Nostalgie and memories of communist times

If you compare the two, Yugoslavia was a rich paradise while USSR was a prison for all of its citizens. My first toys were made of metal on a real tank factory

But I didn't mean to say that today kids are living a wonderful life, it's just that it is impossible for them to even imagine how different it was. Like, an excitement of eating pizza for the first time, or walking into a first capitalistic supermarket after Independence, is unknown to them.

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JUST IN CASE some of my posts here appear to be out of place, it's because I was replying to KM, whose replies were deleted.

Where do I begin? I grew up in a 1950s Khruschevka, yet still got to travel around, mostly in southern Russia. At the age of 5 I first came in contact with a Snickers candy bar, a while later it was a Twix bar, then a Mars bar. About the same I visited resort towns like Kislovodsk and Sochi. Life somehow seemed very simple back then.

Snickers chocolate bars! the first real chocolate that I tasted. This is after the communism of course, but still applicable to nostalgic memories. We practically knew every single western product that "appeared" on the market. For kids it was snickers and mars, later bounty chocolate bars, and kinder surprises.

As for communism itself I remeber beeing at a local day care center, when every while or so, our shaparones (or whatever they call em) gave us a little talk on "grandpa Lenin" and the red flag. Funny thing is, I didn't notice the the USSR had collapsed until after it had already fallen apart. During the August Putch itself, I was with my folks on vacation in Sochi. So much of it all seems as a distant blur.

Krasnaya Zima said:

As for communism itself I remeber beeing at a local day care center, when every while or so, our shaparones (or whatever they call em) gave us a little talk on "grandpa Lenin" and the red flag. Funny thing is, I didn't notice the the USSR had collapsed until after it had already fallen apart. During the August Putch itself, I was with my folks on vacation in Sochi. So much of it all seems as a distant blur.

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I noticed when roubles suddenly disappeared and funny little coupons appeared instead


Many interesting details from that time. I remember my father explaining to me that Moscow was no longer the capital of our country, Kyiv was.

Dr.Mesofius said:

I noticed when roubles suddenly disappeared and funny little coupons appeared instead

Many interesting details from that time. I remember my father explaining to me that Moscow was no longer the capital of our country, Kyiv was.

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I never bothered looking at money. The first time I held any currency in my hand, it was alrday a US dollar. As for the whole the not remembering USSR collapsed thing, I do recall that I wasted much of my time reading (well actually more looking) through a 1984 edition of "Pochemuchka" (Its basically a factbook)

Komandant Mark20 said:

Ah, the fun times...

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I've done some reading on hyperinflation/sanctions in Serbia in the early 90s, something about people living on $2 a month/day (can't make it out). In truth most of my knowledge on 1990s Serbia comes from watching the film "Rane" (saw it a couple of month ago)

Some time in the 80's, centre of Kyiv, soviet occupation. You can see my scared facial expression, as I knew the communists were watching my every move. Had to blur the centre of the pic as I have accidentally touched the monkeys balls 8[



This is what it looked like

Though i was only 3 when Lithuania broke free in 1990,

I remember glimpses of tanks roling the streets and some shooting in early 1991 and later how me with my father were with this huge number of people somewhere - i was few years later, when asked, told it was a mass funeral.

But most of all, i remember riding with my grandpa in his ZIL - you have no idea how cool i thought i was sitting in that ZIL though most probably it was a year or two already after 1990

some People's Republic of Bulgaria pictures

this is a statue of Lenin that once stood in front of the Party's House in Sofia



Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria's first communist leader) Mausoleum, it was destroyed by the ''democrats'' 7-8 years ago...funny thing it was build in 3 days by the people after the sudden death of Dimitrov and the so-called democrats couldn't destroy it for a week and a half...most Bulgarians on this forums it think remember this story :lol:





Square in front of Soviet Army Memorial Statue...nowadays skate park...for the Russians that may post in this thread...don't worry our prime-minister told Russian authorities that Bulgaria wouldn't get rid of its Soviet heritage...plus the statues are really nice no matter the ideology.

My memories... well let's see...

I was born in 1981. My first year of life was spent in Sofia and I certainly don't remember anything from this time. Then right at the age of one my parents got a contract to work in Cuba as structural engineers. We lived there for five years, but every summer we would go back to Bulgaria to visit with friends and family. During these trans-Altlantic trips, we would often stop-over in other countries between connecting flights. When I was three we spent a week in Madrid and I remember being impressed by the toy stores. I was really upset that my parents didn't buy me a remote control helicopter that had caught my eye. Needless to say, once we left Spain I was never again to see my beloved helicopter. We also spent some time in Brussels and once again I was impressed by the products available on store shelves.

We also spent time in other communist countries. I remember really enjoying myself in Prague as we were there on at least three occassions for days at a time. We also did a little vacation in Moscow during the summer of 1987. I loved it, especially walking around Red Square and checking out the Lenin Mausoleum. It's very interesting to me that I was in the capital of the USSR before it came undone. Now that I think about it, I was in Yugoslavia during the summer of 88, and that's before it disintegrated. Wow, I see a pattern developing here; maybe my parents and I were instigators... We'd go somewhere and the place would start to fall apart. :lol:

Yeap, good old times... in a very poor way! My parents were never communist party members, and my father especially hated everything about the system since his family's belongings were all confiscated by the Reds in the 50s and my grandma Dr. Yulia Alexieva was placed on the "black list" since her father was a surgeon who owned a private hospital in Burgas.

Nonetheless, if you looked into our travel history duing the 80s you'd really think we were commie spies or something. Oh and btw, my great-grandfather Dr. Dimitar Dulguerov (check Bulgarian spelling if you want to look him up), a famous Bulgarian religious rector and writer, studied in Moscow together with Stalin. They were not only classmates, but roommates. My family still has his photos from the time. He wrote about his experiences in his journals and to say the least couldn't get back to Bulgaria until the Soviet revolution was pretty much over. He saw the worst of it! I never met him as he died in the 60s, but my older relatives told me that he used to scream at night from his nightmares...

Oh one more thing, I myself have come in contact with so-called "Communist greatness." In Havana we lived in apartmet blocks called Sierra Maistra, where also lived Che Guevara's father. Old guy at the time and married to a 30 something year old woman half his age... Anyway, we used to see him by the pool all the time and apparently I used to play with his second wife's kids... So I think that's pretty awesome. Few find it easy to believe all this, and those who do, think we were scraping the top of the commie hierarchy. Think what you want, but make your thoughts entertaining, cause it's more fun that way! In the end it is what it is, my experience with communism.