Mid 1980s. Image courtesy of Life magazine.
Whenever there is a heated argument whether things were better during the USSR times, this statement invariably pops up as a mighty ace: At least they had free medical care in the Soviet Union! This is supposed to bring the opponent to the knees and make them beg mercy and forgiveness for betraying the Great October achievements.
Well well well. Let’s have a close look at what really was free then.
Please welcome our new author Vadim Costyrin with his first but serious post on the present days of those born in the USSR, brought up by the Yeltsin’s coup and now left to seek their national and cultural identity all by themselves.
A performance at a kindergarten.
Once the USSR inspired us with fear, now this country does not exist. We have the big Russia and a lot of small and not so small, whimsical republics, for the right to include which in the sphere of their influence there fight politicians of the superpowers. Together with the Soviet Union we have lost Russians — our antipodes — against whom we willy-nilly matched. It may seem that it is a victory — but Russians want the USSR back, and after only two decades there are much more fears and threats.
Image courtesy of Léonard Gianadda, a Swiss photograher who visited Moscow in 1957.
During the Soviet times fashion was first and foremost, an instrument of propaganda of hard work attitudes and education of good taste. Therefore the way people were dressed was very strictly regulated – just like anything else, fashion had to be “planned” and “approved”.
Officially the most popular designs were the classic ones. Not only were they set out to promote the good taste of the clean cut and reserved elegance, it was also a very convenient way of production: once designed and approved, the classic dresses and suits were not as responsive to changes in the trends and hence inexpensive to maintain. The often boring-looking pieces of clothing were labelled as never going out of fashion and promoted as “eternally youthful”.
Eternally youthful, isn’t it?