I lived under the Soviet Union for only 9 years, managed to become an October child and - shock, but true - that was enough for me short term to form your attitude towards that country. To do this, there was no need to understand the wise policies of the party and government; everyday cases were enough. I remember my mother took me home from kindergarten and, passing by the cafeteria, where she often bought a milkshake for 10 kopecks, in response to my corresponding request she showed me a wallet in which three kopecks were dangling.
I often asked my father how he assessed the “scoop”. His answer was always something like this: “Melancholy.” Every day you live with the feeling that nothing will ever change in your life - neither your salary, nor the opportunity to advance in your career. career ladder. This is a difficult understanding of the need to save up and “knock out” for something all your life, to grovel before someone, to passionately love the Party and go to useless demonstrations of workers and peasants.
This is probably why he went into business at the first opportunity.
What’s especially surprising is that the Internet is full of young guys who sincerely want to join the Soviet Union. These, of course, are complexes from the toothless politics and economies of countries former USSR, it’s all from the desire to shake missiles in front of an imaginary enemy who can make not only warheads, but also good smartphones... But still. How to explain to these fools that in the Soviet Union even their Instagram profile would have to be obtained permission from the district executive committee? How to show the difference between Nintendo and Electronics? How to explain the concept of “scarcity” and convey greatest value boiled jeans bought from black marketeers on the platform of commuter trains?
In general, I decided to take the first article I came across on the topic “What was good about the USSR” and tried to analyze it from my bell tower - as I remember and as I understand. When you search for this on Google, the first link that comes up is this one.
1. Soviet education was considered the best in the world, but now what?
Indeed, it is widely believed that Soviet education was good. The best in the world - I wouldn’t say that, but Soviet propaganda claimed that, and citizens had nothing to compare with, because the border, as they say, is locked... In what coordinates should we measure the quality of education? It's obvious that scientific achievements in the West were no less than in the USSR. Moreover, if everyone in the Soviet Union was so smart, then why couldn’t they make good VCRs and cars? Something is wrong here.
2. Free medical care.
Medicine, both now and then, is conditionally free. It is obvious that the quality of medical care has decreased, even the “standards” for hospital stays for various diseases have been reduced. Life expectancy has decreased. However, when compared with decaying capitalist countries, life expectancy in the USSR was lower than that of the “enemy”.
I explain this simply: the lack of modern medicines and treatment methods. While all efforts were spent on creating new warheads, citizens were dying without advanced diagnostics. The MRI machine was created west of Brest, and the Nobel Prize was also not given to Soviet scientists. Sad but true.
3. Free housing.
A common misconception about the USSR. In fact, there was no free housing in the “scoop”, but the queue for cooperative housing was quicker, which cost quite normal money, albeit on a reasonable installment plan for 25 years. In reality, the USSR authorities provided the working people with a roof over their heads, but with dubious consumer qualities.
It was customary to call “free” public housing provided to the tenant on a lifetime lease basis. It was necessary to wait for a couple of decades and it was not given to everyone who wanted it. By the way, after the collapse of the USSR, the owners of such apartments were faced with the need to privatize the meters for a lot of money, otherwise it became the property of the city. Which, in general, proves the real nature of such housing - it is essentially a hostel.
4. Unemployment. There was no unemployment in the USSR. After graduating from university there was distribution.
This is true, in the USSR there was no unemployment and homeless people, but there was an article for loafing. Not a bad way to motivate citizens to work hard!
The main problem of this labor equalization was the low wage, which was actually only enough to live from paycheck to paycheck. The standard of living was low for the majority of the population, and higher education often automatically put it at a level lower than those who cut the bolts at the factory.
Thus, people found themselves in an unpleasant situation: on the one hand, there was nowhere to go, on the other, a semi-beggarly existence awaited you throughout your entire life.
5. Products. Under the Union there were better products.
Another common nonsense. In the “soviet” everything was bad with food and goods consumer consumption. It is enough to look at photographs of stores of those years, at how people dressed, to understand what kind of food they had to serve on the table.
Many in this place are starting to shake GOST standards and memories of “real meat” in sausage. In fact, GOST only determines the proportions of what to mix with what. If, according to GOST, it was possible to grind even the tibia bones of cows into liver sausage, then that’s what was done.
