How was life in the USSR. How they lived in the USSR. life in the Soviet Union. Why was the USSR created?

“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 environmentally responsible classes are returning the earthenware yogurt pot 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 the 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 near the Bolshoi Theater, this is from the Moscow Hotel. And then everything became possible.

Recent history.

1992 near Kiev. 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 Detsky Mir was 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 additional information on the product packaging - neither the address nor the 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)

1. In the Soviet Union, hundreds and even thousands of people could drink sparkling water from a single glass in a vending machine. I drank soda, rinsed the glass, put it back. Everyone who lived at that time remembers that even "thinking for three" very rarely took a faceted glass from a soda machine.

2. In the USSR, we spent most of our free time on the street. These were parks, courtyards of high-rise buildings, sports grounds, rivers and lakes. There were not many ticks in the forests. The lakes were not closed due to epidemiological indications. In the villages, until the early 80s, children could run barefoot. Broken glass on the streets was a rarity, because all the bottles were surrendered.

3. We all drank from the tap. And in the biggest city, and in the most distant collective farm. The sanitary norms in the USSR were such that there was no Escherichia coli, hepatitis Bacillus or any other filth in the water supply.

4. It’s scary to think, but in the store the saleswoman served a pie or shortbread with her hands. Bread, sausage, and any other products were served with hands. Nobody thought about gloves.

5. Many children spent one or two shifts in the pioneer camp, without fail. It was considered good luck to go somewhere to the resort, the main children's camps were an hour's drive from home. But it was always fun and interesting there.

6. We rarely watched TV compared to today. Usually in the evenings or on weekends: Saturday and Sunday.

7. In the USSR, of course, there were people who hardly read books, but there were very few of them. And school, and society, and the availability of free time pushed us to read.

8. We did not have computers and smartphones, so all our games were played in the yard. Usually a crowd of boys and girls of different ages gathered, games were invented on the go. They were simple and not intricate, but the main factor in them was communication. Through games, we became aware of patterns of behavior in society. Behavior was evaluated neither by words, nor even by deeds, but by their motives. Mistakes were always forgiven, meanness and betrayal never.

9. Were we fooled by Soviet propaganda? Suffered from a bloody regime? No no and one more time no. We didn’t give a damn about all this in our 12-14 years. I remember that each of us looked to the future with undisguised optimism. And those who wanted to serve in the army, and those who decided to become drivers and workers, and those who were going to enter technical schools and institutes.

We knew that there was a place for each of us under the sun.

Instruction

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

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

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

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

Public free housing in the USSR prevailed. However, there was still cooperative and private housing. Every Soviet citizen in need of better living conditions had the right to receive an apartment on gratuitous terms. Another thing is that for this it was necessary to defend a long-term queue. Sometimes its term reached two decades. People who wanted to speed up this process joined housing cooperatives. But in order to build a cooperative apartment, it was necessary to lay out several annual earnings of a simple engineer or teacher for it.

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

Industrial goods of domestic production were distinguished by extremely poor quality. Therefore, imports were held in high esteem. Imported things cost, often insanely expensive, but they were still in crazy demand.

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

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 Vecherny 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 Eaglet 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 Great Wall on a camping trip in the All-Russian camp ... I realized that the USSR would soon not be 00)) ... 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).
There are few overweight people, only one or two children for the whole school (the schools I know had up to 1,000 students at that time).
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 unclosed 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 in the cinema at the bright clothes of Soviet film heroes: they 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 in the 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, sledges, 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 a material point of view (sausage, delicacies, clothes, cars, roads) everything was 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 have seen a lot in my life. 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 :
In Soviet times, there were no chocolates in stores; for dairy products, the line 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 deficit for sale, well, 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 are strange to me, how it was difficult 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. We shied around Moscow for about a month, went to theaters, stopped by to 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, role-playing games arose in the 90s - 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.
I don’t suffer from any illusions about the liberoid-thieves’ internal politics of modern Russia, but I 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 tomorrow today everyone is in nervous tension, they don’t know what will happen to them tomorrow. Nothing happened to us without imported clothes and everything else, 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 ....

- made here an interesting selection of photographs from 1989 and 1990. In 1991, the USSR ceased to exist, and those who claim that the Union collapsed "unexpectedly" are wrong - everything was quite expected, people were waiting for changes and knew that Soviet power would soon be gone. Suffice it to recall at least the fact that in 1990 (more than a year before the collapse of the Union) in Minsk schools they no longer accepted first-graders in October - it ended.

