How good it was to live in the USSR. Army

03.07.2020

Some Soviet realities are really capable of evoking a feeling of nostalgia.

Free housing

It is known that there were no homeless people in the Soviet Union. I mean, they were, of course. Only the prevalence of these asocial characters then and now cannot be compared. Rare homeless people, along with other "declassed elements", were sent over the 101st kilometer 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 right to free housing, even poor, even in a communal apartment, even in a hostel, the state guaranteed to every citizen of the USSR.

Moreover, separate apartments were also given to everyone. Even if you had to wait in line for many years, but it was worth it. New settlers of the so-called departmental houses built for employees of various institutions and factories received the keys faster than others. Now the institute of departmental housing has been almost completely destroyed

If they did not want to wait and had some savings, people bought cooperative apartments. Some paid shares for as long as they now pay a mortgage, but the payments were interest-free.

Free education and medicine

Two more important social guarantees, which were provided to the citizens of the USSR, and which the current state system pulls with difficulty and only partially.

All types of education were free - secondary, additional, secondary specialized and higher. Like all types of medical care.

Of course, there were cases of corruption (when bribes were given for admission or for grades) and blat (when they were admitted to the institute by patronage or acquaintance), but, as they say, rumors about this are greatly exaggerated. Anyone could enter a university, paying only for thorough preparation for exams.

Working specialties were also honored. Therefore, the guys after the 8th or 10th grade with desire and confidence in the future went to secondary special schools, where they received the specialty of turners and plumbers.

Now the debate about whether Soviet education and medicine was the best in the world, as they were positioned, does not subside. The question is really debatable. Probably, after all, 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 go anywhere - I’ll go to the pedagogical one”), but for the idea (“I want to help people!”) Or by vocation.

A paradox: Soviet science lagged behind in development, but our specialists from many fields, in particular physicists and mathematicians, were quoted very highly in the world.

Cinema

Surely there will be people who will say that Soviet cinema sucks and is boring, but even they cannot deny that much more feature 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 - directing, acting, camera work and other works.

Many Soviet comedies, melodramas, film adaptations of domestic and foreign classics, historical and adventure films make you want to watch again and again, which cannot be said about modern products of the domestic film industry.

A harsh ideology prevented the implementation of bold avant-garde ideas, but no amount of artistic advice could kill the art and professionalism of people involved in the film industry of that time.

Stability and lack of pronounced social stratification

Social guarantees provided by the state, stable prices for food products, manufactured goods and services - all this instilled calmness and confidence in the future in citizens.

Let's put it this way: planning your future in the Soviet Union was easier than in new Russia. Although the plans themselves were much more modest.

The average salary made it possible to provide oneself and the family with basic food, clothing and rest in some health resort on a voucher, which the trade union paid for in full or in part.

An engineer with a PhD in a small managerial position received 200-300 rubles, a junior researcher - 120-150, unskilled workers on average earned 70-100 rubles. The earnings of the director of a large enterprise could be about 500 rubles a month.

Of course, the USSR also had its own elite - major officials, honored workers of science, art and culture, who were entitled 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 the transparent system of payments, the worker at the plant knew how much the director was getting. This protected the country from the emergence of "class inequality", internal social tension.

Although the Soviet "leveling" was not to the liking of all citizens.

Absence of drug addiction as a mass phenomenon

Most of the inhabitants of the Union did not even know that narcotic substances can be used for something other than pain relief. And poppies were grown in vegetable gardens exclusively for decorative purposes. This was one of the few "pluses" of the 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 a whole generation of people whose youth fell on the 1990s.

A real scourge for the whole social system in the USSR there was alcoholism, which they tried to fight with "dry 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 has brought ...

Yard games

Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the days when gangs of children gathered in the yards created hordes of Cossack robbers, musketeers, soldiers of the Great Patriotic War; when the girls jumped into the hopscotch and "rubber bands", buried the "secrets"; when the simplest thing, accidentally found here, on the street, could become an important part of a complex thought-out game.

These ingenuous amusements were gradually superseded 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! .. ”, realizing that, they say, there was still gunpowder in the powder flasks. For many living Soviet Union closely associated with memories of childhood and youth. And for them, no matter what, those times will forever remain the best in life.

