everyone had a bike. "PVZ" and "KhVZ" (adults) cost around 50 rubles. Children's "Schoolboy" -28, and "Eaglet" (teenager) with chrome wings - 43 rubles. In the evenings, in the yards, the peasants played dominoes, banging loudly on the table. They quietly poured into the only faceted glass of fruit and berries in the company. The sound of playing dice became louder and more distinct. Tomorrow early to work. Players at the tables were replaced by young people, discussing pressing matters. The guitar appeared. And someone, playing the "eight" on the strings, started a song about a meeting in the city garden or at the "fountain in a dark blue dress."

They did not live richly, but not viciously. Everyone in the yard knew each other. Asking a neighbor for salt or bread until tomorrow was a common thing. Just like inviting the kids playing in the yard to dinner. Today we had a bite to eat at one - tomorrow at the other. There were fights, but before the first blood. Beating a recumbent was strictly forbidden. After the first blood (usually from the nose), the fight stopped and everyone became friends again. In a personal showdown, they fought one on one in the presence of friends in the yard or school class. The judge was chosen, the rules were established. The one who violated the rules was considered prematurely defeated and the fight was stopped.

The public holidays of November 7 and May 1 were special. They united people, rallied collectives. In the columns of demonstrators, children walked with their parents holding a trade union cardboard dove on a stick or balloon, which remained to him. On the chest each had a commemorative badge presented on the occasion of the holiday. Immediately from the cars they sold sweets in paper bags for rubles. per piece, lemonade and ice cream. This is not counting the fact that such "gifts" were given to all parents according to the number of children they had for free at the place of work. There was indeed a general atmosphere of a common holiday.

I remember two incidents from my childhood in particular. The first is admission to the pioneers. The excitement was extraordinary. Two of the class were released from admission. One did not come out of age, the other for bad behavior. On that next anniversary of Lenin's birth on April 22, the day turned out to be sunny, but rather cool and windy. We were lined up on the square near the school in a uniform - white top, black bottom. Of course, in the same shirts and blouses. We were covered in goosebumps and chattering our teeth. Someone was running snot. But the desire to become a pioneer was stronger than all this. Then they took us to the cinema hall, in the foyer of which we were lined up in a half-car. School authorities and teachers stood opposite. They swore an oath in chorus - "I am a pioneer of the Soviet Union ...". The school pioneer leader called everyone according to the list, tied a pioneer gastuk around his neck and handed him a badge with the image of little Volodya Ulyanov ... Be ready! she said to the newcomer. Always ready! - with pioneer greetings, still not skillfully raising his hand above his head, answered a member of the new communist community. Overflowing with childish happiness and the importance of our significance, having matured at once, for some reason we were taken to another club, where they showed a film about the Cuban revolution. Back to school, we walked in formation and sang the song "Cuba, my love, the island of crimson dawn ...". At the same time, everyone imperceptibly looked at his tie. So until the evening they ran in the yard with a tie around their neck, attracting attention with their new status.

The second incident also happened in April. Then the banknotes were brand new, smelling of paint, and they tried not to wrinkle them. New coins did not even have time to fade. On the radio, before the broadcast of the Moscow exact time, the familiar call signs "beep, beep" were already sounding. Spring came early. It was a sunny warm day. Ant-grass sprouted in a soft green rug in the dry warm thawed patches. Starlings equipped their birdhouses, residents of houses under the windows broke flower beds. Women scraped off window frames winter putty and washed the glass with laundry soap. The boys and I played in the wall for candy wrappers. What else to do in early spring in such weather? Suddenly, from some open window, we heard a loud and joyful female voice - listen to the radio, listen to the radio! The astronaut has been launched! People began to go out into the street asking each other questions. Someone said that we launched a man into space. Everyone wanted details. They called to listen to the TASS message. I ran home and heard this message. It was short. I remembered the name of the cosmonaut and learned that he safely returned to earth in excellent health. What started here! The whole city took to the streets. They hugged, kissed and congratulated each other. The woman was crying. The men shrugged. It was something like declaring the end of the war in 1945. The unity of the people and pride in the USSR were incredible. In the evening, the men argued in what rank Gagarin flew into space. Either starley, or captain. Who will fly next and when will they fly to the moon. Discussed in all courtyards until late at night. At that time I did not even suspect how many accordion players were in the city. Almost until morning there were songs and dances. Although it was a normal work day. Wednesday.