So, in today's post I will show you a photo from the life of people in the late USSR (deficit, rallies in support of Yeltsin, Soviet public catering, etc.), and in the comments I will be glad to read your memories of this period of history)

02. At the very end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, various international catering enterprises began to appear in the USSR. Perhaps the most famous was the opening of McDonald's in January 1990. The picture shows a poster about the imminent opening of a cafe, the photo was taken in Moscow in December 1989.

03. January 1989, car factory, workers rest. Production schemes remained largely Soviet, although during the time of perestroika, enterprises began to introduce all sorts of modern things, plus real trade unions began to appear in places.

By the way, I wonder if in 1989-1990 it was already possible to freely buy a car, or were there still Soviet "queues"? Haven't seen any information about it.

04. February 1989, school. Children studied according to Soviet programs, but with the beginning of Perestroika in 1985, the ideological component in education began to gradually fade - for example, in Minsk in 1990 (more than a year before the collapse of the USSR), first-graders were no longer accepted in October. Much depended, among other things, on the personal initiative of teachers - until 1991, someone continued to talk about "good grandfather Lenin", someone scored and simply taught the subject.

05. Exercise bikes, photo 1989. At the end of the eighties, there was a general fashion for aerobics and sports, everyone bought “health” circles for themselves, and in some institutions they installed such simulators. Back in those years, "rocking chairs" were finally allowed, which began to open en masse in basements and at gyms.

06. Another foreign fast food company, this time Soviet-Finnish. Specializes in the sale of burgers (an unusual and fashionable product in the late USSR).

07. Ladies dry their heads at the hairdresser. In the late eighties there was a fashion for bouffant hairstyles and perms), and the hairdressers themselves were among the first to switch to semi-commercial cooperative work.

08. Winter in one of the Moscow microdistricts, photo 1989. Please note that there are practically no cars in the yard - they began to be massively bought already in the nineties.

09. With the beginning of Perestroika (especially after 1987), all sorts of meetings and rallies were allowed in the USSR - which immediately began to be held in large numbers, mainly against the Soviet government, the USSR and for Yeltsin.

10. Car repair in one of the Moscow yards. In those years, there were no normal car services, and many car enthusiasts were at the same time good auto repair masters. Somewhere since 1987, private cooperative car services began to appear.

11. Lady with an accordion on the Arbat - which at that time became a prominent tourist attraction in Moscow.

12. This is also the Arbat, the poet reads his poems, photo 1990. With the beginning of the policy of glasnost, it became possible to read anything - even obscene poems about Stalin and Gorbachev.

13. What international news worried Soviet citizens in those years? In January 1990, they talked in some detail about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from united Germany, and a year earlier they showed a lot about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

14. They talked a lot more about Chernobyl and its consequences, the topics of product contamination with radionuclides and nitrates began to be raised. This photo was taken in 1990 in the fields near the Thirty-Kilometer Exclusion Zone, a guy measures radiation levels with a RKSB-1000 dosimeter. By the way, this is a household dosimeter not designed to detect soil pollution)

15. 1990, queues at Sberbank for deposits - around this time, the Soviet monetary system began to burst at the seams, many deposits were frozen.

16. An uncle without legs begs for alms in one of the passages in Moscow, photo 1990. Yes, in the USSR there were also homeless people with disabilities and homeless people.

17. Homeless. Also Moscow.

18. In 1989-1990, there were literally empty shelves in stores - you could buy something only in the markets, and even then not always. The photo shows a queue of customers for a small batch of meat that was "thrown out" in one of the Moscow stores.

19. Scarcity.

20. May 1990, completely empty shelves in one of the Moscow supermarkets. By the way, the signs are very modern, more characteristic of the year 1993-1994 in design.

21. Empty market stalls, also photographed in 1990.

22. Those who had money could go to a restaurant, but dinner there was quite expensive - most often all sorts of anniversaries, family holidays, etc. were celebrated in restaurants, the Soviet people didn’t go to restaurants just like that)

23. Public catering in 1990 - in the photo, apparently, one of the Moscow dumplings. A woman in a scarf ordered a version with broth (just dumplings in the water in which they were boiled, sometimes bay leaves and black pepper were added there), from an uncle in a cap - a version without water, mixed with mustard. There is also tea in disposable cups.

24. In 1989-1990, protests took place in Moscow and other major cities of the USSR for any reason - here, for example, demonstrators with a poster in support of the independence of Lithuania.

25. And these are street protests in support of Yeltsin, the protesters are carrying a poster "B.N. Yeltsin for President of the RSFSR."

26. Rally against the CPSU. The guy has an interesting poster, on which the font "KPSS" consists of bones.

27. Student strike.

Do you remember the last years