I lived under the Soviet Union for only 9 years, managed to become an Octoberist and - a shock, but the truth - that was enough for me short term to form their attitude towards that country. For this, it was not necessary to understand the wise policy of the party and government, there were quite enough everyday cases. I remember my mother took me home from kindergarten and, passing by the cafeteria, where she often bought a milkshake for 10 kopecks, she showed me a purse in which three kopecks dangled at my corresponding request.

I often asked my father how he assessed the "scoop". His answer was always something like this: "Tosca." Every day you live with the feeling that nothing will ever change in your life - neither the salary, nor the opportunity to move up the career ladder. This is a painful understanding of the need to save up and "knock out" for something all your life, to grovel before someone, to love the Party passionately and go to demonstrations of workers and peasants that no one needs.

Perhaps that is why he went into business as soon as possible.

What is especially surprising is that the Internet is full of young guys who sincerely want to join the “scoop”. These, of course, are complexes from the toothless politics and economies of countries former USSR, this is all from the desire to shake missiles in front of an imaginary enemy who knows how to 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 take permission from the district executive committee? How to show the difference between Nintendo and "Electronics"? How to explain the concept of "scarcity" and convey the greatest value of washed jeans bought from black marketers on a commuter train platform?

In general, I decided to take the first article I came across on the topic “What was good in the USSR” and tried to analyze it from my belfry - as I remember and as I understand it. On the corresponding request in Google, this link is the first to be issued.

1. Soviet education was considered the best in the world, but now what?

Indeed, it is widely believed that Soviet education was good. I wouldn’t say the best in the world, it was claimed by Soviet propaganda, but there was nothing for citizens to compare with, because the border, as they say, is locked ... In what coordinates is the quality of education measured? Obviously, scientific success in the West was no less than in the USSR. Moreover, if everyone in the "scoop" was so smart, then why didn't they know how to make good video recorders and cars? Something is wrong here.

2. Free medical care.

Medicine both now and then conditionally free. It is obvious that the quality of medical care has decreased, even the “norms” for staying in the hospital for various diseases have been reduced. Decreased life expectancy. However, when compared with decaying capitalist countries, life expectancy in the USSR was lower than that of the "enemy".

I explain it simply: the lack of modern medicines and treatments. While all the forces went into the creation of the next warheads, citizens were dying without advanced diagnostics. The MRI machine was created west of Brest, the Nobel Prize was also left by non-Soviet scientists. Sad but true.

3. Free housing.

Common misconception about the USSR. In fact, there was no free housing in the "scoop", but the queue for cooperative housing was moving faster, which cost quite normal money, albeit on a reasonable installment plan for 25 years. In reality, the authorities of the USSR provided the working people with a roof over their heads, but of dubious consumer qualities.

"Free" was used to call public housing provided to the tenant on a lifetime lease. It was necessary to wait a couple of decades for it, and it was not issued to everyone. By the way, after the collapse of the USSR, the owners of such apartments were faced with the need to privatize meters for a lot of money, otherwise it would become the property of the city. Which, in general, proves the real nature of such housing - in fact, this is a hostel.

4. Unemployment. There was no unemployment in the USSR. After graduating from the university there was a distribution.

This is so, 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 labor exploits!

The main problem of this labor equalization was low wages, which in fact were 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 them on a level lower than those who cut bolts at the factory.

Thus, people fell into unpleasant scissors: on the one hand, there was nowhere to go, on the other, a semi-beggarly existence awaited you throughout your life.

5. Products. Under the Union, there were better products.

Another common nonsense. In the "scoop" everything was bad with food and consumer goods. It is enough to look at photographs of stores of those years, at how people are dressed, to understand what kind of food they had to serve on the table.

Many in this place start shaking GOSTs and memories of “real meat” in sausage. In fact, GOST determines only the proportions of what to mix with what. If even the tibia of cows could be ground into liver sausage according to GOST, then this was done.