For clarity, some examples of salaries:

1) associate professor (with a scientific degree) - 320 rubles.
2) lieutenant - 230 rubles.
3) judge - 210 rubles.
4) senior teacher (without a degree) - 170 rubles.
5) trolley bus driver - 140 rubles.
6) teacher - 132 rubles.
7) an accountant in a bank - 120 rubles.

One ruble:
- a full meal in the dining room;
- a trip of 100 km by hitchhiking (penny - kilometer);
- 33 glasses of lemonade with syrup;
- 50 calls from a pay phone;
- 100 boxes of matches;
- 5 cups of Plombira or 10 - milk ice cream;
- 20 trips by trolleybus or metro;
- 4 loaves of white bread (900-1000 grams each);
- 5 liters of draft milk;
- 20 trips to the cinema for a daytime session;
- 2 bottles of good beer (also change);
- 8 packs of bad cigarettes (Pamir);
- by the end of summer, it was possible to buy 6 kg of watermelons or 3 kg of melons at the market;
- 5 trips to the men's hairdresser or bath;
- the cost of a daily bed "savage" in the holiday season in the south.

Three rubles:
- lunch for 5-6 persons in a factory or school canteen;
- lunch in a restaurant for one;
- good book;
- a doll or other toy of domestic production;
- a bottle of normal wine (such as "Crimean");
- weekend cultural trip with the whole family, including a snack;
- a pack of imported cigarettes;
- the amount in the child's pocket, at which other children were terribly jealous of him.

Five rubles:
- a kilogram of tenderloin in the market or 2 kilos of meat in the store;
- a bottle of vodka (with a snack);
- almost a monthly rent for a family;
- taxi ride "with chic";
- a kilogram of very good sweets.

Ten rubles:
- the amount that was borrowed before payday, it is the same - about which it is not a shame to remind the borrower;
- universal currency for various household services;
- a huge stick of expensive cooperative sausage;
- an expensive technical or desktop toy, such as a typewriter or billiards.

Twenty-five rubles:
- a ticket for an airplane of local airlines (for example, Leningrad - Moscow: 18 rubles);
- revelry "in full" in the restaurant;
- the services of an expensive prostitute.

Fifty rubles:
- teenage bike;
- a small pension;
- good student scholarship;
- trade union ticket to the Elbrus region for 2 weeks - 30 rubles.

One hundred rubles:
- plane ticket to the south (round trip);
- the monthly salary of a poor engineer graduate of a university (more precisely, a salary of 120 rubles);
- a good pension.

*********

They lived modestly, but cheerfully and amicably. During the holidays, after the demonstrations, the whole family gathered with all the closest relatives. There was a table, there was booze and there were songs. My brother and I loved listening to songs. My grandmother knew a lot of folk songs and we children listened to these sometimes sad howls about how a coachman was freezing somewhere or about love. Then they certainly ran into the yard and played there climbing trees, tying ropes and making an impromptu swing, and in winter breaking through entire tunnels in the snow and making caves. We children were happy. Remembering childhood, I do not remember gloomy faces. I never saw homeless people lying around drunk or people begging in my childhood. No, I saw grandmothers near the church once. Cartoons and children's films were very rarely shown on TV, mostly only on weekends and during holidays. Therefore, all the children rushed out into the street, there were friends, there were hide-and-seek, catch-up, leapfrog, baker, blind man's buff, Cossack robbers, a marine figure freeze, pioneer ball, football, twelve sticks, Moscow hide-and-seek, a deaf telephone and many other games. Sweets were mostly on holidays, and toys were rarely given, mainly for birthdays and New Year. In the spring, we ran barefoot through the puddles, and on July 7 we always poured ourselves. They also showed movies on Saturdays. There were propaganda sites all over the city, and on Saturday the projectionist came and showed us a movie for free. When it started to get dark, adults and children occupied the benches and watched a movie. Parents never scared us with some kind of maniacs or drug addicts. We didn't even know such people existed. Ice cream cost 10-15 kopecks. And a ticket to the cinema is 15-20 kopecks. It was a happy childhood.

