Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
What was it that was really bad about living conditions in those days?
I mean, what do you remember as truly irritating and frustrating about your living conditions when you lived there? I never had an opportunity to ask a Russian person that, and it would be interesting to know.
I'm not sure that is a fruitful question. There's probably nothing as frustrating as finding a fair comparison. Once I read a serious research that the standards of living in the Soviet Union were better than in the US. They compared the GDP, the housing costs, the amount of the proteins and fat an average person consumed a day, and many more factors. After reading that research, I kind of refuse to answer your question. Really bad things happen everywhere. The reason why those leaving the Soviet Union were named "those who left for the sausage" was a legend that a woman entered a corner deli store in the West Germany and fainted because she saw some 50 different sorts of sausages. (And of course due to the fact that there was very limited assortment (most often - nothing) in the Soviet corner stores.) Personally, I find that story hard to believe because those who were allowed to leave the iron curtain and visit the West Germany were quite familiar with the different sorts of sausage, maybe not 50, but 10 for sure as they should have access to the fine sausages in the special distribution stores. Such stores were closed for the general public and were only open to the specific people, either the party nomenclature or the high-rank specialists working for the Military Complex. The prices in those special stores were very good, not expensive at all. It's just that the access was limited. The top government officials got all that (and many more) for free. The Communism wished to eliminate the difference between the rich and the poor. But, you can't produce the sausages for everyone. In the West it was controlled by the high price, and in the USSR it was controlled by the government (just like about everything else). Whoever was closer to the government had better goods and services and there was no other means to get it. Would you consider that "really bad"? Perhaps, no as long as other people are used to live that way, right?