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As someone who's a bit older than the author and from the same corner of the world - this was a really nice piece. Brought a lot of memories from the early 90s

As someone who's a bit older than the author and from the same corner of the world - this was a really nice piece. Brought a lot of memories from the early 90s. The blackouts, the queues for bread and fruits, and the empty shelves... I was a kid back then and I didn't had any perspective. But I wander how my parents dealt with all that. I can't recall they complaining too much.

pavel_lishin 3y ago
My family is from Russia, and we were luckier than most due to some factors (which, again, mostly came from luck.) But yeah - it's odd to go through some of those memories when comparing them to the writings and memories of others, realizing that while I lived through a very strange period of time, I didn't get to experience much of that strangeness due to my age.
saiya-jin 3y ago
Same for other countries in eastern block, Soviet union was very keen to erase individualities of given society and create 'uniform communist people'. Life was simple, even trivial - state gave work, you went straight to jail if you refused. No organized crime, nothing to steal since everything was owned by state. No hard drugs, just endless misery of alcohol and heavy smoking. So even sizeable roma population which now has some 98% unemployment rate were all working, even if in completely meaningless jobs. Government often also gave accommodation in those tolerable-at-the-time concrete flats. I meant allowed people to take a loan for state-built accommodation, you still had to pay it back. Same for cars, my parents waited few years since they were not apparatchiks (just university-educated folks which was already a bad place to be in eyes of regime, they had 1/2 salary of a guy digging ditches and struggled to get by financially), no way to choose color or anything else, take it or bye. Of course if you were known for causing troubles then you were eternally at the end of queue. Same for stupid things like... a couch. I wish I was joking. People were often dangerously naive, that's why when it fell 90s were so brutal - wolves always making part of population stepped from the shadows and stole everything, killed anybody in their way, often in gruesome ways. Sounds familiar? Every single post-soviet and eastern block (aka nuclear battlefield as planned by soviets for WWIII that never came) ended up like that. I still firmly blame soviet union for all this, and lets be honest current Russia is trying to bring back those 'good' old times desperately anyway it can. And for some reason those pesky satellites don't want to lose that stupid freedom so easily. No idea why

pavel_lishin 3y ago

My family is from Russia, and we were luckier than most due to some factors (which, again, mostly came from luck.) But yeah - it's odd to go through some of those memories when comparing them to the writings and memories of others, realizing that while I lived through a very strange period of time, I didn't get to experience much of that strangeness due to my age.

saiya-jin 3y ago

Same for other countries in eastern block, Soviet union was very keen to erase individualities of given society and create 'uniform communist people'. Life was simple, even trivial - state gave work, you went straight to jail if you refused. No organized crime, nothing to steal since everything was owned by state. No hard drugs, just endless misery of alcohol and heavy smoking. So even sizeable roma population which now has some 98% unemployment rate were all working, even if in completely meaningless jobs. Government often also gave accommodation in those tolerable-at-the-time concrete flats. I meant allowed people to take a loan for state-built accommodation, you still had to pay it back. Same for cars, my parents waited few years since they were not apparatchiks (just university-educated folks which was already a bad place to be in eyes of regime, they had 1/2 salary of a guy digging ditches and struggled to get by financially), no way to choose color or anything else, take it or bye. Of course if you were known for causing troubles then you were eternally at the end of queue. Same for stupid things like... a couch. I wish I was joking. People were often dangerously naive, that's why when it fell 90s were so brutal - wolves always making part of population stepped from the shadows and stole everything, killed anybody in their way, often in gruesome ways. Sounds familiar? Every single post-soviet and eastern block (aka nuclear battlefield as planned by soviets for WWIII that never came) ended up like that. I still firmly blame soviet union for all this, and lets be honest current Russia is trying to bring back those 'good' old times desperately anyway it can. And for some reason those pesky satellites don't want to lose that stupid freedom so easily. No idea why