They tell me how we, it turns out, shitty lived in the Soviet Union. How bad it was. Like there was nothing in the stores. As the regime did not allow a normal life. What villains were the leaders. Etc.

All this sounds from TV screens and on the air of the radio, creeps into the brain from newspaper pages and magazine pages, generally hovering in the air. But something inside me opposes this mythology, simple worldly logic leads to completely different conclusions.

Let's try to break it all down.

I was born in the 60s. I even managed to live a whole year under Khrushchev. I didn’t feel the famous “Khrushchev thaw”, and my parents talked about cornmeal, hominy, “kuzkin’s mother” for America and other delights of a “stagnant” time. I can't say anything about it. I did not realize then because.

Kindergarten

When the time came, they sent me to kindergarten. Such a good factory kindergarten. And they fed deliciously - fresh fruits and vegetables in the diet, and they took them to the sea in the summer, and there were plenty of toys. Most importantly, everything is FREE for parents.

But that part of childhood that has lasted so long is ending too.

School

The school was spacious and bright. Later, a new building was added to the post-war building, as well as a gym and an assembly hall. All conditions in general. I remember free milk for elementary school students at the first break and breakfasts for 15 kopecks at the second break. Children from large, single-parent families and whose parents had low wages ate for FREE. Either at the expense of different trade unions, or in some other way. Breakfast and lunch were provided.

At school there was just a bunch of all sorts of circles, where those who wished were literally driven. As you already understood, naturally all this is FREE.

I remember that the parent committee sometimes collected money from parents - for new curtains in the classroom. And all repairs were carried out at the expense of the STATE.

Summer rest

In the senior classes in the summer we were taken to a collective farm, to a labor and recreation camp (LTO). Now they can say: exploitation of child labor. And we really liked it. They harvested when cherries, when beets or tomatoes. Or weeded something. Lunch at the field camp - romance! And after dinner - sports games, trips to the country club, guitar and other pleasures. For us and our parents, everything was FREE, and the collective farm even paid some extra pennies to the school. We were allowed to take from the field "for personal use" up to half a bucket of cherries every day or a bucket of tomatoes. Also kind of like an impromptu salary.

A couple of times I was lucky enough to visit a pioneer camp. The camp was also a factory camp, and the factory was of all-Union significance. Therefore, the children in it were from all over the Soviet Union. So many new friends! With whom we corresponded over the years.

The best schoolchildren were awarded vouchers to Artek (Gurzuf) or to the Young Guard (Odessa).

Sports and leisure

For this, there were departmental and state sports schools, houses of culture and, of course, the Palace of Pioneers. Any sports sections, clubs, cultural and musical all sorts. And don't say it's all FREE. Periodically, coaches and leaders of circles came to the school for "recruitment" - enticing them into these sections.

I also went in for sports. Different types, until you choose what you like. In all sports sections, sports uniforms were issued for classes. No one demanded to come to circles with their chess, brushes with paints and other equipment necessary for classes.

For athletes in the summer there was a sports camp. It looks like a pioneer, only up to 3 workouts a day, on the beach. We went to competitions monthly, sometimes even 2-3 times a month. Travel, accommodation, meals - AT THE STATE'S EXPENSE.

My passion for music led me to create a vocal and instrumental ensemble (VIA) at school. There were some musical instruments at the school, and the SCHOOL BOUGHT what we lacked. They rehearsed, as it should be, "in a closet behind the assembly hall." Sometimes they competed. True, I had to sing at competitions not what I liked, but patriotic or Komsomol songs.

university

I will not repeat myself, but education in any universities was free. After high school, all graduates were waiting for work. Moreover, it was necessary to work for 3 years. Excellent students with red diplomas received the so-called "free diploma", that is, the right to choose a place of work. In universities, as well as at school, sports and cultural leisure were also fully provided. Plus a hostel for non-residents.