In addition, I remember the “scoop” as a country of eternal shortages. The stores had a very poor selection of products, and some categories of goods could be completely absent or disappear for inexplicable reasons.
I was always touched by how a country was friends with half the countries Latin America and Africa could not organize in sufficient quantity supplies of bananas, penny fruit. I discovered the taste of a fresh banana (in stores there was ersatz - dried sweet bananas of the most disgusting taste) only in 1988, without even realizing what exactly I had eaten! Issued to kindergarten piece by piece...
6. Confidence in tomorrow.
It is a fact. Citizens were confident in the future. Neither subtract nor add. The bottom has accompanied me all my life.
7. Army. We had the most strong army in the world.
A classic item for USSR lovers. Yes, the Union had a strong army, and no money was spared on the defense industry. Probably, the USSR was even feared abroad, but there are two important points here.
A strong army does not affect life in any way ordinary people, except in negative side(when all the energy goes into creating tanks, there is no money left for jeans).
In addition, the armies Western countries were no less strong, and during the Second World War they helped the USSR with technology and weapons. Without lend-lease cars and planes, everything could have turned out differently.
8. Plants and factories.
You can't argue that what happened, happened. In the USSR, giant and smaller enterprises were built. Unfortunately, often using Western technologies.
Again, this is not an achievement of the country in itself. Factories and factories were built all over the world, this is a normal process.
9. All clothes were of high quality.
If we're talking about about the quality in terms of the durability of the clothes, then yes, many managed to wear boots for 10 years. Otherwise, there was a problem with the clothes, which confirms the demand on the shadow market, when jeans were given many, many full-fledged Soviet rubles.
In my opinion, the worst thing that happened in the USSR was the lack of choice in everything. In study, work, food, clothing. A Soviet citizen could not leave the country and choose the housing he liked. He couldn’t make any repairs of his own and buy his wife the boots he wanted and not the ones he had.
The state planned a person’s life from birth to death; there was no trace of any initiative from below. In general, this is what ruined the country - stifled motivation.
God forbid we all go back. Life is a thousand times better now.
Barbaric privatization, low pace economic development, raw materials orientation of the economy, demographic, national and social problems Post-Soviet Russia is forcing people to increasingly remember the stable years of life in the USSR. But we must not forget about negative aspects Soviet state: deficit, strict censorship, lack of democratic freedoms. Having discarded all the scientific, space and military achievements of the USSR, we invite you to compare the two states based on the quality of living conditions for people, and answer the question, where was life better?
Arguments of the defenders of independent Russia
Citizens of the USSR, in most cases, could not travel abroad, watch films made in capitalist countries, listen to Western performers and receive foreign guests. There were no imported goods on store shelves, which, as a rule, were much superior to domestic ones in quality.
Citizens modern Russia They can go to any corner of the world, go to another country to work, or move to it completely. No one is restricting the movements of Russians.
The shortage of imported goods and the inability of domestic enterprises to meet demand affected massive shortage products National economy. Commodity shortages existed to one degree or another throughout the entire 70 years of the existence of the Soviet state, reaching its apogee in the late 80s and early 90s. There was a shortage of cars, household appliances, books, clothes, perfume, furniture, dishes, tights and even beer! It came to light that people went to Moscow to buy sausage, and the queues reached enormous proportions. "Blat" and "nepotism" flourished. Particularly smart citizens hired a special “stander” who stood in line for them.
After the collapse of the USSR, Russia has maintained close economic cooperation with other countries. Russians can easily buy persimmons and pineapples in winter; stores are overflowing with goods. Import volume in 2015 amounted to $161.57 billion.
Propaganda instilled in the minds of Soviet people the illusion of an ideal state. According to the authorities, for example, since 1930, the USSR has finally defeated unemployment. But it could not evaporate - thousands of Soviet people were left without work. The word “parasitism” originated in everyday life. It was for parasitism that the poet Brodsky was exiled to the north, to the Arkhangelsk region.