In addition, I remember the "scoop" as a country of eternal scarcity. 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 as a country that was friends with half the countries Latin America and Africa could not organize a sufficient supply of bananas, penny fruit. The taste of a fresh banana (there was an ersatz in the stores - dried sweet bananas of the ugliest taste) I knew only in 1988, without even realizing what exactly I had eaten! Issued in kindergarten bit by bit...

6. Confidence in the future.

It is a fact. Citizens were confident in the future. Do not subtract or add. The bottom accompanied the whole 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, they did not spare money for the "defense". Probably, the USSR was even feared abroad, but there are two important points here.

A strong army does not affect the lives of ordinary people in any way, except in a negative direction (when all the forces are spent on creating tanks, there is no money left for jeans).

In addition, 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 aircraft, things could have turned out differently.

8. Plants and factories.

You can't argue that it was, it was. Giant and smaller enterprises were built in the USSR. Unfortunately, often based on Western technologies.

Again, this is not a country achievement in and of itself. Factories and factories were built all over the world, this is a normal process.

9. All clothes were of high quality.

If we are talking about the quality in terms of clothing strength, then yes, many managed to wear shoes for 10 years. Otherwise, there was a problem with clothes, which confirms the demand in the shadow market, when jeans were given many, many full-weight Soviet rubles.

In my opinion, the worst thing that happened in the USSR was the lack of choice in everything. In school, work, food, clothes. A Soviet citizen could not leave the country and choose the housing that he likes. He could not make some repairs of his own and buy those boots for his wife that he wanted, and not which he had.

The state planned the life of a person from birth to death, there was no trace of any initiative from below. In general, this is what ruined the country - strangled motivation.

God forbid we all come back. Now life is a thousand times better.

The whole story is a continuous myth-making. In this regard, it is not surprising that even with regard to very recent events, which are now full of witnesses, we observe such conflicting opinions, I mean the Soviet era. Many found her, but the impression is that people simply erased half of their memories, with one half and the other half.

In this regard, I would like to tell what I personally saw and remembered. Of course, I did not find the USSR in its, so to speak, in stagnant flowering. I was born on February 10, 1977 in the city of Kiev.

Let's start with the minuses, in order to still move on to the pluses, this is more pleasant than the reverse situation.

I read all my books in two places: in public transport and in the toilet. And then I recently remembered one detail, when you used to come to any Soviet apartment, then you always had such a “kick” hanging on your left or right, let's call it that, where cut sheets of paper or mostly sheets of newspaper were stored.

What do you think it was intended for?… Exactly for this! To, in the language of Pushkin, to wipe his sinful hole. And why? The answer is very simple, there was no toilet paper in the Soviet Union. Well, that is, it was somewhere, it was produced, and of such quality, I would call “silk emery”, well, it’s better than a newspaper. So she was gone, it was impossible to get up, go to the store and buy a roll of toilet paper. From here, all these wonderful pictures, when a person who has purchased this product, walks around, hanging it like bagels around his neck.

Another observation, I once had an affair with a Swede, 6 or 7 years older than me, I don’t remember exactly, who told me her first impressions of a trip to the USSR when she came as a student. She was struck by the fact that everyone asked her for a lighter. This was because there were no lighters in the Soviet Union, only matches.

In other words, there was nothing in the USSR, no normal clothes, no normal furniture, no normal food. No, of course it was everything, but in order to get it all, it was necessary to dodge, contrive and I don’t know what to do. I got my first sneakers in the fourth grade, they struck me with two things: they were comfortable and aesthetic. This is one of the phenomena of Soviet reality, which all the classic films that you have seen speak of. Remember: three suede jackets, two Japanese tape recorders and blah, blah, blah ...? Everything imported was valued for quality and appearance. And it was impossible to buy all this in the public domain.

Well, it’s clear that you would never go to any foreign country, the maximum that you could do was somehow miraculously get into the countries of the so-called “eastern bloc” Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria. All these Thailand, France, azure shores and so on, alas, forget!

And, of course, cars. Well, now what you do, most, go to the bank, take out a loan and buy a car. As things happened in the Soviet Union, in order to buy a car, by the way, it was really possible to save up for it, well, it would take a little effort, but still, a Moskvich cost around 3 thousand rubles, you had to stand in line for this car, wait a few years. And so you bought this car a few years later, and there were no spare parts stores, and if something broke, you had to get out of the situation yourself. From here all these savvy Soviet mechanics - Kulibins.