Army

Since I entered a military school, I know firsthand about the army. The army was what we needed. It had both power and strength, and the most modern weapons. And the BATTLE READINESS, now it’s even hard to believe, is such that after a nightly wake-up call, the entire unit would go to a spare area or an exercise area without any problems, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. It was only later, when serving in the Ukrainian army, that the exercises began to be carried out “on the maps” - they (the exercises) are called command and staff. Or even on computers. The imagination draws a general with a joystick in his hands. But what to do when they don’t give money for full-fledged combat training, with shooting, flying, military campaigns, etc.. The salary (in the army they call it a cash allowance) was very decent, and the service itself was very prestigious. The officer was treated with great respect in society.

Housing

This question has always been before citizens, since the population tends to grow, create new families - cells of society that need new housing. With this in the USSR it was easy. You work or serve, you stand on the apartment register (in the queue for housing). And sooner or later you GET an APARTMENT, square meters, depending on the number of family members. It was possible to stand in line for three years and ten years. Many factories themselves built housing for their workers - entire villages or districts. And with all the infrastructure: schools, kindergartens, shops, roads.

Work

Standard of living, shops, prices

The USSR is often depicted with empty store shelves. This was not to be seen. Not all goods could be bought easily. It was called "deficiency". Imported goods were highly valued. Moreover, it does not matter from which country, capitalist or socialist. The main thing is that it is not like ours.

For food, clothes, household items, my parents, ordinary workers, always had enough wages. Large purchases - TV, refrigerator, furniture - were made on credit. Buying a car - that was the problem! And the price is unattainable, and special queues, quotas, etc.

Goods quality

This is worth talking about separately. We still use many goods produced in the Soviet Union. Made soundly, firmly, thoughtfully, conscientiously. There were also defective things, but not so much. But our light industry constantly lagged behind fashion. First of all, because this very fashion was not a legislator. That's why I worked late. And we were chasing imported clothes, buying “branded” things at exorbitant prices from black marketers.

The medicine

The quality of Soviet medicine is still being debated. In many of its industries, our specialists were the best in the world. This applies to ophthalmology, cardiac surgery. Yes, we had therapy. In some ways lagged behind, not without that. In any case, medicine in Ukraine has not become better, but you have to pay for everything. But preventive medicine, professional examinations for various categories of citizens and, especially, for children - so here the USSR was ahead of the rest.

Industry

The Soviet doctrine of isolation from the rest of the world required complete self-sufficiency in all industries. Therefore, heavy industry, medium engineering (rocket building) was created and brought to world leaders, and, of course, the strong point of the entire system is the defense industry. Hundreds of research institutes (NII) under the name "mailbox number such and such" worked for the defense industry. Salaries were higher there, and there were more benefits.

Light industry, producing consumer goods, in this situation was always in the tail. Both in terms of quality and quantity of products needed by the population.

Ideology

Ideology permeated the whole life of a Soviet person. In kindergarten - poems about Lenin. At school - Octobrists, then Pioneer and Komsomol. At first everything was real and with youthful fervor, then, in the 80s, with the formalism of Komsomol and party meetings. Permitted and unpermitted topics for conversation. Discussion in the kitchen only with close relatives of “political topics” and fear of the KGB, which I never had to face. Films banned from viewing, records of rock bands and "samizdat" books.

It was difficult to understand that all this crushed, stifled freedom of speech. There was no other reference point, no example for comparison. Therefore, such manifestations of Soviet reality were perceived as certain rules of the game. We knew the rules and played by them. Sometimes pretend, sometimes seriously.

Decay

After Gorbachev's restructuring, accelerations and other political and economic leapfrog, the collapse of the USSR came. And in 1991, at the All-Ukrainian referendum, I, like millions of citizens living on the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, voted for the independence of Ukraine. In those years, thanks to skillfully launched rumors, we all firmly believed that half of the Union was feeding Ukraine. And after the separation we will ride like cheese in butter. Separate and live their own lives.

If we omit the period of the dashing 90s, when wild capitalism was raging, the deriban of state, public property flourished, inflation and social depression were rampant, now everything seems to have calmed down. Everything is plundered, divided, settled down and brought to the capitalist unfair denominator.

What did we get?

We give children to the few kindergartens that survived from the reprofiling, built back in the Soviet Union. And we pay, we pay, we pay… For all the time of independence, a dozen kindergartens have been built.

