Yes by "mall" I mean Univermag--the Macmillan defines a mall as "a large building with a lot of shops, restaurants, and sometimes a cinema" which satisfies almo

Yes by "mall" I mean Univermag--the Macmillan defines a mall as "a large building with a lot of shops, restaurants, and sometimes a cinema" which satisfies almost all commercial structures in the USSR. Thus in my definition, the word SHOP is included and there were myriads of those, all full of goods (I cant' speak for all regions but it was so in Moscow, Odessa, Tashkent where I lived)--so for proof of elsewhere maybe you can head on to VK.com and see documented proof of pictures taken by common people, of the abundance. "Gross" income? hehehe. In USSR? I'll let that slide. Wow then according to your economics, they would have been working their a$ses off just to buy a TV--which is not true. Why everybody had a TV then if it was so expensive? If books were mere kopeks, why would TV be so expensive? from a CPI point of view, your logic does not make sense. An engineer, 6 months of income for a TV? That's a ridiculous price-to-income ratio ANYWHERE in any ANY era. My father was on scholarship subsidies, which is way less than what an engineer earned then, and we even had a TV, a projector, a radio, a cassette player, and what not. So how did WE buy it then?? <<Hospitals, while free, were horrific>> are you sure? How can education be top-notch but hospitals horrific? the two are inter-connected. Better education means better doctors. What was horrific about it? It was free! <<Replace "designer" with "not falling apart the day after purchase>> are you sure about that? Most of the Russian stuff from early 80's still working, not so much the new-age "designer" things that have planned obsolescence (look it up in the management textbooks). The quality of textile, toys, electronics, almost everything was better than anywhere in the world (with the exception of cars--but that was only because the Soviets were pragmatists and didn't care about luxury--a Bourgeois concept.) quality was never a problem. << The propaganda kinda lost its effectiveness after the 1960s or so. Certainly by the 1980s few, if anyone, believed it. >> Once again, I wonder how you came to that conclusion. Up until Brezhnev was alive, almost every Soviet Russian believed and followed the doctrines of their government, and were proud to do so. Only after Garbageov did cracks appear probably because of the sell-outs and traitors who were promised the rose gardens of a Capitalist Utopia. Even so, 90% of Russians today regret (see VK.com for proof) that they lost the Soviet era superpower status and high standard of living.