Well, there was no question of any business, you would simply go to jail if you were engaged in any kind of business. It was impossible to rent a room and open a shop or cafe there.

This was the greatness of the Soviet Union, which launched rockets into space and could not provide its population with toilet paper. Therefore, if you are moaning now, about what great country we have lost, then I highly recommend you: a) give up everything imported in your everyday life, instantly; b) forget about any personal entrepreneurial initiatives; c) consume only a domestic product, including cultural, current, forget about all Hollywood films, foreign music.

And here the question arises, since everything was so bad, how did the country survive, how did it exist all this time? And it existed, judging from the stories of many people, not bad at all. And here we turn to the second part, to the pluses of the Soviet Union.

The first answer is extremely simple. The fact is that in the Soviet Union there was no what is now commonly called - "consumer society". People lived in completely different things, they valued other things. Simply put, they had other values. For example, in the USSR there was a common practice when you collect waste paper, turn it in, and for this you have the opportunity to purchase ... Are you sitting? ... Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's three-volume book. For the sake of acquiring this three-volume book, people went for such things, and were happy when they received it. I myself had such a story in my family, and the three-volume book is still gathering dust on my mother's bookshelf.

There were completely different social connections. The people were more open to communication, there was no social isolation, when everyone is on the Internet in social networks and at the same time very lonely inside, this was not the case. My grandmother, God rest her soul, had a huge number of friends, where did she find them? In all sorts of sanatoriums, rest homes, anywhere. She got acquainted with them, began to communicate, correspond and visit each other. My dad met an Armenian named Hamlet in the hospital, and I was 9 years old and we flew to Yerevan, just like that people met in the hospital and we flew to Yerevan, and then Hamlet's family flew to our one-room apartment in Kiev.

From here one more conclusion, in the USSR the national question was not as acute as it is now. A boy named Trilgosanzade studied in my class, he was an Azerbaijani, and I never worried about the fact that he was Azerbaijani, it never even occurred to me to think about it. There was also the boy Danya, a pronounced Jew, and it never occurred to anyone to think about it at least somehow. People calmly moved around the country, people felt like one people. I’m silent about the fact that all Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians, I’ll tell you a secret, they were all considered Russians, well, the dialect was different there, but in fact everyone understood that they were Russians.

Children were calmly allowed to go to school, by public transport, they left and came on their own. None of the parents even had a headache due to the fact that some kind of pedophile would attack, steal, and the like.

And of course, yes, in the USSR there was censorship, and quite tough. But the fact is that in addition to a bad influence, she also had a very good influence on our cinema, on our animation, on our children's literature and so on. This consisted in the fact that bullshit was suppressed, hack work was forbidden, it was not allowed through. That is why we now watch any Soviet film with such pleasure, even if it is ideologically turned. For all this was done with soul and professionalism. No one sat and thought - "Ah, damn it, people eat it."

And of course, the most important thing is ideology. Soviet society was one hundred percent ideological, people knew why they live, why they live, what they live for, who is their friend and who is their enemy. It helped them to unite, it helped them in everything, on a subconscious level. Moreover, from the very cradle it was hammered into my head that, for example, my grandmother needed to be taken across the street, help bring her bags, it was just like our father. And when I was accepted as a pioneer, I understood that now I simply have to help grandmothers who carry heavy bags.

In 1976 my parents got married, in 1977 I was born, and in 1978 my parents bought a one-room apartment in Kiev, they bought it for 2300 rubles, my mother received 80 rubles, my father received 130 rubles. They accumulated a thousand rubles in three years, the rest was added by the parents of mom and dad. They bought this apartment and that's it, they solved their housing problem. There were no these mortgages, under these infernal interest rates. If desired, it was possible to buy an apartment, and sometimes even get it for free.