Then school and requisitions, requisitions, requisitions. Poor quality of education and paid tutors. Educational circles for money, sports for money, if we can afford it. And if not, then children are brought up by the street, with drug addiction and juvenile delinquency. By the way, so many schools have been built since independence that there will be many fingers of one hand.

If you're lucky, your child will enter a university on a budget, if not, then go ahead to a private educational institution. Somehow, he will get a specialty, but it is unlikely that he will get a job. And a young specialist will go to trade in the market or work as some kind of office bug, or as a promoter, merchandiser and other riffraff involved in the sale of goods.

And in 90 percent of cases it will be unrealistic for a young family to earn an apartment, they will wait until "grandmother will free the living space."

Factories in Ukraine have either been plundered, destroyed, or passed into private hands and work for "uncles", and not for the public pocket. Accordingly, social programs, construction of housing and sanatoriums for workers and employees are not involved.

Unbiased statistics show that less than fifty kilometers of railways have been built in Ukraine in 20 years. Against several thousand kilometers of railway in the Ukrainian SSR during the Soviet Union.

Ideology, on the other hand, we now have the most that neither is, free. And you can say whatever you want. Because everyone is deeply “in the drum” about what and how you talk. Freedom of speech at its finest. And now we have parties like uncut dogs, for every taste. But none of them will protect the interests of the common man.

And how chic it is in our stores. In bulk: imported clothes, electronic equipment from Europe and Asia, products with GMOs and other chemicals from all over the world!

findings

So it turns out that we have acquired as a result of independence. Freedom of speech and abundance of clothes. The first, of course, is a valuable acquisition. Today we can no longer live without freedom of speech. You get used to it quickly, but it is already impossible to get used to it.

Opponents may say that Ukraine will still rise from its knees, develop its economy, and so on. For me, it sounds like a fairy tale, because the age is no longer the one to believe in fairy tales.

The main thing that we have lost is social protection, the protection of the state, the state's concern for its citizens. The social model of the state, when the state provides citizens with a decent education, medicine, pensions, social programs, has been replaced by a liberal one. Liberal is from the word liber ("free"). Citizens are given freedom - do whatever you want, within the law, of course. But the state also takes care of its citizens. Freed up. Live as you want. Learn how you want, get treatment, live where you want or don't live at all.

So, I shitty lived in the days of the Soviet Union??? Reconvince me, please. I do not live in poverty now, I do not have depression and I do not complain about life. But I don't want to believe this lie. The Soviet Union cannot be returned, but why blame it? As if that makes it easier for someone.

We continue to use everything that was created, built and produced in the USSR. We wear out, like old clothes, factories, roads, schools and hospitals, without producing anything in return. Is it still long enough?

Leprosy is caused by mycobacteria, which were discovered in the 1870s by the Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen. So far, the bacteria have been found to be transmitted through secretions from the nose and mouth. The disease mainly affects the skin, mucous membranes and peripheral nervous system.

The incubation period for leprosy can be up to 20 years. The first clinical signs of the disease include deterioration in general well-being, drowsiness, chills, runny nose, rashes on the skin and mucous membranes, loss of hair and eyelashes, decreased sensitivity.

Leprosy in the USSR

Until 1926, there were only 9 leper colonies in the USSR, that is, specialized hospitals for lepers. They contained a total of 879 patients. Later, the number of leper colonies increased to 16.

Every year in the Soviet Union new patients with leprosy were detected. True, the number of cases has steadily decreased every decade. So from 1961 to 1970, 546 cases of leprosy were registered in the RSFSR, from 1971 to 1980 - 159, and from 1981 to 1990 - only 48. The highest incidence rate was in Siberia and the Far East, as well as in such union republics as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Karakalpakstan.

Lifetime isolation

Until the 1950s, the concept of "outpatient treatment of patients with leprosy" did not exist at all. The newly diagnosed patients were doomed to lifelong isolation in leper colonies. So, for example, the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of July 10, 1923 read: "Assign the people's commissariats of health to keep an accurate record of all patients with leprosy and take care of the mandatory isolation of patients." Despite the fact that the decree also spoke about the possibility of treating lepers at home, in reality this was practically not carried out.

In fact, patients with leprosy were equated with criminals or enemies of the people. All medical institutions were located more than 100 kilometers from large cities, where patients were sent to eternal exile.