**************

I remember a March blizzard on a rural school playground. And the faces of people, petrified in mourning, about the death of the Leader. I remember a scraped wooden table in the corner, illuminated by a kerosene stove, and my mother bent over school notebooks with a red pencil in her hand. And the taste of zatirukha brewed by my father - a broth made from flour pellets, flavored with a teaspoon of vegetable oil. I remember a wooden two-story hut, shaking day and night from the railroad sellers nearby. formulations. And the black snow of my childhood from smoking factory chimneys and locomotive soot. Factory horns in three shifts, in a thoroughly industrial town with its prison barracks and cells along long corridors, transferred by the authorities for housing for working families. And cottages for party farm activists with housekeepers and the smell of smoked meats. I remember my summer minimum of clothes - a pair of shorts; satin for the street, and twill "to go out", sewn at home on a Podolsk typewriter, bought on "maternity leave". And store shelves filled with canned crabs and pineapples, champagne and fragrant brown sausage carriages. And how we looked at it widely open eyes. Like an unrealizable dream, chewing a delicious bread crust, smeared with a novelty of the food industry - margaguselin. I remember the childhood joy of bathing in the city's public bath in the "royal" room with bath and shower. And good luck touching the shiny car of the factory boss at the checkpoint. I remember unaffordable bazaar fruits from visiting Uzbeks. And the taste of my first New Year's tangerine in the inpatient department of gastroenterology. Long queues for bread, two loaves of gray in hand and a bun for children under 5. And, of course, the obligatory kindergarten tablespoon of fish oil before dinner. And it was also the USSR.

*************

I remember that somehow I could not fly from Blagoveshchensk to Moscow in the summer. There were no tickets and people spent the night near the ticket office. I mustered up the courage and went to command post to the pilots. And she asked me to bring to Moscow, it was very necessary to get there on time. They looked at me as if I had fallen from the moon. But I really really needed it, my beloved was waiting for me at Domodedovo and even ordered a car for all my salary to Krasnogorsk. I explained everything so honestly. And I was taken through the checkpoint and put into the cockpit. In Novosibirsk, however, the flight attendants helped to change clothes, put on a cap and a shirt, just in case, so that the control did not suspect anything. They didn’t even take the money ... And I still don’t know how to thank that crew, I suffer ...

************

Shortly after the Daman events, I, on an urgent basis, ended up in a regiment that fought off the island from the Chinese. Opposite the checkpoint there were 9 marble tombstones of the soldiers who died there with the nineteen-year-old hero of the Soviet Union V.V. Orekhov. At the headquarters of the regiment, one of the rooms was equipped as a museum, where, among other exhibits about that "war", according to the established tradition, there was a freshly cut birch from about. Damansky. Sometimes border guards brought birch trees, sometimes they themselves went for them for 70 km. The times were turbulent and restless. Somehow they quickly got used to combat training alarms at night. But there were also battles. They went to war. The feeling is indescribable. Complete detachment, and you are no longer you, but part of the combat mechanism. There was hazing back then. But it did not come to assault. One "grandfather" was given 2 years of a penal battalion for making a young soldier-driver pretend to crawl on cars with a bedside table on his head. And for a fight in the dining room, the other went to 5 years in a colony under the article "hooliganism." Usually hazing was expressed in forcing oneself to sew on a collar, clean boots or go to the dining room to beg for bread. For refusal, one could get an outfit out of turn, and then, as a rule, they fell behind. Everyone understood that the border was four kilometers away.

Nature in the Far is amazing. The black knotty branches of trees and shrubs against the background of the yellow sky at sunset are so reminiscent of the paintings of Chinese landscape painters! Winter starts late, and snow-covered hills with red oak groves look absolutely fantastic! The lindens bloom there in June, filling the entire space with the smell of honey. And in the evenings - a powerful frog choir, comparable in strength to the noise of an aircraft jet engine. It happened in tactical exercises, on command - "flash on the right", you fall into the grass with your feet to nuclear explosion, raise your head, and before your eyes are huge pink peonies ... And the disturbing smell of civilian life, tangible with your whole body, every cell, youth ... Oh, where are you, our girls? So many flowers are wasted here!

