the hopelessness of Soviet stores.
So, friends — today will be an interesting post about Soviet shops. I don’t know why — but still in the environment of fans of the Soviet Union very popular is the myth that the scoop of people were fed with high-quality products that were natural, and they are always in any quantity you could buy in any store. Supposedly compared to modern products in the USSR, it was natural, and the shelves were full of goods — this was a good choice.
Of course, it is not. There is no “good selection of products” In the USSR was not all the years of its existence, and in order to buy something more or less tolerable — people were forced to defend the huge queues. This, incidentally, puts an end to all the fantasies about what is supposedly “the Soviet Union was a country of justice and of happiness” — once again still in the USSR in the literal sense of the words “survival of the fittest”, which could in queues fighting to get themselves and their family products.
So in today’s post we will look at what looked like the trade of products in the USSR and compare it with today. 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)
02. First, let’s take a look at this picture of a small provincial Soviet store in the sixties — according to many fans of the USSR, this time it was the”Golden age” of the Union — consequences of the war have already overcome, and “cursed restructuring” has not yet begun.
However, as you can see in the photo, there is no “commodity abundance” store — on the shelves you can see the same sour bread “brick” and several types of simple canned — in the sixties of fresh fruit and vegetables was not really to buy, but canned like “Breakfast tourist” on the shelves had quite a lot — the feeling that the whole country went on a big hike during communism)
03. Where Soviet citizens to buy fresh fruits and vegetables? In addition to the vegetable stores (which also rarely normal range), there were also markets and vserazlichnymi point of exit trade. This picture was taken in the seventies, long before “the damned perestroika” — a store near the cinema sells some plain apples, and they immediately queue. I think in a modern supermarket you didn’t even looked in the direction of these apples, and in the USSR it was a running scarce commodity that was rarely in a normal shop for normal vegetables and fruits needed to “run”.
04. And this is a very important thing that you need to understand throughout the Soviet trade — you can’t just come into the store and out in half an hour with a complete set of products (as is happening now), it was impossible in principle. Yes, hunger you wouldn’t be dead — bread, yogurt and some cereals have been in every store, but if desired such as normal meat or vegetables — had to stand in a long queue (often for hours), or run on the markets, where the choice of vegetables/fruit were better than in stores.
05. As, for example, the trade took place in the meat Department of the Soviet stores? Delivery time normal sausage or a decent meat became known to customers, and often even before the opening of the store next to it stood a considerable part.
06. Fans of the USSR write — “but in the Union no one starved!”. Yes, indeed — the bread and yogurt you could buy always, but how long can you stretch out on one bread, yogurt and pasta grey? And in order to buy something other than bread and yogurt, often had to defend the huge queues at the queue stretches outside the shop, and in the foreground you can see the product that you can take without waiting — huge bottles of sugared water with addition of citric acid under the name “birch SAP”.
07. Themselves meat departments of the stores looked like this. That meat was packaged and freely lying in the refrigerator showcase (as is happening now) and the speech could not be — it would grind in two minutes. Meat stood in long queues, and the best pieces have got either “thieves” (friends of the shop staff), or just those who got there first. Sold meat often along with heavy bones (to increase sales weight) and all the meat Department in the USSR was a scheme of butchering pigs or cows standing in the line, Soviet citizens wondering which piece to take.
08. Those who for some reason didn’t manage to bring valuable product was in the queue for meat last got one skin, bones and pieces of fat called “soup mix”. This is the question of “care of the weak” in the USSR…
09. Sausage was about the same situation — time delivery of sausages became known in advance, and it was sorted very quickly, plus the considerable part of employees of shops “shove its” — sausage (especially of scarce dry-cured) was great payment for the services familiar to hairdressers, plumbers, and dentist.
10. More or less freely in the sausage Department, you could buy it — cooked sausage grayish color, with bacon (“Amateur”) or no fat (“doctor”). No natural raw smoked and dry cured sausages, no good sausages, wieners and sausages to beer, not to mention clippings, fillets, etc. And also pay attention to the price — pounds even so homely sausage worth as much as 3 rubles and 60 kopecks — that is, for the average Soviet salary could buy only 40-50 pounds of sausage.
11. The situation with the sale of poultry was the same, you are no showcases, refrigerators with a free sale — chickens were released strictly in order, often no more than 1-2 pieces per person (depending on situation). Even in the photo below you can see an interesting detail — in addition to the normal lever weights on the counter are still e — apparently, they were added in order to make it less “frauds on the deficit,” leverage and weights could come up with a lot of tricks.
By the way, the photo is some very good and rare broiler chickens, usually of Soviet chickens looked a bit different — was spifflicate, knackered, skinny, bluish and often sold with the remnants of feathers — feathers had to scorch over the burner of a gas stove.
12. Similar scales were massively introduced in the late eighties, that already says a lot about the Soviet trade — apparently rukovodstvo many shops tired of the constant machinations of sellers, in which the balance spring is stretched, then the weight will enclose — the balance shown is more than the product weighs really, and the difference of the gain was placed in his pocket.
13. The fish Department. Here is the same situation as with the meat, and sausages, who had first — dismantled the best, the rest got the leftovers. Pictured left — some nondescript frozen Alaska Pollock tails.
14. In the last years of the Soviet Union in the shops and all were completely empty shelves. This is not a metaphor, see for yourself — here is a Moscow grocery store, photographed in January 1990.
15. But the January 1991, it is also Moscow, the capital of the USSR.
16. A very characteristic photo of the last years of the Soviet Union — two of the storefront is completely empty, the window on the left are those cans of sugared water with addition of citric acid under the name “juice”, in the background you can see the scales, and in the right corner — the scheme of cutting of meat carcasses.
17. To all the above, it should be added that trade in Soviet shops, even from the point of economy of time was organized very inefficient — often the buyer stood in one line to weigh the product, then stood a second queue to the cashier to get the check, and then stood a third place to check is stamped to previously weighed commodity.
Photo: Gettyimages.
Such cases.
Well, you still want the poor in Soviet stores? So you bought)?
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