All lepers were subject to strict accounting and control. For each of them, an individual card was compiled, which indicated not only the data of the patient himself, but also all the information about the persons who had contact with him.

Patients diagnosed with leprosy could not engage in certain types of work, receive education, serve in the army, and even use public transport.

Young children of the sick were subject to seizure and placement in boarding schools. Most often, sick parents were forever deprived of the opportunity to even see them.

Those who could not stand isolation and escaped from the leper colony fell under criminal liability, they were put on the All-Union wanted list and rounded up.

5 (100%) 1 vote

“We were lucky that our childhood and youth ended before the government bought FREEDOM from the youth in exchange for roller skates, mobile phones, star factories and cool crackers (by the way, soft for some reason) ... With her common consent ... For her own (seemingly) good…” is a fragment from a text called “Generation 76-82”. Those who are now somewhere in their thirties reprint it with great pleasure on the pages of their Internet diaries. He became a kind of manifesto of the generation.

The attitude towards life in the USSR changed from a sharply negative to a sharply positive one. Recently, a lot of resources have appeared on the Internet dedicated to everyday life in the Soviet Union.

Unbelievable but true: the sidewalk has an asphalt ramp for wheelchairs. Even now you rarely see this in Moscow

At that time (as far as photographs and films can tell) all the girls wore knee-length skirts. And there were practically no perverts. An amazing thing.

Excellent bus stop sign. And the pictogram of the trolleybus is the same in St. Petersburg today. There was also a tram sign - the letter "T" in a circle.

All over the world, the consumption of various branded drinks was growing, and we had everything from the boiler. This, by the way, is not so bad. And, most likely, humanity will come to this again. All foreign ultra-left and green movements would be delighted to know that in the USSR you had to go for sour cream with your own can. Any jar could be handed over, the sausage was wrapped in paper, and they went to the store with their string bag. The most progressive supermarkets in the world today at the checkout offer to choose between a paper or plastic bag. The most environmentally responsible classes are returning the earthenware yogurt pot to the store.

And before, there was no habit at all to sell containers with the product.

Kharkov, 1924. Tea room. He drank and left. No Lipton bottled.

Moscow, 1959. Khrushchev and Nixon (then Vice President) at the Pepsi booth at the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki. On the same day there was a famous dispute in the kitchen. In America, this dispute has received wide coverage, we have not. Nixon talked about how cool it was to have a dishwasher, how much stuff there was in supermarkets.

All this was filmed on color videotape (supertechnology at the time). It is believed that Nixon performed so well at this meeting that it helped him become one of the presidential candidates the following year (and 10 years later, president).

In the 60s, a terrible fashion for any machine guns went. The whole world then dreamed of robots, we dreamed of automatic trading. The idea, in a sense, failed due to the fact that it did not take into account Soviet reality. Say, when a potato vending machine pours you rotten potatoes, no one wants to use it. Still, when there is an opportunity to rummage through an earthy container, finding some relatively strong vegetables, there is not only hope for a delicious dinner, but a training in fighting qualities. The only machines that survived were those that dispensed a product of the same quality - for the sale of soda. Still sometimes there were vending machines for the sale of sunflower oil. Only soda survived.

1961st. VDNH. Still, before the start of the fight against excesses, we did not lag behind the West in graphic and aesthetic development.

In 1972, the Pepsi company agreed with the Soviet government that Pepsi would be bottled "from concentrate and using PepsiCo technology", and in return the USSR would be able to export Stolichnaya vodka.

1974th. Some boarding house for foreigners. Polka dots "Globe" top right. I still have such a jar unopened - I keep thinking: will it explode or not? Just in case, I keep it wrapped in a bag away from books. It’s also scary to open it - what if I suffocate?

From the very right edge, next to the scales, you can see a cone for selling juice. Empty, really. There was no habit in the USSR to drink juice from the refrigerator, no one was chic. The saleswoman opened a three-liter jar, poured it into a cone. And from there - in glasses. As a child, I still found such cones in our vegetable shop on Shokalsky Drive. When I was drinking my favorite apple juice from such a cone, some thief stole my Kama bike from the store's dressing room, I will never forget.