But what caused the most discontent was the silence Chernobyl disaster. Not only did the authorities not inform the residents of Pripyat about the accident on the night of April 26 and did not immediately evacuate them (the evacuation began only on the 27th at 14.00), in Kyiv on May 1 they did not cancel the festive procession, wanting to show the world that everything was calm in the USSR. Some experts are sure that if the radioactive cloud had not crossed the borders of the USSR, the world would never have known about the disaster.
Modern Russian media current events are announced in the news at lightning speed.
No one had heard of freedom of speech in the USSR, especially during the reign of Joseph Stalin. Music, cinema, literature, theater and ballet were subject to strict state control. The creative intelligentsia, who wrote or worked not to please the party, was subjected to persecution and repression (Solzhenitsyn, Dovlatov, Brodsky and Voinovich were forced to leave their homeland). State-controlled media voiced only the achievements and successes of the USSR.
Today Russia is a democratic country. In 2006, according to the CNTS Data Archive methodology for determining the democracy index, Russia scored 8 out of 12 possible points.
Stalin was the head of the country for 31 years, Brezhnev for 18 years. Khrushchev led the USSR for 11 years. The irremovability of power led to stagnation public life, and the elections were a mere formality.
In March 2018, the next presidential elections will be held in Russia, in which citizens will elect the head of state by secret ballot.
Historian V.N. Zemskov reports that the number of people convicted for political reasons in the period from 1921 to 1953 reached 3.8 million people. During the years of perestroika, data appeared about 2.6 million repressed people. Historian V.P. Popov reports that from 1923 to 1954 the total number of those convicted was about 40 million. On some days of his reign, Stalin sentenced to death more than 3,000 “enemies of the people.” After the death of the leader, the death machine slowed down. The victims of repression were dissidents, “self-publishers” and authors of propaganda leaflets, participants underground groups And national movements, "dissidents". Criminal penalties for anti-Soviet propaganda were abolished only in 1989.
The lives of those killed and repressed cancel out any economic and social success states.
Entrepreneurs, or speculators and guild workers, as the Soviet government called them, were sent to prison. A striking example- manufacturer of nylon shirts and part-time underground millionaire Mikhail Sher, who was sentenced to death. Same thing Soviet state produce quality clothes couldn't. Nevertheless, underground production flourished: in secret workshops they sewed clothes, produced fake crystal, chandeliers, and galoshes.
Atheism, although it was not legally recognized as an element of state ideology, was actively promoted by the party until 1988. In the 20-30s of the twentieth century, mass persecution and arrests of representatives of the clergy were carried out. Khrushchev only tightened the conditions for the existence of religious communities and launched an attack on “religious relics.” In 1964 the Institute of Scientific Atheism was founded.
The Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees freedom of religion and equality of all citizens regardless of religion.
Famine in 1932-1933, characteristic of the BSSR, Ukrainian SSR, North Caucasus, Southern Urals, Volga region, Northern Kazakhstan and Western Siberia, claimed the lives of 2 to 8 million people. His main feature- "organization". Unlike the food shortages of 1921-1922 and 1946-1947, the famine was not the result of drought or natural disaster, but became a consequence of Stalin’s policies.
Arguments of the defenders of the socialist state
Extensive network of government medical institutions The USSR included hospitals, clinics, sanatorium-resort institutions, research institutes. Polisov health insurance did not exist, every citizen of the country had the right to free qualified medical care. The patient was provided necessary attention and made a diagnosis without symbolic presentations to the doctor. There were 100 doctors per 10,000 population.
Indifference of doctors, lack of staff, huge queues, inability to make an appointment and high price medical services are the main health problems of modern Russia. 38% of Russians do not go to a clinic when they are sick, another 40% are faced with the inability to get to a doctor due to the rudeness of nurses, queues, or incorrectly prescribed treatment.
The right to free education for Soviet citizens (from primary to higher education) was spelled out in the 1975 Constitution of the USSR. According to the political opponents of the Union, the education system of the USSR occupied one of the leading places in the world. As of 1975, there were 856 universities operating in the country, where 5 million students studied. In terms of the number of students per 10,000 population, the USSR surpassed Japan, France, Great Britain and Federal Republic Germany.
In 2009, in terms of the quality of education, the Russian Federation took 41st place out of 65 possible, behind Turkey and the UAE. School fees and bribes for receiving school medal have become a common occurrence.
