One great thing was how safe it was. My parents just left me alone when they went to work, and I’d hang out with friends after school. Everything was really convenient as well cause all the things you needed were in walking distance. You didn’t even need public transit most of the time.
In summer, my family timeshared a coop dacha with a couple of other families and I’d hang out with their kids.
We only had a black and white TV though, even in the late 80s. And there weren’t a lot of shows to watch. But my parents got me reading at an early age, and I ended up loving sci-fi which is still my fav genre today.
There wasn’t any consumerism, and no ads blasted in your face. You didn’t buy stuff often, and things like clothing or gadgets all the time. Stuff was generally meant to last. There were no malls really either. There were a lot of parks though, and my parents really liked going for walks. So it’s another habit I’m glad I developed.
School was pretty intense. You had to juggle a bunch of subjects, and that was pretty tough.
This literally just reads like what I hope my retirement will look like. I’m done with this consumerist hell. I just want some peace and hopefully my friends in close vicinity so we can visit each other and cook/bake things that we share over a cup of tea
Indeed, capitalist society has a drive to monetize every human interaction, and that’s just fucked. We need places to just hang out and be ourselves without being expected to constantly buy shit.
First part of this is something I think the Soviets truly got right, city planning. Huge shame it was maligned after all the public run services were thrown to the dogs so the intertwined housing blocks then became increasingly shit.
It’s kind of funny how the whole 15 minute city idea that people keep talking about has been right there this whole time. Incidentally, China structures cities very much in a similar way as well. Everything is walkable there.
Likely yeah, my family moved around a lot after the collapse. And that’s the main thing I noticed, people aren’t that different wherever you go. We all have the same needs and drives. We hang out with friends, do stuff to pass the time, go to school, work, etc. But there are some important differences that come from having guarantees in life. For example, nobody in USSR worried about losing their job and ending up on the street or not being able to retire in dignity. These were a category of thoughts that simply didn’t exist because these were considered to be inalienable human rights. Today, living in Canada, I always have the thought of what will happen if I lose my job in the back of my mind. It’s an ever present worry hanging over you. You can be making good money, and like you work, and then the company you work for could go out of business, or you can get laid off because some a spreadsheet didn’t line up the way investors want. I’d give anything to have the guarantees my parents had back in the Soviet days.
It was literal labour benefit vacation in state owned or coop resorts for which most of workforce was legible, which you would know if you actually read that one line instead of fixating over the word “dacha” like the pavlov’s dog fed on anticommunist propaganda.
And if you knew how to read both comments and statistics, you’d be able to tell that in the 80’s access to coop dachas had… What, from 3 m in 1970’s to 8 million families by the end of 80s - So about 5-12% of population? (Source: T.G. Nefedova’s 2012 article “Gorozhane i dachi”)
But no, instead you focus on your imagination that I must’ve mean luxury villas like in the 50s?
You clearly do, since from my memory (granted, from Poland, not USSR) i never met any worker or worker children who was not going to vacations yearly before 1989. So either Poland was vastly better than USSR or your article is shit, or the definition of “dacha” and “vacations” vastly vary.
FWP peaked at 4m adults yearly (including partial refinancing) in the early 80s.
It is true to almost every kid during PRL was able to participate in some form of vacation. Please note that most were at the level lower than coop dachas, mostly tents, schools etc, and it was only partially refinanced.
I’m not talking about kolonie but wczasy, families went there, but if you were born after 1989 then you would naturally do not know about it as it was one of the first things slashed by our benevolent comprador overlords.
FWP is Fundusz Wczasów Pracowniczych. Wczasy pod gruszą były z FWP. You can very easily fact check me that at the peak of it about 4m Poles yearly were able to use FWP, and that includes partial refunds.
100% serious and sincere question: could you say more about what growing up in the USSR was like?
One great thing was how safe it was. My parents just left me alone when they went to work, and I’d hang out with friends after school. Everything was really convenient as well cause all the things you needed were in walking distance. You didn’t even need public transit most of the time.
