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I grew up under this commie system in a rural Polish village in the 1970's. While my American peers had TV, cars, and supermarkets, I had no running water, no

I grew up under this commie system in a rural Polish village in the 1970's. While my American peers had TV, cars, and supermarkets, I had no running water, no sewer service, intermittent electricity, and no fancy technology like refrigerators. We farmed wheat, beets, potatoes for sale, and raised animals for our own use. Without running water, you're using a well, which is terrible in the winter, particularly if it's cold, the same goes for going to the bathroom in outhouses. Sitting on a cold wooden seat in -20C is really awful. When we did get water from the well, we had to boil it for a while to kill the germs, so having water to drink was a production. When it came time to take a bath, you'd boil well water to warm it up, and make a warm bath. Everyone used the same water since it took so long. Kids washed first, then women, then men. yes, we certainly produced zero waste. All the crops were canned and stored in the pantry, all the meat was cured and stored to dry, and whatever was perishable was canned, pickled or preserved in some way (remember, no fridge). It's a freaking hard way to live. When we fled to the US eventually, it was like coming to a different world, life was simply so much better that it's hard to compare. So, when I see stories like this, I really hope that zero-waste doesn't happen for the reasons of poverty. It's positively awful for the people living it. It's also very dirty. People who are poor have no extra funds to get rid of unsalvageable waste other than to bury or burn it, and the number of tires, old boots, or chemicals that got burned in the stove was ridiculous. Living in a cold country, with coal and wood being the most plentiful heat sources also made for some lousy air, and I grew up in the Podlasie Voivodeship, which was cleaner than most because it was completely unindustrialized. Whatever the communists got right was by accident.

Twixes 7y ago
That must have been in some completely rural area, as cities were alright for amenities. Commie blocks never were super pretty, but they did have electricity, heating, hot water without a boiler. Shops still poorly stocked though.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  The new fangled communist blocks did, but older developments were often left without this, even at the fall of communism. I live in the capital of my country, and 30 years ago a lot of the old town - places that are now the most expensive places to live - were at the time some of the poorest.
- in3d 7y ago
  Even in the small towns all of these existed (at least in the 80s) and it seemed safe. But still, it didn’t compare to Western Europe's standard of living at all.
  - krige 7y ago
    Can confirm, when in 1985 we moved to our house in a small (~10k) town, the street it was on didn't even have a water supply to each house, instead everyone had to use a public drawing point in the middle of that street. We had to lay down the piping to our house by ourselves and at our own cost.
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  Don't make a mistake of generalizing on communist countries, there were huge differences in a life style between them, especially in rural areas.
- mantas 7y ago
  Far from everybody lived in commie blocks. And commie blocks varied widely from what you think as commie block in a major city to a weird things with missing and/or ad-hoc utilities in rural parts. And commie regimes tried to stop people from moving to cities to have enough workforce to work in terribly inefficient farms. So rural parts made up much much bigger part of population.
- oppositelock 7y ago
  It was 8km outside of Białystok, which was a city of 300,000. Yes, people in the cities did have those things, but compared to the country, you had much more difficulty getting food products. Since we produced those items, we simply made sure the inspectors didn't know about the food we kept for ourselves. The national ration cards were irrelevant to us. It was a pretty terrible time in Poland under communism, even though it did have some positive aspects, overall, it was terribly dehumanizing, at least from my perspective.
dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
Oh boy, this brought some interesting memories. I was moving between a small town (where we had all amenities) and a nearby village (with no running water etc., just as you describe) roughly at the same time. But maybe because I was a kid, I don't remember these things as terrible. With one exception: washing dishes. It was terrible, the fat didn't want to go away, it was taking ages. Also, we were using potties. The content of the potties was used as manure for the plants in the garden (it was very big, so it was never enough). Since the well was very close to the house, we never had the idea to bathe in the same water. But it took a long time to prepare the bath by mixing the cold and boiling water in the ight proportions, and then carefully washing the soap from the body with water from a separate container. Man, I can't imagine spending that much time on these things now...
b0rsuk 7y ago
Modern Japanese use bath water in a very similar way. Kids first, then parents, then grandparents. The Japanese are very frugal with water. In a toilet you may see a sink placed right on top of toilet tank, so the water you use to wash your hands is used right away to flush the toilet.
asjw 7y ago
That's another issue entirely and has nothing to do with communism > It’s almost 2020, and 2 million Americans still don’t have running water, according to new report https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/its-almost-2020-and-2-million-americans-still-dont-have-running-water-new-report-says/2019/12/10/a0720e8a-14b3-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/its-almost-2020-and-...

Twixes 7y ago

That must have been in some completely rural area, as cities were alright for amenities. Commie blocks never were super pretty, but they did have electricity, heating, hot water without a boiler. Shops still poorly stocked though.

fyfy18 7y ago
The new fangled communist blocks did, but older developments were often left without this, even at the fall of communism. I live in the capital of my country, and 30 years ago a lot of the old town - places that are now the most expensive places to live - were at the time some of the poorest.
in3d 7y ago
Even in the small towns all of these existed (at least in the 80s) and it seemed safe. But still, it didn’t compare to Western Europe's standard of living at all.
- krige 7y ago
  Can confirm, when in 1985 we moved to our house in a small (~10k) town, the street it was on didn't even have a water supply to each house, instead everyone had to use a public drawing point in the middle of that street. We had to lay down the piping to our house by ourselves and at our own cost.
ivanhoe 7y ago
Don't make a mistake of generalizing on communist countries, there were huge differences in a life style between them, especially in rural areas.
mantas 7y ago
Far from everybody lived in commie blocks. And commie blocks varied widely from what you think as commie block in a major city to a weird things with missing and/or ad-hoc utilities in rural parts. And commie regimes tried to stop people from moving to cities to have enough workforce to work in terribly inefficient farms. So rural parts made up much much bigger part of population.
oppositelock 7y ago
It was 8km outside of Białystok, which was a city of 300,000. Yes, people in the cities did have those things, but compared to the country, you had much more difficulty getting food products. Since we produced those items, we simply made sure the inspectors didn't know about the food we kept for ourselves. The national ration cards were irrelevant to us. It was a pretty terrible time in Poland under communism, even though it did have some positive aspects, overall, it was terribly dehumanizing, at least from my perspective.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago

Oh boy, this brought some interesting memories. I was moving between a small town (where we had all amenities) and a nearby village (with no running water etc., just as you describe) roughly at the same time. But maybe because I was a kid, I don't remember these things as terrible. With one exception: washing dishes. It was terrible, the fat didn't want to go away, it was taking ages. Also, we were using potties. The content of the potties was used as manure for the plants in the garden (it was very big, so it was never enough). Since the well was very close to the house, we never had the idea to bathe in the same water. But it took a long time to prepare the bath by mixing the cold and boiling water in the ight proportions, and then carefully washing the soap from the body with water from a separate container. Man, I can't imagine spending that much time on these things now...

b0rsuk 7y ago

Modern Japanese use bath water in a very similar way. Kids first, then parents, then grandparents. The Japanese are very frugal with water. In a toilet you may see a sink placed right on top of toilet tank, so the water you use to wash your hands is used right away to flush the toilet.

asjw 7y ago

That's another issue entirely and has nothing to do with communism > It’s almost 2020, and 2 million Americans still don’t have running water, according to new report https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/its-almost-2020-and-2-million-americans-still-dont-have-running-water-new-report-says/2019/12/10/a0720e8a-14b3-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/its-almost-2020-and-...