1982 Selection of alcohol in the dining car of the Trans-Siberian train. For some reason, many foreigners have a fixed idea - to travel along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Apparently, the idea that you can not get out of a moving train for a week seems magical to them.

Please note that abundance is apparent. No exquisite dry red wines, which today, even in an ordinary tent, at least 50 types are sold. No XO and VSOP. However, even ten years after this picture was taken, the author was quite satisfied with Agdam port wine.

1983 The worm of consumerism has settled in the naive and pure souls of the Russians. True, the bottle, young man, must be returned to whom she said. I drank, enjoyed the warm, return the container. They will take her back to the factory.

In stores, Pinocchio or Bell was usually on sale. "Baikal" or "Tarhun" was also not always sold. And when Pepsi was exhibited in some supermarket, it was taken as a reserve - for a birthday, for example, to be displayed later.

1987th. An aunt sells greens in a dairy store window. Cashiers are visible behind the glass. The very ones that had to come well prepared - to know all the prices, the quantity of goods and the department numbers.

1987th. Volgograd. In the American archive, this photo is accompanied by a comment of the century: "A woman on a street in Volgograd sells some sort of liquid for the invalids of the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet name for World War II)." Apparently, at the same time in 87, they translated the inscription from the barrel, when there was no one else to ask that WWII invalids were served out of turn. By the way, these inscriptions are the only documentary recognition that there are queues in the USSR.

By the way, in those days there was no struggle between merchandisers, there were no POS materials, no one hung wobblers on the shelves. No one would have thought of giving away free samples. If the store was given a beach ball with the Pepsi logo, he considered it an honor. And exhibited in the window sincerely and for nothing.

1990th. Pepsi vending machine in the subway. Rare copy. Here are the machines that are on the right, they met everywhere in the center - they sold the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia, Moskovskiye Novosti. By the way, all soda machines (and slot machines too) always had the inscription “Please! Do not omit commemorative and bent coins. It is understandable with bent ones, but commemorative coins cannot be omitted, because they differed from other coins of the same denomination in weight and sometimes in size.

1991st. Veteran drinks soda with syrup. Someone had already scratched the Depeche Moda logo on the middle machine. Glasses were always shared. You come up, wash it in the machine itself, then put it under the nozzle. Fastidious aesthetes carried folding glasses with them, which had the peculiarity of folding in the process. The photo is good because all the details are characteristic and recognizable. And a payphone half-box, and a Zaporozhets headlight.

Until 1991, American photographers followed the same routes. Almost every photo can be identified - this is on Tverskaya, this is on Herzen, this is near the Bolshoi Theater, this is from the Moscow Hotel. And then everything became possible.

Recent history.

1992 near Kiev. This is no longer the USSR, just by the way I had to. A dude poses for an American photographer, voting with a bottle of vodka to trade it for gasoline. It seems to me that the photographer himself issued the bottles. However, a bottle of vodka has long been a kind of currency. But in the mid-nineties, all plumbers suddenly stopped taking bottles as payment, because there were no fools left - vodka is sold everywhere, and you know how much it costs. So everything has gone to the money. Today, a bottle is given only to a doctor and a teacher, and even then with cognac.

With food in the late USSR, everything was pretty bad. The chance to buy something tasty in a regular store was close to zero. Queues lined up for tasty treats. Delicious food could be given "in order" - there was a whole system of "order tables", which were actually distribution centers for goods for their own. In the order table, he could count on tasty things: a veteran (moderately), a writer (not bad), a party worker (also not bad).

Residents of closed cities in general, by Soviet standards, rolled around like cheese in butter in Christ's bosom. But they were very bored in the cities and they were restricted to travel abroad. However, almost all of them were restricted to travel abroad.

Life was good for those who could be of some help. Let's say the director of the Wanda store was a very respected person. Super VIP by recent standards. And the butcher was respected. And the head of the department in Detsky Mir was respected. And even a cashier at the Leningradsky railway station. All of them could "get" something. Acquaintance with them was called "connections" and "ties". The director of the grocery was reasonably confident that his children would go to a good university.

1975 year. Bakery. I felt that the cuts on the loaves were made by hand (now the robot is already sawing).