Let's summarize. Everything that was bad, for example, a shortage, we got rid of it, we now have millions of varieties of sausages, cars, gadgets, anything. But everything that was good in the USSR, we pissed off. And I think people who are now nostalgic for the Soviet era and say that the USSR was a great power have in mind, first of all, all the good things. But, unfortunately, talking about the pros, it is impossible to forget about the cons. Therefore, the Soviet Union cannot be returned, a person gets used to good things very quickly, you can’t force people to go to BAM now, no matter how much you want, they won’t get out of their fucking warm offices. So you'll excuse me, but the Soviet Union is buried and can't be returned. Therefore, we need to live with what we have now and solve the problems that we have now!

Vladislav Inozemtsev, Ph.D. PhD, Director of the Center for Post-Industrial Society Studies:

“Today, one can often encounter frank praise of the Soviet system, including the economy of that time. What remains in memory is that in 1985 the RSFSR produced almost 6 times more trucks, 14 times more combines, 34 times more tractors, 91 times more watches and 600 times (!) More cameras than, for example, , in 2010 in Russia. But at the same time, today the country collects 118 million tons of grain against the then 97 million tons, and everyone has a camera, even if it is in the form of a smartphone.

Worked for "shaft"

Could the Soviet economy be reborn and fit into the modern global world? Nothing can be ruled out - especially if you look at the progress of China. But for this it was necessary to start p-perestroika earlier, at least in the late 1960s, until the most serious negative features of the socialist economy were fully manifested in the USSR. What I mean?

First of all, the growing inefficiency, which was embodied in production for the sake of production, when the economy grew without visible consequences for the level and quality of life. Let's take the dry statistics of the State Statistics Committee: from 1960 to 1985, cement production increased by 2.89 times, and the commissioning of residential buildings - by 3.4%; tractors were produced 2.46 times more, mineral fertilizers - 10.1 times more, while the number of cows increased by 21%, grain harvest - by 7.7%, and potatoes even fell by 13.5%. The list goes on. For the last 20 years, the Soviet economy has been working for the notorious "shaft", and not for the end consumer.

The biggest problem was the quality of the products. In the USSR, they produced 4 pairs of shoes per person per year, almost 50 square meters. m of fabrics. But almost half of the goods sold light industry supplied from the countries of the socialist camp - domestic products simply were not in demand. Despite the leadership of the USSR in space exploration and the development of weapons systems, color televisions and video recorders were mastered by the Soviet industry 20-25 years later than in Japan or Europe (I'm not talking about computers or copying equipment).

The entire economy of the USSR was focused on the reproduction of the deficit - its distribution was one of the forms of building formal and informal power verticals. The heads of regional committees and directors of factories in Moscow knocked out the necessary equipment, ordinary citizens made useful contacts (blat) to get the necessary goods. The idea of the rarity of any good was almost a “national idea” in the USSR; the entire pyramid of the planned economy rested on it.

No economy, no freedom

Least valued free time person. On average, Soviet people spent up to 2.2 hours a day in queues; up to 1.4 hours - in public transport. In the Soviet Union, household appliances that were available to any European family in the mid-1980s, such as coffee makers and dishwashers, microwave ovens, and much more, were never introduced. The Soviet man was considered necessary by the authorities only at the workplace, after the end of the working day he had to fight the system created by his own labor.

The life of the people was quite strictly regulated. I'm not talking about traveling abroad (today 53% of our air passengers fly on international flights, in the USSR there were less than 2% of them); there were no free sources of information, no real freedom of movement within the country. There was no housing market, changing jobs was a big problem; career growth in most cases it was determined by considerations of political maturity and loyalty to the authorities. Of course, such an economy could not be flexible.

Up to recent years private entrepreneurship never appeared in the Soviet Union, and when it did, it undoubtedly became associated with nothing more than trading and speculation, since the only thing it was capable of at that time was to fill commodity niches by reselling state resources . However, even minor indulgences led to the fact that the mighty Soviet economy quickly faced financial problems that hastened its collapse.

What, to sum up, was the main problem of the Soviet economy? In my opinion, that it was not an economy in the proper sense of the word, which implies individual initiative, competition, efficiency and technological progress; private property, taxes, and the separation of public and private. Everything that the USSR could create is the notorious National economy, which collapsed as soon as they tried to introduce truly economic elements into it. You can regret it, but it's impossible to return it...