Although Soviet citizens could not vacation abroad, hundreds of sanatoriums and boarding houses were located on the territory of their vast homeland, to which enterprises and organizations were assigned. In 1988, there were 16,200 rest homes and sanatoriums operating in the country, where people were partially or completely exempt from paying for room and board.
Today, not everyone can relax in the summer with their family - the minimum wage in Russia as of January 1, 2016 is 6,204 rubles. The borders of any state are open for citizens of the Russian Federation, but the population does not have the money to obtain visas, expensive flights and accommodation at fashionable resorts. And the good old sanatoriums have long been privatized or converted into expensive hotels.
The level of inflation in the USSR was not calculated, but based on the “Index of Retail Prices of State and Cooperative Trade,” one can see that over 25 years, from 1940 to 1965, the cost of goods in the USSR increased by an average of 39.4%.
For comparison, in the first years new Russia(from 1991 to 1999) consumer prices increased by 18,000% (eighteen thousand times!). In the new millennium, it was not possible to overcome inflation - in 2015 it amounted to 14%.
In the USSR, of course, there was an elite, but wealthy citizens did not demonstrate their social superiority. The difference in income between the middle class and party leaders was not as great as it is today. Worker highly qualified could receive a salary at the level of a plant director, and in some cases even higher.
As of 2014, the wealthiest 10% Russian citizens 17 times richer than the bottom 10%.
Employees of large enterprises of the USSR received departmental housing on a first-come, first-served basis. Depending on the number of children, the family was given a one-, two-, or three-room apartment. Yes, the apartments were built small, since in the 70s 7 apartments per person were considered the norm. square meters living space (in the 80s - 9 sq. m.), but even a factory worker could count on a separate living space.
It is almost impossible to get free housing in the Russian Federation.
Food products and their composition were regulated by GOSTs. GOST 117-41 determined the production technology and composition of ice cream, GOST 2903-78 - condensed milk.
Nowadays, almost no one checks the quality of products imported into Russia, and in case of violations, the manufacturer can resolve the issue by paying a bribe right at the border. Domestic enterprises and sanitary conditions no one controls the production of products either. The number of allergy sufferers has tripled in a smaller population.
A young specialist in 1975-1985 received 65-130 rubles, and the student stipend was 40 rubles, on which one could live for a month. average salary Soviet people was 200 rubles. With such salaries, lunch in a canteen cost on average 1 ruble, and in a restaurant - 3 rubles. For 11 rubles you could buy a plane ticket from Moscow to Minsk. Citizens with average incomes could easily afford to vacation at sea every year.
The average salary in the Russian Federation is 36.2 thousand rubles. This, in terms of dollars or euros, is lower than in China, Serbia, Poland and Romania.
The structure of society created in the USSR made it possible to keep the “disadvantaged” elements under control - difficult teenagers were in the children's room of the police, their every move was controlled. In every work collective trade union meetings were held regularly, where they could always sort out difficult situation, in which one of the employees ended up. At collective meetings, team members could influence a “dysfunctional” employee. For example, a wife who was beaten by her husband could complain to the trade union committee, after which it took action against the offender, intervening in family problems. In addition, at enterprises and organizations there were comrades' courts that could apply their own measures of influence, often moral, without leading to criminal prosecution.
IN modern society no one cares what happens in a colleague’s family. The wife of a husband who has gone on a drinking binge, or the parents of a drug-addicted son, simply have nowhere to run with their troubles. During the Soviet Union, they would certainly have received help from the party committee and trade union committee. The lack of clear control over the “disadvantaged elements” has led to an increase in crime, suicides, family dramas...
In the USSR, clear criteria were first put forward regarding what should be done and how, and only then was the compliance of the results with the task checked. At the height of the bureaucracy, in 1985, the Soviet Union had 73 civil servants per 10,000 population.
In modern Russia, according to statistical data for 2013, there were 102 officials for every 10 thousand people. With such indicators, modern “management” of the country’s life is reduced to draconian control functions and does not bring anything constructive.
