The sad transformation of the Russian Federation in comparison with the Soviet Union

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What was the Soviet Union like and what has Russia become after all the political and economic transformations of the past 30 years?

If we abstract from the state propaganda of both the Soviet period and our time and look at everything through the eyes of an ordinary person, then the comparison will look something like this.

In the Soviet Union, you could walk along the streets of your hometown at any time of the day, and no one that does not attack - will not say a rude word. Bars on the windows on the first floor? What for? The apartment is not a prison! Iron lockable doors on the porches? Where has this been seen? Not only entrances, but also basements with attics were wide open, but at the same time there were no homeless people and drug addicts in them. Because they just weren't there.

It was common in the Soviet Union to leave keys under the rug by the door - can this be imagined in modern Russia?

Residents of the Soviet house, as a rule, knew each other and could go into any apartment for salt or matches, this was normal. Today, not everyone knows their neighbors on the floor.

There were no guards or surveillance cameras in Soviet stores, but no one stole anything, even in self-service stores. There were soda machines at every corner - and the faceted glasses were in place. I wonder how many minutes the glasses would have stood today?

The best education in the world in the Soviet Union was provided to everyone and free of charge. Today, even the shortest training courses have to be paid for. There are less than half of free places in universities, and school education is losing its quality from year to year.

The Soviet Union guaranteed work in the specialty. Today, less than half of the country works in the specialty.

Free sports clubs, pioneer camps, resorts, sanatoriums - this is also the Soviet Union. You come to a district clinic and get a ticket to a sanatorium, say, in the Crimea. Is free. Simply because the doctor found you have some kind of health problem and decided that you should fix it. Today all this is paid and sometimes so expensive that for many it has become, in principle, inaccessible.

In the Soviet Union, in the Caucasus, there was not terrorism and drugs, as it is today - but resorts, sanatoriums and the world's best mineral water. In Ukraine - not Bandera with swastikas, but endless wheat fields, aircraft and tank industries, clean cities and kind, happy people. In the Baltics - not SS marches, but the production of high-precision electronics and radio engineering, cars and world-famous balms.

Families in the Soviet Union were given free apartments, families with children - two and three rooms. What a mortgage was, the Soviet people did not know at all. Today, every second family does not have their own apartment and lives either in a rented apartment or in a mortgage, paying half of their income for it, or even more.

Soviet television did not show stupefying shows, but educational programs and such films made by great masters with the participation of life-giving censorship, from which it was impossible to take your eyes off.

For Soviet goods, prices were applied directly at the factory and did not change for decades. Today, prices change from day to day, and strictly upward, and most importantly, they noticeably outstrip the growth of wages.

Something like this looks like a comparison of the Soviet Union and modern Russia through the eyes of an ordinary person.

This comparison can be continued and continued, but the examples given are probably enough to understand how significant the results of economic and political transformations have been over the past 30 years. And what political model should we strive for if we want to live better, not worse?