1975 year. Sheremetyevo-1. Here, by the way, not much has changed. In the cafe you could find chocolate, beer, sausages with peas. Sandwiches did not exist, there could be a sandwich, which was a piece of white bread, at one end of which there was a spoonful of red caviar, and at the other - one round of butter, which everyone pushed and trampled under the caviar with a fork as best they could.

Bread shops were of two types. The first one is with a counter. Behind the saleswoman, there were loaves and loaves in containers. The freshness of bread was determined in the process of questioning those who had already bought bread or in a dialogue with the saleswoman:

- For 25 a fresh loaf?

— Normal.

Or, if the buyer did not cause rejection:

- Delivered at night.

The second type of bakery is self-service. Here, loaders rolled up containers to special openings, on the other side of which there was a trading floor. There were no saleswomen, only cashiers. It was cool because you could poke the bread with your finger. Of course, it was not allowed to touch the bread; for this, special forks or spoons were hung on uneven ropes. The spoons were still back and forth, and it was unrealistic to determine the freshness with a fork. Therefore, each took a hypocritical device in his hands and gently turned his finger to check in the usual way how well it was pressed. It's not clear through the spoon.

Fortunately, there was no individual packaging of bread.

Better a loaf that someone gently touched with a finger than tasteless gutta-percha. Yes, and it was always possible, after checking the softness with your hands, to take a loaf from the back row, which no one had yet reached.

1991st. Soon there will be consumer protection, which, together with care, will kill the taste. Halves and quarters were prepared from the technical side. Sometimes it was even possible to persuade to cut off half of the white:

Who will buy the second one? - asked the buyer from the back room.

No one gave packages at the checkout either - everyone came with his own. Or with a string bag. Or so, carried in the hands.

The grandmother is holding bags of kefir and milk (1990). Then there was no Tetrapac yet, there was some kind of Elopak. On the package was written “Elopak. Patented." The blue triangle indicates the side from which the bag must be opened. When we first purchased the packaging line, it came with a barrel of the right glue. I found those times when the package opened in the right place without torment. Then the glue ran out, it was necessary to open it from two sides, and then fold one side back. The blue triangles remained, but since then no one has bought glue, there are few idiots.

By the way, at that time there was no additional information on the product packaging - neither the address nor the phone number of the manufacturer. Only GOST. And there were no brands. Milk was called milk, but differed in fat content. My favorite is in the red bag, five percent.

Dairy products were also sold in bottles. The contents differed in the color of the foil: milk - silver, acidophilus - blue, kefir - green, fermented baked milk - raspberry, etc.

Joyful queue for eggs. There could still be Krestyanskoye oil on the refrigerated display case - it was cut with wire, then with a knife into smaller pieces, wrapped immediately in oil paper. In the queue, everyone stands with checks - before that, they stood in line at the cashier. The saleswoman had to be told what to give, she looked at the figure, counted everything in her head or on the accounts, and if it converged, she gave out the purchase (“let go”). The check was strung on a needle (it stands on the left side of the counter).

In theory, they were obliged to sell even one egg. But buying one egg was considered a terrible insult to the saleswoman - she could yell at the buyer in response.

Those who took three dozen were given a cardboard pallet without question. Whoever took a dozen was not supposed to have a pallet, he put everything in a bag (there were also special wire cages for aesthetes).

This is a cool photo (1991), here you can see video rental cassettes in the background.

Good meat could be obtained through an acquaintance or bought in the market. But everything in the market was twice as expensive as in the store, so not everyone went there. "Market meat" or "market potatoes" is the highest praise for products.

Soviet chicken was considered to be of poor quality. Here is the Hungarian chicken - it's cool, but it has always been in short supply. The word "cool" was not yet in wide use (that is, it was, but in relation to the rocks)

Until 1990, it was impossible to imagine that a foreign photojournalist would be allowed to shoot in a Soviet store (especially on the other side of the counter). Everything became possible in 1990.

Outdoors at the same time, the color of the meat was more natural.

There are two chickens on the counter - imported and Soviet. Import says:

- Look at you, all blue, not plucked, skinny!

“But I died a natural death.