According to official data, in the USSR in the 1980s there were about 50 thousand registered drug addicts. Even if we consider this figure to be underestimated by 2-3 times, still their number in the USSR cannot be compared with the 7.3 million drug addicts registered in Russian Federation according to data for 2015. At the same time, in the USSR, drug addiction was typical for marginal and criminal circles and was practically not found among representatives of the ordinary population. One of the reasons for the low distribution of drugs was the very strict border regime: after all, more than 90% of drugs enter the country from abroad.
People did not starve, because prices were so affordable that any refrigerator always had a “strategic reserve” - condensed milk, eggs, butter, milk, dumplings. Yes, red caviar, pink salmon, cervelat and bananas could only be purchased after standing in a huge line, but everyone could buy these products. For example, a standard jar of red caviar cost 4 rubles 50 kopecks in the early 80s, while the minimum wage in the country was 80-100 rubles. Each house had the necessary furniture. Moreover, domestic manufacturers produced such high-quality products that even today in one or another house you can find tables, chairs, and furniture sets produced in Soviet times. Yes, Soviet people were not lucky enough to buy a luxurious Italian furniture set. However, even today ordinary citizens modern Russia cannot afford something like this.
In 1929, the last labor exchange was closed. Since that time, unemployment in the USSR was completely eliminated. Against the backdrop of the then Great Depression in the West, with unemployment up to 40%, this was a huge achievement. In the USSR, university graduates were guaranteed to receive workplace by specialty. Young specialists were provided with housing. It was not always an apartment, but rented housing or a dormitory was paid for by the enterprise. The work of a worker at a factory was not perceived as a symbol of a loser, and the salary of a turner, miner and representatives of other working professions was higher than the salaries of engineers or officials. The image of a “working man” was maintained at the state level.
In 2016, unemployment in Russia remained at 5.5-6%. Today, the social order for specialists with higher education is several times less than for graduates.
Caring for children in the USSR was officially considered one of priority direction social policy. For the purpose of development children's creativity and propaganda of patriotic education, a network of palaces and houses of pioneers and schoolchildren was created (during the heyday of the so-called “stagnation”, in 1971 there were over 3.5 thousand of them throughout the country). Completely free studios, sections and clubs operated at the palaces and houses of pioneers; competitions, Olympiads, and exhibitions were organized. Children's and youth programs were also free sports schools(Children's and Youth Sports Schools), in which 1.3 million children studied in 1971. Every summer, 10 million schoolchildren vacationed in pioneer camps (there were 40 thousand of them in the country). Cost of tickets to most pioneer camps was symbolic, and a number of categories of children received them for free.
There is another joke when a resident Central Asia ended up in a Russian prison, he drew the conclusion: To whom the bunks are good, to whom the nism is bad. According to your reasoning, wolf mayhem is much better, even if it is of poor order. There’s just one problem, wolves close to the authorities, by some strange coincidence, have appropriated for themselves protected lands rich in food and protect them with the help of devoted guard dogs, while everyone else is invited to grub in desert territories and show courage, ingenuity and love of life, not forgetting This is to feed the watchdogs guarding protected areas.. A strange position. It's better after all equal conditions and opportunities. And the competitive struggle for survival could be waged even in conditions Soviet power, only then did people who were useful to society and the country and did not break laws win the competition. Maybe, of course, Chubais and Kudrin, and the hedgehog with them, are wolves, but somehow they are too small, cowardly - they hide behind the laws written by them, are afraid to tear themselves away from the feeding trough and press their tails at the first danger. This is not how wolves behave, but mongrels.
Answer
Those who understand at least something in this life, they do not want to be wolves, to live among wolves, to recognize wolf laws - freedoms are only for wolves. Therefore, not only those who lived in the Great Union and KNOW how they lived, but for the most part young people already KNOW that such free citizens as soviet people, in the post-Soviet space no one was lucky enough to become. All propaganda of liberal freedom pales in comparison only to the Kemerovo and Perm crematoria, the appearance of which in the USSR was impossible by definition. The task of the “wolves”, about whom the story is told, is to destroy the forest - that is, the Russian Federation, just as the USSR was destroyed. There are a lot of wolf cubs bred. Isn't it time to open the "wolf hunting" season and surround the "forest" with red flags? It's time. Kemerovo showed this. Let the wolves be “businessmen” where they always live. - in Landon and Orizh.