Well, forty years have passed. Half of them were drawn to those places. There, in the army brotherhood. I still dream of the faces of fellow soldiers, I remember many by their full names. and where they come from. We are with them every day, we counted how much we had left to the demobilization echelon. And the same dream to dream all my life. I served two years, demobilization already. And they persuade me to serve another two years. Stay, stay. Necessary! Stay. I, as it were, in my dream understand that the service has ended and, it seems, I have been at home for a long time. And, I agree. I think the next time I dream about it - I’ll definitely refuse. And I stay again.

At that time, in the army, vacation was not given to everyone, but as an encouragement. 10 days without a road. Late back for a day - penal battalion. Already in the second year of service, I received a travel order at the headquarters for travel by rail. and 10 rubles of vacation pay, in addition to the salary. To 10 days added 14 for the road. By train, I got to Khabarovsk on my "hard money", and there at the airport, on a business trip, I took plane tickets home and back, paying one ruble extra. Those were the rules back then. And first to Novosibirsk, and then by plane of a local airline. Then they were. Who flew from Khabarovsk zanet airport. On the second floor there is an exit to a long terrace overlooking the airfield. Here I was waiting for my IL-18 on it, every five minutes running to the dispatcher with questions about whether the landing was soon. Wait, look at the scoreboard, wait, look at the scoreboard. Tolley scoreboard strongly gleamed, whether my line is not included. In general, I missed my Il. I saw it when he started to taxi to the takeoff. There was no limit to despair. Return to unit? It was also possible to exchange a ticket by paying half the cost of the flight. Forty rubles. And I only have 15 left. True, the nearest Tu-114 aircraft departed in 30 minutes to Omsk. Omsk is also in my direction, I decided, I’ll fly, and then I’ll come up with something. Since the ticket from Novosibirsk to the place was no longer good. I jumped out onto the airfield and to Tu. And there the landing was already over. The crew is waiting. I'm to the stewardess, so they say so. There were good people back then! She hid me under the ladder, let the carriage through, and then gave me a sign. No, that's just the beginning of the adventure. The route is long. We landed in Irkutsk for refueling. And there is a wall of snow. Darkness is total. All the passengers left for the airport, and I, as an illegal, was ordered not to stick my head out. Half an hour has passed. My guide went on board with one of the crew members. He looked at my ticket, laughed wildly and said - your IL has landed, go there to your place, they lost you in Khabarovsk. It was lucky that Tu was a jet and we already overtook Il in flight, and arrived in Irkutsk much earlier. Or maybe the one where he sat down along the way. It was October, but they flew to Novosibirsk before dark. Due to the time difference. An hour later I was already at the city airport, but their working day had already ended. Fortunately, there was a hotel for its staff. My local plane was supposed to fly at 8 am. Well, that's probably how he got away. Without me. The overnight stay also cost a ruble. I remember it well, I had a metal one with the profile of a leader. There were only two rooms. And there were no empty beds. Well, not on a chair in the corridor ... The housekeeper took pity on me, or maybe she didn’t want to return the ruble and took me to another wing to a room with a single bed. Do not worry, we wake everyone here at 6 am and close until the evening - she assured. Dear mother! A feather bed, two hefty feather pillows smelling fresh, clean linen! This is not a foam mattress on a solid bed. Whether I’ve lost the habit of such luxury, whether I’m tired, or I’ve been worried during the day, I woke up from the bright sunlight coming through the window above my head. 11 am! And deathly silence. We were taught to dress during the burning of a match. But in vain I broke a personal record. The front door was locked, there was not a soul in the hotel. True, the watchman soon came to make some tea. Yes, he confirmed. At six o'clock they all left, but here I am guarding here. And the planes until the evening only to land. Everyone flew away, he added. As luck would have it, at the station there were only seats left in the compartment. The air ticket was not exchanged. He gave away a chervonets. On the last he gave home a telegram and bought two pies with liver for 4 kopecks. a piece. There are 2 pennies left. Drive 12 hours into the night. As soon as I got settled in my compartment in an empty carriage, a young girl, the conductor, came up and insistently began to offer to take linen for a rupee. And I don’t even have a ruble ... I felt so embarrassed, I’ve never been greedy, and she loses the proceeds from this. I showed her my air ticket as proof of what happened to me. He politely refused to take underwear for free and went out into the cold without an overcoat. In the vestibule. So he stood all night in his punishment. to your station.