On a winter day, December 30, 1922, the 1st Congress of Soviets adopted the Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 90 years have passed since then, and we still cannot decide what the "world's first state of workers and peasants" was. An unprecedented leap towards freedom - or an unprecedented experiment on the people, designed to show the whole world how not to develop the national economy?

Power and Justice...

Army. The USSR was one of the two world superpowers, and the Soviet army was the most powerful in the world. 63.9 thousand tanks were in service - more than in all other countries. The nuclear missile shield included 1,200 ballistic missiles on land and 62 nuclear submarines at sea. The number of the Armed Forces after the war reached 3.7 million people.

Equality. The level of well-being of the "bottom" and "top" in the country differed, but not dozens of times, the Soviet middle class made up the vast majority of the population. A skilled worker could earn even more than the director of the factory where he worked.

Rest. The right to rest was not an empty phrase for the Soviet people. By 1988, there were 16,200 sanatoriums and rest houses in the country, in which citizens partially paid for accommodation and treatment.

...or impoverished slavery?

decline. Vaunted universal education and medical care at the end of the twentieth century. hopelessly behind the world level.

Leadership in the defense industry turned into a failure in the production of industrial goods for the population: consumer goods were produced according to the residual principle and for the most part were of disgusting quality.

Prisons. Between 1921 and 1940 alone, approximately 3 million people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

In 1930 - 1931 more than 380 thousand peasant families were dispossessed and evicted. At the stage of the formation of the USSR, entire groups of the population were repressed: entrepreneurs, priests, etc. The Gulag became one of the symbols of the Soviet system.

Deficit. The Soviet people have never lived in abundance in history. Even in the relatively prosperous 70s, either toilet paper, or tights, or beer were in short supply, not to mention sausage.

Censorship. Censorship in the USSR covered all areas of life, including the media, literature, music, cinema, theater, ballet, and even fashion. Outstanding writers and poets - Solzhenitsyn, Voinovich, Dovlatov, Brodsky and others - were forced to leave their homeland.

The Vorontsov Palace in Alupka, the sights of Sevastopol, including museums with a panorama and a diorama of the city's defense during the Crimean and Great Patriotic Wars, were seen by Novgorodians who visited the Crimean peninsula. The delegation of Veliky Novgorod was invited to the celebration of the Navy Day.

Larisa said that she was in Crimea for the first time and felt what she expected: Crimea is like the Cote d'Azur of France, they are located on the same geographical latitude, and the nature and climatic conditions here are conducive to a wonderful pastime and relaxation.

Of course, during a short trip, there was no talk of rest at all, the Novgorodians tried to see more, communicate not only with officials, but also with the residents of Sevastopol and with those members of the crew of the Veliky Novgorod submarine, free from watch, who arrived to the city to participate in the naval parade.

Unintentionally, guests from Veliky Novgorod compared two parades in honor of the Navy Day - the first one, which took place in St. Petersburg last year, and the current one in Sevastopol.

If in the northern capital, according to our interlocutors, the parade was grandiose, then in Sevastopol the action unfolding on the embankment and in the water area of ​​the bay was less ambitious, but very interesting and ... homely.

The day was sunny, hot, the whole embankment was filled with people. During the performance, we tried to show the capabilities of the ships and the people who serve on them, - said Larisa Serguhina. - Several ships were on the road. And on the water, we saw how the “water infantry” was landing, how helicopters were submerging devices to detect submarines into the water.

Imagine, small splashes raised by the propellers of cars reach you on the podium, - Larisa shared. - And I really liked the beautiful dance of the tugboats. The salute was wonderful. True, a colleague noted that we have more abrupt fireworks in Novgorod, but here many people admired this spectacle - they did not go home, waiting for fireworks, they walked along the embankment. The marine theme, of course, in this city, is literally present in everything, if we talk about clothes - then certainly vests, striped T-shirts ...

Novgorodians saw Sevastopol clean and tidy. Larisa, who did not change her tradition of doing physical exercises in the morning, going for an early run, would certainly meet city workers who cleaned the streets.

In her opinion, the city still, perhaps, lacks elegance, careful grooming, somewhere it is necessary to pave the roads, somewhere else to correct something. Sevastopol reminded her of Sochi during the Soviet Union. She was last there in 2000.