Some Soviet realities really can evoke a feeling of nostalgia.
Free housing
It is known that there were no homeless people in the Soviet Union. That is, they were, of course. Only the prevalence of these antisocial characters then and now cannot be compared. Rare homeless people, along with other “declassed elements,” were sent 101 kilometers from Moscow so as not to spoil the overall picture of happiness and prosperity.
To remain without a roof over your head, you had to try very, very hard. The state guaranteed the right to free housing, even poor housing, even in a communal apartment, even in a hostel, to every citizen of the USSR.
Moreover, separate apartments were also given to everyone. Even though we had to wait in line for many years, it was worth it. The new residents of the so-called departmental houses, built for employees of various institutions and factories, received the keys faster than others. Now the institution of departmental housing has been almost completely destroyed
If you didn’t want to wait and had some savings, people bought cooperative apartments. Some people took as long to pay off their shares as it takes to pay off a mortgage now, but the payments were interest-free.
Free education and medicine
Two more important ones social guarantees, which were provided to citizens of the USSR, and which the current government system pulls with difficulty and only partially.
All types of education were free - secondary, additional, specialized secondary and higher. Like all types of medical care.
Of course, there were cases of corruption (when bribes were given for admission or grades) and cronyism (when people were admitted to the institute through patronage or acquaintance), but, as they say, rumors about this are greatly exaggerated. Anyone could enter a university, paying only by carefully preparing for exams.
Working professions were also honored. Therefore, after the 8th or 10th grades, the children, with desire and confidence in the future, went to secondary special education. educational establishments, where they received the qualifications of turners and plumbers.
There are ongoing debates about whether there were soviet education and medicine are the best in the world, as they were positioned. The issue is truly controversial. Probably, as always, everywhere and in everything, a lot depended on the people who taught and treated, studied and were treated.
By the way, the professions of a teacher and a doctor were considered the most prestigious in the USSR after the profession of an astronaut. Then they were chosen not because of money and not according to the residual principle (“I didn’t get into anywhere, I’ll go to pedagogy”), but for the idea (“I want to help people!”) or by vocation.
Paradox: Soviet science lagged behind in development, but our specialists from many fields, in particular physics and mathematics, were rated very highly in the world.
Movie
Surely there will be people who will say that Soviet cinema sucks and is boring, but even they cannot deny that much more feature-length films were produced in the USSR than now. Moreover, for the most part, these were films that were of high quality according to all criteria - directorial, acting, camera work and other works.
Many Soviet comedies, melodramas, film adaptations of Russian and foreign classics, historical and adventure films want to be watched again and again, which cannot be said about modern products of the domestic film industry.
Severe ideology prevented the implementation of bold avant-garde ideas, but no artistic councils could kill the art and professionalism of people involved in film production of that time.
Stability and absence of pronounced social stratification
Social guarantees provided by the state, stable prices for food, manufactured goods and services - all this instilled in citizens peace of mind and confidence in the future.
Let's put it this way: planning your future in the Soviet Union was easier than in the new Russia. Although the plans themselves were much more modest.
The average salary made it possible to provide oneself and one’s family with basic food, clothing and rest in some health resort with a voucher, which the trade union paid for in whole or in part.
An engineer with a PhD in a small management position received 200-300 rubles, a junior researcher - 120-150, unskilled workers on average earned 70-100 rubles. The salary of a director of a large enterprise could be about 500 rubles per month.
Of course, the USSR also had its own elite - high-ranking officials, honored figures of science, art and culture, who had the right to a number of benefits, such as: a state dacha or “orders” with scarce products.
However, the gap between the income of “top managers” and ordinary workers was not as cosmic as it is now. Thanks to a transparent payment system, a worker at the plant knew how much the director received. This protected the country from the emergence of “class inequality” and internal social tension.
Although the Soviet “equalization” was not to the liking of all citizens.
Absence of drug addiction as a mass phenomenon
Most residents of the Union did not even know that narcotic substances may be used for something other than pain relief. And poppies were grown in gardens exclusively for decorative purposes. This was one of the few "pluses" iron curtain– isolation from the processes taking place in the West.