USSR: faith in tomorrow

Nikolai Burlyaev, director, people's artist of the Russian Federation:

- If you look at life philosophically, then the collapse of the USSR can be assessed both as a catastrophe and as a reason for Russia to make another leap forward.

Was the collapse of the Soviet Union a disaster? Undoubtedly! Because any revolution is the roar of Lucifer. And the collapse of the great power, which our ancestors collected bit by bit, principality after principality, and which three people allowed themselves to destroy over a bottle of vodka in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, is a crime. And the descendants will still pass their judgment on him.

Knowledge was given to everyone

The further the era of the USSR goes down in history, the better we will understand how much good was in the Soviet Union, what was destroyed by our young reformers and traitors to the Fatherland, who were sitting in the country's leadership. Let's start with education. It was in those decades one of the best in the world, although the West pretended that it was not. I got two higher education- Shchukin school and VGIK. And I know for myself what kind of knowledge base was laid for students in the field of humanitarian disciplines. We knew both the Western school of painting and world literature. Coming to America, we could talk about the subtleties of the lyrics of their poet Whitman so that they opened their mouths in surprise. We knew more than the Americans knew about their own literature and culture.

AND school education It was an order of magnitude better than both the current one and the Western one. First of all, it is better because it was general, and not sectoral, as they do now, when you study in depth only a few subjects, and you can not study everything else at all. But this principle is wrong! An unconditional plus of the USSR and numerous circles that all children without exception could go to, which were free, that is, publicly available. That is why in the deep provinces such nuggets appeared as Sergey Bondarchuk,Andrei Tarkovsky,Vasily Shukshin- our Lomonosov from cinema, breaking through from Siberia to the capital. At present, the Shukshins will no longer break through - now education is paid. And this is a crime against Russia - paid education.

Next is medicine... Although the service in Soviet clinics was not as elitist as in the same America or today in expensive medical centers, nevertheless, there was a guarantee that you would be seriously treated by professionals. And now the purchase of diplomas is flourishing, and sometimes a surgeon cannot even cut off bread, let alone complex operation spend.

The principle of dedication

There is such a common phrase: a country is judged by how children and the elderly live in it. When I retired a few years ago, I came to the social security office to draw up documents. They counted 7 thousand to me. I ask: “Does something rely on for the title of People’s Artist of Russia?” “Yes,” they say, “another 300 rubles.” And with this money - 7-9 thousand rubles. Today millions of older people are offered to live. We, pensioners, do not have tomorrow with such incomes. And in the USSR there was tomorrow. Everyone has. Nobody even thought: will there be tomorrow? Will there be work? Will they be evicted from the apartment? Will there be something to feed the children? And now this question is before everyone - everyone! - human.

Confidence in the future is not just a bunch of words, it is the basis of life. And she, confidence, was one hundred percent among the entire population of the country. Graduating students knew that they would definitely get a job. And today I do not know how my children - and I have five of them - will be able to get settled, feed themselves. What's in store for them? And they all have excellent education, which is not very much in demand now. The old people understood that yes - the pension is small, but you can live on it. And also help the kids. The young worker knew that the enterprise where he works would help with an apartment and give children a place in the kindergarten. Everyone lived then from paycheck to paycheck, not rich. But all are on an equal footing. There was no such glaring gap between the rich and the poor.

We were plunged into capitalism without any referenda, without asking the people: do we want this or not? Forgetting that the ruble has never been the main thing for Russia. The mysterious Russian soul, which rows not towards itself, but away from itself, had other fundamental values. In the West, they have the most important principle - self-affirmation, while in our country the principle of self-giving has always been the main thing. And, no matter how hard they tried to switch us to this principle of egoism, they failed to do it.

The collapse of the USSR was a disaster. But Russia is so powerful that, being under the protection of the Mother of God, it managed to grind through all the negative moments and in a crisis, under the onslaught of Western countries, under sanctions, it again made an incredible leap forward.

Chronicle of decay

06/12/1990. The Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted a declaration of sovereignty, establishing the priority of Russian laws over Soviet ones.