But, judging by the mood of the residents of Sevastopol, friendly and hospitable, with whom we managed to talk during the holiday, walks and excursions, on the beach for several hours of swimming, they are glad that Crimea is now part of Russia, they said that they are definitely for it accession, went to a referendum and voted for it. They understand that you cannot change everything at once, much remains to be done to make the city more comfortable and attractive.

It was noted that after 2014 new construction is underway, new residential buildings are being commissioned. One woman on the beach, the wife of a reserve officer, said that she and her family had moved to Sevastopol, and she could not choose another definition than “paradise” for her place of residence.

By the way, residents advised Novgorodians what sights they should definitely see. The young guy strongly recommended visiting the new museum complex dedicated to the heroic defenders of Sevastopol in June-July 1942 - the 35th Coastal Battery. And even told the details of what kind of museum it is. Entrepreneur Aleksey Chaly, who has been known in Sevastopol since 2014 as the “people's mayor” and then chairman of the city Legislative Assembly, invested his money in its creation and is now investing in its operation. A visit to the museum is free for everyone without exception.

The people of Novgorod were a little short of time to get to Yalta on the day they went on an excursion to the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka. The palace, built in the style of English architecture in 1828-1848 as the summer residence of the Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Territory, Count M.S. Vorontsov, located in the park, which in itself is a monument of gardening art.

I liked the upper terraces with a garden, flower beds, three picturesque lakes, one of them in the shape of a heart. They marveled at the work that was invested in the creation of the garden and the park - after all, the land had to be brought on stony soil. Particular attention was paid to the creation of conditions for the movement of tourists around the palace territory - small covered electric cars are designed for this. It turns out not hot, and quickly.

As a museum, the Vorontsov Palace began to work in 1956. He lost a lot of his exhibits, as it was not possible to evacuate them with the outbreak of war in 1941. By the way, in February 1945, during the Yalta Conference, the Vorontsov Palace was the residence of the British delegation headed by Winston Churchill.

The memory of the heroic history of the hero city of Sevastopol is kept by many monuments and museum complexes. Novgorodians visited the panorama "Defense of Sevastopol", dedicated to the events of the Crimean War, when England and France tried to oust Russia from the Black Sea basin.

The sailors from the Black Sea rescued the main fragments of the panorama by carrying them out of the building, which came under bombardment and shelling in 1942. The canvas was restored already in 1954 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first heroic defense of Sevastopol.

By the way, this museum complex also provides excursions on electric vehicles.

No less impressive is the world's largest diorama "Assault on Sapun Mountain on May 7, 1944". The length of this pictorial canvas is 25.5 meters, height 5.5, the area of ​​the natural plan with the remains of original defensive structures is more than 80 square meters. meters. This is one of the most famous expositions of the State Museum of Heroic Defense and Liberation of Sevastopol.

In front of the diorama building is an exposition of military equipment.

Of course, the meeting with the crew members of the submarine, which bears the name of Veliky Novgorod, was very warm.

The sailors visited Novgorod twice and now met Novgorodians in Sevastopol, a city that is native to many of them.

Larisa shared that, heading to Sevastopol, she imagined that since the city is on the seashore, it means that there are an unlimited number of beaches there. It turned out that to get to the bathing area, you need to make a little effort. Not all beaches are easily accessible due to their location. But still, there is no problem to get there. Those who do not want to overcome descents and ascents of 400 or even 800 steps to the shore with pebbles or sand (and there are plenty of such daredevils) can use transport, for example, a water taxi. This is exactly what the Novgorodians did, going by boat from Balaklava Bay to the well-maintained city beach, where there are cafes and a children's room. Such a convenient service, including transport, for local residents and tourists.

Alexander Kochevnik also had his own program of walking around the city. He went up to "our" tank. Alexander Petrovich Popov, an honorary citizen of Veliky Novgorod, who was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Great Patriotic War, I degree, Alexander Nevsky, is most directly related to this monument. The crew of the T-34 tank headed by him, during the liberation of Sevastopol from the Nazi invaders, was one of the first on May 9, 1944, to break into the city.

The delegation of Veliky Novgorod was returning home, flying from Simferopol by plane. An excellent airport - Novgorodians noted.