Over the seven decades of its existence, the USSR drank a lot of hardship, 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 good nostalgia. The dawn of stagnation came in the 1970s. It was a time of stability - there were no major upheavals. The stagnation coincided with an improvement in relations between the US and the USSR - the threat of 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 as well. In 1980, the USSR took first place in Europe and second in the world in terms of industrial production 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 achievements of the Soviet Union in science, space, education, culture and sports fell. 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 a bad omen) is 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 government of the USSR closed several fabricated cases and thus stopped a new wave of repressions. However, the speech of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, in which he debunked the cult of Stalin, can be considered the real beginning of the “thaw”. After that, the country breathed more freely, a period of relative democracy began, in which citizens were not afraid to go to jail for telling a political anecdote. During this period, there was a rise in Soviet culture from which the 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

Now it is customary to scold Mikhail Gorbachev, but the period 1989 to 1991 can be called a standard in terms of democracy. Probably no country, even the most liberal, had such a level of freedom of speech as the Soviet Union in its last years of its existence - the leaders of the USSR were criticized both from high tribunes and at millions of rallies. In the era of glasnost, a 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 October revolution, Lenin, the Communist Party, Brezhnev and other leaders of the USSR. People sensed that turning times were coming and looked to the future with enthusiasm. Alas, times have come even more difficult.

On the eve of the Stalinist terror

“Life has become better, comrades. Life has become more fun. And when life is fun, the work is argued ... ". These words were uttered by Joseph Stalin in 1935 at the First All-Union Conference 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 just beginning to take shape. After the industrialization carried out in the USSR, by the mid-1930s, the standard of living of citizens improved markedly: wages increased, the rationing system for food was canceled, and the assortment of goods in stores increased markedly. Cheerful mood was supported by Soviet cinema: for example, the comedy "Merry Fellows" with Leonid Utyosov was filmed in the best traditions of Hollywood. However, the "fun life" ended in 1937, with the onset of mass repressions.

Wave of enthusiasm after the Civil War

After graduation civil war and restoration of the country, Soviet Russia was swept by a wave of enthusiasm. The Bolsheviks announced 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 falls. Rumors flew to 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 to come 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 all ideas were supported by the Bolsheviks: for example, in Soviet Russia representatives of the most radical directions of psychoanalysis found support, and at the same time the whole world of Russian philosophy was forcibly expelled from the country. Most of all at this time, the Orthodox Church was unlucky, on which cruel persecution and repression were unleashed. True, the bulk of the citizens of the USSR supported this campaign against religion. "Everything old had to die in order to reveal the dear new."

"Internal emigration" in the late 1960s

In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU thanks to an organized conspiracy of his "party comrades." With his displacement, the "thaw" also ended. Many were waiting for the restoration of Stalinism, but it never happened. Although about mass Stalinist repressions now it was impossible to speak publicly. During this period, when all public informal life froze, a new movement arose, which eventually embraced millions of people - the "movement of hikers." Instead of relaxing in the Black Sea resorts, Soviet intellectuals packed their backpacks and went on long hikes - conquering mountain peaks, descending into caves, exploring unknown places in the taiga. It was probably the most romantic time in the history of the USSR. The geologist has become a "cult" profession, and mountaineering has become a "cult" sport. In just a few years, the USSR has become the largest number of people with a category in sports tourism. AT major cities there was practically no family in which there was no tent, kayak and camping kettle. So, the Soviet intelligentsia found, in “singing to the guitar by the fire in the wilderness” its ecological niche, where there was no pressure from countless communist slogans that had long lost their meaning, hung on almost all the buildings of the Soviet Union.