BACK TO USSR

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

Konstantin Ananich

"BACK TO USSR"

For many years I argued - in real life, online - with people who told me some strange things about my country.

I tried to prove something, substantiate, give figures, my memories, memories and impressions of friends and acquaintances - but they stood their ground. It was so - and not otherwise.

"In 1981, in the central market in the city of Novosibirsk, at the only meat counter, they were chopping something like a dead horse," Pyotr Bagmet, known in the fido as "Pan Apothecary", told me.

Have mercy, sir pharmacist! - but I lived two blocks from this market - and it was quite rich! I was there! So he was there too …

And suddenly it dawned on me! We lived in different countries! What is there in different countries - in different realities! And not only the master pharmacist - but many others.

I even felt sorry for them - they lived in such a terrible and unattractive reality. Already in kindergarten, they were beaten by teachers, hated and harassed by other children, they were force-fed with a nasty sticky porridge.

In my kindergarten, there were wonderful yellow chickens, lined with yellow bricks on silicate, the teachers read us wonderful books, the chefs came to us with puppet shows. There were huge cubes, with half a meter, from which it was possible to build ships and castles. Board games, toys, dolls - everything was there. And on the holidays we arranged wonderful matinees, getting out of our skin, to please the parents. We recited poetry, danced, sang. I even remember playing on spoons. And with what pride we showed the sailor dance at the parent research institute! And what a sailor collar and a peakless cap my mother sewed for me!

And THEM since childhood they were sent from six in the morning to stand in lines for milk. And even in the new year, they were given small shriveled, sour tangerines as gifts! But I remember - that my tangerines were very, very tasty!

And even at home they were fed some terrible blue chickens, gray noodles. And their sugar was gray, wet and unsweetened.

And it was hard for them at school. They were bullied by stupid teachers. Books were hidden from them in libraries.

And in my reality - they brought me new items with not yet dried stamps. For the most part, my teachers were wonderful people.

And they, almost all of them, were forcibly driven. First in October, then in the pioneers. And all the rest of their life they were driven. They drove everywhere. Yes, their reality could only be tolerated.

In the summer, I spent one season in a pioneer camp, another - with my grandmother in the "Raduga" recreation center, and at least once every two years my whole family traveled to Crimea, to Anapa. The sea, shells, crabs, watermelon buried deep in the wet sand - this is Anapa. It's great! They were not given permits, their camps were more like concentration camps than pioneer camps, there were no recreation towns.

Yes, then they were driven into the Komsomol. In their Komsomol, they had to be silent at meetings and follow orders. And there were evil party curators. If you did not listen to the evil curator, then something terrible could happen. So terrible that THEY can't even tell.

I turned over the very first reporting and election meeting, after which I myself ended up in the Komsomol committee. And our party curator was Lydia Arkadyevna - the sweetest person.

They have been cut off from abroad since childhood. They were not allowed to meet with foreigners, and if suddenly this happened, then they took everything that the foreigner gave to the poor child.

Horror, isn't it? And in my wonderful country there were international friendship clubs. We talked with Americans, British, Germans. And with the western ones, too. We even corresponded. Czechs and Slovaks were generally like family. True, I don't remember the French. And when an elderly Scotsman with a heart attack was removed from the transit plane - he was not hidden from the people in a special hospital, as it would have happened in THEIR world - but put in a veteran's ward with his grandfather. And my sister ran to translate them. And then even a parcel post with some souvenirs came. And nobody took it away. After all, it was not theirs - OUR country.

I also feel sorry for their parents. They were so good - but they were always overwritten by evil bosses. There was always not enough money, and they were looking for some kind of shabbat, and evil bosses forbade them to look for these shabbos. And always bad people worked with them - they were jealous all the time. Their parents were also driven into the party.

For some reason, one of THEM was very proud that the combines that his dad invented were working very poorly. Although dad was very talented.

And my mom was very talented. but her "products" somehow worked. And that's what I was proud of. Probably because it was in another country. And her boss had a beetle, but for some reason it was more of a praise. He was dark-haired and very cunning - I remember him well.

Mom was also an inventor. And I wrote articles. And she was not punished for that. on the contrary, they paid money. And for some reason, no one drove her into the party.

And they lied to them. Everything. Newspapers, radio, TV, teachers. Even the parents. One girl asked her dad - why is he listening to Arkady Severny - after all, this is the enemy? And dad replied - because you need to know the enemy by sight. And he just loved him, this Northern. This dad also told me that they made him listen to conversations with foreigners during the Olympiad and report where necessary, and if possible, reduce the conversations to the correct ones. But he no longer had faith, right?

As I grew older, I noticed that realities did not diverge at the moment of my birth.

In "their" country - the pig had to be slaughtered at night so that the commissar would not take it away … And in mine there were no commissars at that time, in the early 70s.

They lived in some strange "upper volt with missiles" - and we are in a great world power.

Even the Great Patriotic War turned out to be different for us.

In their reality - the enemy was "filled with meat", a strange subject called "a simple man" fought. The communists sat in the rear. Everything. All over the world. For one killed German, there were four, or even five, killed "ordinary men", but the "ordinary man" won. Contrary to everyone. And the communists in the rear, and Zhukov, who slept and saw how much more "simple peasant" lime. And the commanders, who could only have fun with the PZH, and drink the trophy schnapps obtained by a "simple man". And especially - in spite of personally Comrade. Stalin. Our tanks were bad. The machines are bad. The planes are bad. But only those that are ours. The allies supplied us with good ones. It was with good tanks that the "simple man" won. But the evil Stalin took all the fruits of victory from the "simple man" and put the "simple man" himself in the Gulag. He was so bad.

In my reality, there was also a war. But everyone fought in it. Both party and non-party. All Soviet people - to whom health and age allowed. And even who he did not allow - they went to fight too. Communist grandfather Ivan Danilovich, before the war - a village teacher - died in a breakthrough near the town of "Myasnoy Bor". The communist grandfather Fyodor Mikhailovich Gavrilov, before the war - the director of the school - went through the whole war, was wounded, was awarded orders and medals. The losses in that war were terrible. but precisely because the enemy did not spare the civilian population. And almost as many soldiers died - as the enemy and his allies had together on the eastern front, because they fought well - and learned quickly. And there was equipment that was produced by our Soviet industry. Excellent military equipment. It was hard - but my country won.

We lived, built, thought about the future, studied. We were worried about the world's problems.

And they - thought how to overthrow this abominable system.

And the worst thing - they piled up. And then the realities crossed for a short time - because my country also disappeared.

We, those who were happy in it, did not even suspect that we needed to protect our happiness, to hold on to it with our teeth and nails.

So they didn’t protect it.

And then the worlds parted again. "They" became happy - after all, there were bananas, sausage, lingerie and freedom.

And here - a period of tragedies began - science, production were falling apart, yesterday's union republics were engulfed in the fire of war, in which former Soviet citizens killed former Soviet citizens. The old people were left without protection and guarantees.

But that's a completely different story.

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