Fakes and myths about “Soviet abundance”

about “Soviet abundance.”

So, friends, today will be a post on one of the most popular topics in my blog — about the Soviet trade, but rather about the fakes of her that spread fans of the Soviet Union, trying to give them at face value. These photos-fakes are usually accompanied by stories that are actually in Soviet stores there was an abundance, and all the pictures of empty shelves is the alleged “horrors of the nineties”, although this is actually the scoop was empty shelves due to the inefficient planned economy engendered by the shortages and queues.

So in today’s post — the story of a few photos myths about “Soviet abundance” — which you probably have already encountered on the Internet and perhaps even take them for the truth. In General, make sure you check out the article below, write your opinion in the comments, and of friends added do not forget. And telegram channel also subscribe)

1. A humorous photo-a myth from Sergei Elkin.

02. The first photo is a myth made famous cartoonist Sergei Elkin — apparently, specifically to a little bit of trolling fans of the USSR, so here it is:

<img src=”https://glavnoe.ua/media/images/news/33/01/86/330186_default.jpg”>

The funny thing — many took this photo-fake at face value. Most, of course, saw through the Assembly, but was under the tweet Sergey and here are the comments:

“And it was without soy, palm oil. vegetable oils, different additives….everything was natural and useful. Now if you remove all that is impossible, the shelves in the stores will be empty.”

“It is the Soviet Union! And the prices and discounts are there for fun – anyway all were given free.”

“Excellent! It was in the Soviet Union in every store, even the village. Only the discounts were more, and on holidays seniors do for free…”

“This is a typical General store-the grocery store. In the cities were much better.”

“Somewhere it all disappeared after 70 years.”

But what is actually depicted in the original photo that was used for your collage Sergei. This shop jamon in Madrid, the made in 2009.

2. Fake picture of a Soviet store.

If Sergei Yolkin his picture was just kidding (although some do not read reviews and take the photograph at face value, and will remain so in the belief that only saw that photo was “real life”), but there are the real fakes, the authors try earnestly to give photoshop for “real life in the Union”. Network now walks here is a photo, ostensibly designed to prove “abundance” in Soviet grocery stores. Look just shelves crammed with all sorts of products:

But what is actually depicted on the photograph to his clumsy processing in photoshop. This store in any English speaking country — that way you can see not only the inscriptions but also by how the woman dressed and behave as children — in the Soviet Union they immediately would have made a “comment”. And the fans of the USSR have missed one of the English words — it can be seen under the inscription “cakes”))

3. Photos a myth to who can’t count.

05. The second photo is the myth looks like this, a tweet from a fan of the USSR:

<img src=”https://i.c97.org/gi/36192/184254-1515248973-big.jpg”>

06. Excellent analysis of the photos made in the draft medium I can only repeat the main points from there — on the shelves of all seven items, namely:

1. Georgian black tea 1st grade.
2. Indian tea with the elephant, Packed in Ryazan.
3. Cuban refined sugar.
4. Condensed milk.
5. Squash caviar.
6. Canned peppers Globus.
7. Pickles, also Hungarian.

Serving all this splendor 4 seller. In General, as correctly noted in the medium — to the Soviet market really could come up with one and the same with him in and out.

Photo-disclosure: medium.com

4. Photo-a myth of my own.

07. In the fourth photo-the myth I have found a modern photograph of Pripyat, was the Central grocery store on the main square of the city. This photograph I made in 2014 year and published in the post “Ding-a-Dong, or one day in Pripyat, 1985”. By the way, be sure to read it.

According to the author of the tweet — the presence of trucks in the Department store says some especially high-quality range in the store, although it is not so. Pripyat stood alone among Soviet cities — it was practically an indoor city of power, and I still meet history, as for the goods in Pripyat drove from all the surrounding towns and villages of the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR — riding the “rocket” even from Mozyr, in stores which was not anything.

And even with all this “commodity abundance” of Pripyat is not any comparison with modern shops, in General, as I wrote in the photo — “Finally, I reach the store. At the entrance to the supermarket movers unload fresh milk – you need exactly to take it, and tomorrow it will be gone.”)

As for the trucks — that by themselves they are not talking about a particularly rich assortment of no particular “quality” of the products. Pre-accident photo of the Pripyat Department store I found, but there’s a photograph of the Minsk supermarket “Riga”, which was also state of the art truck:

In “Riga” I have been in the last years of the USSR, and everything looked exactly as on the picture — a huge half-empty room with a ceiling of 7 meters and a very modest range of products. The Department store is very similar to the Central Pripyat, and I think that in Pripyat would be about the same range. Do you see in the photo above a special kind of abundance? Personally, I see no more than 5-7 types of goods on the shelves in the background, and the basket ladies at the checkout — only some chocolates, pasta and a few cans. And this is a staged photo for the booklet about the area!

And here, for comparison, “Riga” looks like now. Dozens of racks of shelves with thousands of products, fresh baked goods, live sturgeon in aquarium red fish on ice, fresh sushi, dozens of varieties of wine, quality meat, craft beer and a bunch of fruit, including exotic ones. In addition, after the reconstruction it is much better to become used in the market square — in the “Riga” there was a second floor with all sorts of useful promovare.

I think that if the citizen of the USSR to move from “Riga”-1987 in “Riga” the modern he would be very surprised — first, that this range actually happens in the world, and secondly — what is the usual neighborhood supermarket, not a closed institution for party gods…

Photo: Peter Washbrook.

Such cases.

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