Russian people in their own words
What an accurate word was found to describe the life in the Soviet Union: a standstill. Precisely! Absolute standstill indeed!
You are 10 years old. Your mom gives you one ruble and sends you to the store: Continue reading “More on: Soviet Union through The Eyes of Ordinary People”
By Prof. Valeriy Antonovich Torgashev
Foreword by Nikolay Starikov, who published prof. Torgashev’s letter on his blog:
I receive about a 100 letters every day. You, my dear reader, criticize or thank me, send me your reviews and articles. Some of them require further study, others deserve immediate publication.
Today I offer you something that is certainly worthy of your attention. The topic discussed is very important. Professor Valeriy Antonovich Torgashev tells us about the USSR of his childhood. Continue reading “USSR: Stalin’s Economy, a Personal Story. Part 1 of 4”
To common folk living in the Soviet Union times, the country is not remembered in terms of “$1=76 kopecks,” “the strongest military,” or “the all-mighty KGB.” I mean, we all knew we were well protected and could always count on our country’s military and its KGB, by we didn’t really see its might. A common person didn’t have a slightest idea of what a dollar looked like. We weren’t thinking about Soviet Union’s GDP, its grand industry, or its economic growth. We were thinking in different terms and looked at other things: Continue reading “Soviet Union through The Eyes of Common People”
By Oleg Vereshyagin
Hans, 11 years old, German: I don’t want to be “the German!”
If anyone remembers, there was a TV program in soviet times called They Chose USSR. It was about people from capitalist countries who for whatever reason moved to “the correct” side of the Iron Curtain. The program was most certainly buried with the beginning of perestroika [perestroika means restructure, rebuild in Russian – RV], for it became fashionable to talk about the Kramorovs and Nurievs, who went West in hopes of high praises of their enormous talents and were happily creative there. This was hard to grasp for the rest of us, miserable soviet red necks. Actually, the flow of people was mutual; more than that – after a while the “from there to here” flow was GREATER. This thought will seem strange and unusual for our counterparts, poisoned with Ogoneks [liberal, anti-patriotic periodicals – RV] and such, even those more patriotic.