In summer, my family timeshared a coop dacha with a couple of other families and I’d hang out with their kids.
We only had a black and white TV though, even in the late 80s. And there weren’t a lot of shows to watch. But my parents got me reading at an early age, and I ended up loving sci-fi which is still my fav genre today.
There wasn’t any consumerism, and no ads blasted in your face. You didn’t buy stuff often, and things like clothing or gadgets all the time. Stuff was generally meant to last. There were no malls really either. There were a lot of parks though, and my parents really liked going for walks. So it’s another habit I’m glad I developed.
School was pretty intense. You had to juggle a bunch of subjects, and that was pretty tough.
Otherwise, life is just life.
This literally just reads like what I hope my retirement will look like. I’m done with this consumerist hell. I just want some peace and hopefully my friends in close vicinity so we can visit each other and cook/bake things that we share over a cup of tea
Indeed, capitalist society has a drive to monetize every human interaction, and that’s just fucked. We need places to just hang out and be ourselves without being expected to constantly buy shit.
First part of this is something I think the Soviets truly got right, city planning. Huge shame it was maligned after all the public run services were thrown to the dogs so the intertwined housing blocks then became increasingly shit.
It’s kind of funny how the whole 15 minute city idea that people keep talking about has been right there this whole time. Incidentally, China structures cities very much in a similar way as well. Everything is walkable there.
Sounds more like the time you grew up in and less about where you grew up.
You could be describing my childhood in canada
Likely yeah, my family moved around a lot after the collapse. And that’s the main thing I noticed, people aren’t that different wherever you go. We all have the same needs and drives. We hang out with friends, do stuff to pass the time, go to school, work, etc. But there are some important differences that come from having guarantees in life. For example, nobody in USSR worried about losing their job and ending up on the street or not being able to retire in dignity. These were a category of thoughts that simply didn’t exist because these were considered to be inalienable human rights. Today, living in Canada, I always have the thought of what will happen if I lose my job in the back of my mind. It’s an ever present worry hanging over you. You can be making good money, and like you work, and then the company you work for could go out of business, or you can get laid off because some a spreadsheet didn’t line up the way investors want. I’d give anything to have the guarantees my parents had back in the Soviet days.
That gives me a much more meaningful idea of what you experienced. Thanks for doing that
Of course an affluent Russian family would remember USSR childhood foundly lol.
(Oh, sorry, no, it was called “lucky”, not “affluent”).
It was literal labour benefit vacation in state owned or coop resorts for which most of workforce was legible, which you would know if you actually read that one line instead of fixating over the word “dacha” like the pavlov’s dog fed on anticommunist propaganda.
And if you knew how to read both comments and statistics, you’d be able to tell that in the 80’s access to coop dachas had… What, from 3 m in 1970’s to 8 million families by the end of 80s - So about 5-12% of population? (Source: T.G. Nefedova’s 2012 article “Gorozhane i dachi”)
But no, instead you focus on your imagination that I must’ve mean luxury villas like in the 50s?
You clearly do, since from my memory (granted, from Poland, not USSR) i never met any worker or worker children who was not going to vacations yearly before 1989. So either Poland was vastly better than USSR or your article is shit, or the definition of “dacha” and “vacations” vastly vary.
Coop dachas for the whole family
=/=
Kolonie za PRL only for children
FWP peaked at 4m adults yearly (including partial refinancing) in the early 80s.
It is true to almost every kid during PRL was able to participate in some form of vacation. Please note that most were at the level lower than coop dachas, mostly tents, schools etc, and it was only partially refinanced.
I’m not talking about kolonie but wczasy, families went there, but if you were born after 1989 then you would naturally do not know about it as it was one of the first things slashed by our benevolent comprador overlords.
FWP is Fundusz Wczasów Pracowniczych. Wczasy pod gruszą były z FWP. You can very easily fact check me that at the peak of it about 4m Poles yearly were able to use FWP, and that includes partial refunds.
Lmao. I didnt see it so it didnt happen. The essence of every ml defender here
You: MLs deny things unless they see them!!!
Also you:
😦