Drug addiction as a mass phenomenon came to our country along with capitalism, gradually wiping out an entire generation of people whose youth occurred in the 1990s.
A real scourge for everyone social system in the USSR there was alcoholism, which they tried to fight with “prohibition laws”, sobering-up stations and public censure. But is it possible to compare the consequences of this disaster with the mortality and crime rates that drug addiction brought...
Yard games
Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those times when gangs of children gathered in the courtyards, creating hordes of Cossack robbers, musketeers, and soldiers of the Great Patriotic War, disappeared into oblivion; when the girls jumped into hopscotch and rubber bands, they buried “secrets”; when is the most simple thing, accidentally found right here on the street, could become an important part of a complex, well-thought-out game.
These simple-minded fun were gradually replaced by gadgets and social networks. Whether this is good or bad, time will tell.
As the heroes of the cult cartoon said about Masyan: “And we are in Soviet times- oh!..”, meaning that, supposedly, there was still gunpowder in the flasks. For many living today Soviet Union closely connected with memories of childhood and youth. And for them, no matter what, those times will forever remain the best in life.
The deeper into the past they go from us Soviet times, the more they are covered with a thick layer of oblivion, and therefore no one tells today’s children about the happy and prosperous time in which their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers grew up.
Meanwhile, exactly Soviet times and were a time of equal opportunity for us. IN Soviet times The son of a milkmaid and a tractor driver or the daughter of a steelworker and a cook could enter Moscow State University. Tuition was free, and students received a stipend. At the same time, there were no current pseudo-universities, which now serve only as an excuse from the army.
In Soviet times, enroll in prestigious university could be the son of a milkmaid and a tractor driver, or the daughter of a steelworker and a cook.
And the children dreamed of becoming not bankers, but astronauts.
And in the army itselfSoviet timesit was prestigious to serve, and not to serve was shameful, and not a single decent girl would “walk” with a young man who had abandoned the army.
The girls are in Soviet times the vast majority were decent. Until the wedding, they did not sleep with the grooms, but “walked.” Smoking girls were rare, and public opinion were strictly condemned.
Soviet schoolchildren had access to not only school, but also extracurricular education. Both were free. Schoolchildren attended clubs sport sections, studied at the stations young technicians And young naturalists. Much attention was given patriotic education the younger generation. The word “patriot” was not a dirty word - every Soviet person was obliged to be a patriot.
But, most importantly, our man did not have his current main drawback - lack of money. On the contrary, there was so much money that there were not enough goods - industry and transport did not have time to satisfy effective demand. Unlike his Western contemporaries, Soviet people did not pay a mortgage and did not spend on rent - housing was free. Soviet man paid purely symbolic taxes, including, however, a tax on childlessness, which stimulated the birth rate, and utility bills for two-room apartment were 9 rubles 61 kopecks - 1816 rubles in 2013 money.
A ride on the metro or bus cost 5 kopecks (9 rubles 50 kopecks at today’s exchange rate), and on a tram or trolleybus it cost 3 kopecks (57 kopecks in today’s money). Lunch in the student canteen cost one ruble (189 current rubles).
An American paid 56 cents (39.5 kopecks) for a loaf of bread, and a Russian paid 13 kopecks, that is, three times more. A Russian called on the phone for two kopecks, and an American for 25 cents (17.67 kopecks), that is, he paid for phone call 8.837 times more.
IN Soviet times there was no unemployment. Moreover, those who were unemployed were imprisoned for parasitism.
IN Soviet times Huge amounts of money were invested in agriculture.
Most of the products on the shelves were domestically produced. Some were tasty and safe for health.
Every remote village had medical and obstetric stations.
And to accept difficult childbirth, the doctor could even arrive by helicopter.
Soviet pediatrics closely monitored children's health.
All children received the necessary vaccinations on time, and preventive medical examinations were carried out in schools and kindergartens.
In Soviet times, any work was held in high esteem, and a working person enjoyed no less respect than a mental worker.
Fertility in Soviet times was encouraged in every possible way, and large families enjoyed state support. They were allocated houses and multi-room apartments, and the head of the family received RAFik free of charge from the state.
Remote from communications settlements served by small aircraft.