March 1991 At the referendum on the preservation of the USSR as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, 76% voted “for” (the Baltic republics, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, which had previously declared independence, did not participate). On August 18-21, 1991, the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), created by functionaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU, members of the USSR government, representatives of the army and the KGB, seized power for 3 days in order to stop the collapse of the USSR. The August coup failed.

12/8/1991. The heads of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed an agreement on the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

25.12.1991. USSR President M. Gorbachev announced the termination of his activities in this post "for reasons of principle".

The whole story is a continuous myth-making. In this regard, it is not surprising that even with regard to very recent events, which are now full of witnesses, we observe such conflicting opinions, I mean the Soviet era. Many found her, but the impression is that people simply erased half of their memories, with one half and the other half.

In this regard, I would like to tell what I personally saw and remembered. Of course, I did not find the USSR in its, so to speak, flowering. I was born in the mid 70s of the XX century.

Let's start with the minuses, in order to still move on to the pluses, this is more pleasant than the reverse situation.

I read all my books in two places: in public transport and in the toilet. And then I recently remembered one detail, when you used to come to any Soviet apartment, you always had such a “pencil case” hanging on your left or right, let's call it that, where cut sheets of paper or mostly sheets of newspaper were stored.

What do you think it was intended for?… Exactly for this! To, to put it mildly, to wipe... And why so? The answer is very simple, there was no toilet paper in the Soviet Union. Well, that is, it was somewhere, it was produced, and of such quality, I would call “silk emery”, well, it’s better than a newspaper. So she was gone, it was impossible to get up, go to the store and buy a roll of toilet paper. From here, all these wonderful pictures, when a person who has purchased this product, walks around, hanging it like bagels around his neck.

Another observation, I once knew a Swede, 6 or 7 years older than me, I don’t remember exactly, who told me her first impressions of a trip to the USSR when she came as a student. She was struck by the fact that everyone asked her for a lighter. This was because in the Soviet Union there were no lighters other than gasoline, there were matches.

Well, there was no question of any business, you would simply go to jail if you were engaged in any kind of business. It was impossible to rent a room and open a shop or cafe there.

This was the misery of the Soviet Union, which launched rockets into space and could not provide its population with toilet paper.

And here the question arises, since everything was so bad, how did the country survive, how did it exist all this time? And it existed, judging by the stories of many people, very well.

From here one more conclusion, in the USSR the national question was not as acute as it is now. A boy named Trilgosan-zade studied in my class, he was an Azerbaijani, and I never worried about the fact that he was Azerbaijani, it never even occurred to me to think about it. There was also the boy Danya, a pronounced Jew, and it never occurred to anyone to think about it at least somehow. People calmly moved around the country, people felt like one people. I’m silent about the fact that all Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians, I’ll tell you a secret, they were all considered Russians, well, the dialect was different there, but in fact everyone understood that they were Russians.

Children were calmly allowed to go to school, by public transport, they left and came on their own. None of the parents even had a headache due to the fact that some kind of pedophile, with very rare exceptions, would attack, steal, and the like.

When my parents got married and I was born, my parents bought a one-room apartment, they bought it for 2,300 rubles, my mother received 80 rubles, my father received 130 rubles. They accumulated a thousand rubles in three years, the rest was added by the parents of mom and dad. They bought this apartment and that's it, they solved their housing problem. There were no these mortgages, under these infernal interest rates. If desired, it was possible to buy an apartment, and sometimes get it for free.

Let's summarize. Everything that was bad, for example, a shortage, we got rid of it, we now have millions of varieties of sausages, cars, gadgets, anything. But everything that was good in the USSR we blew. And I think people who are now nostalgic for Soviet era and they say that the USSR was a great power, they mean, first of all, everything good. But, unfortunately, talking about the pros, it is impossible to forget about the cons. Therefore, the Soviet Union cannot be returned, a person very quickly gets used to the good, you will not force people to go to the BAM now, no matter how much you would like, they will not crawl out of their warm and comfortable offices. So you'll excuse me, but the Soviet Union can no longer be returned. Therefore, we need to live with what we have now and solve the problems that we have now!