The 90s. Seeing their country go from conditions similar to the west
Bro, what are you talking about? Soviet Russia was literally dirt poor. About 1/3 of the houses in Russia don’t have indoor plumbing still to this day. A large part don’t even have electricity yet. And it was even worse during the 70s and 80s. My parents lived in the soviet block and at the end of the 80s literally everything was sold through a ticket system. From cooking oil, sugar, flour, meat, vegetables, potatoes through toilet paper to gas and sometimes even electricity was limited by quotas. In every family each person had a quota (i.e. ticket) for everything, and you could only buy things if three things were through at once:
You had money for it.
You had a ticket for it.
It was in stock.
It was extremely rare that these three would all be true at once. Mostly because all shops were always empty. Even if they have received stock, it was usually hidden away and only sold to friends of the shopkeepers, at least the most/best of it. It was literally true, that when you saw a line outside on the street, you stood in line. There was something in stock, and everybody was short on everything all the time.
So no, Russia was in absolutely NO fucking way anywhere near at the standards of living of the West. Russia (and its vassals even more) was mostly a third world country, always. They had Moscow and Leningrad and a few other postcard cities that were kept well treated as a showroom. But 90-95% of the people were living at a third world country level.
And yes, in the 90s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the chaos it was for a while even worse. Because while there was serious scarcity of EVERYTHING under the communism, at least the little that was available, was being divided somewhat evenly. Or at least the system tried. Hence the ticket system. But after 90, a few oligarchs, mostly the different leaders under the communist regime, has bought up everything. Every land, every machine, every factory, every produce. So not only was there still a huge scarcity, the little that was available, was in the hands of a very few, very greedy oligarchs.
But that in no way means that beforehand people lived well, or anywhere close to western standards. Not at all.
Bro, what are you talking about? Soviet Russia was literally dirt poor. About 1/3 of the houses in Russia don’t have indoor plumbing still to this day. A large part don’t even have electricity yet. And it was even worse during the 70s and 80s. My parents lived in the soviet block and at the end of the 80s literally everything was sold through a ticket system. From cooking oil, sugar, flour, meat, vegetables, potatoes through toilet paper to gas and sometimes even electricity was limited by quotas. In every family each person had a quota (i.e. ticket) for everything, and you could only buy things if three things were through at once:
It was extremely rare that these three would all be true at once. Mostly because all shops were always empty. Even if they have received stock, it was usually hidden away and only sold to friends of the shopkeepers, at least the most/best of it. It was literally true, that when you saw a line outside on the street, you stood in line. There was something in stock, and everybody was short on everything all the time.
So no, Russia was in absolutely NO fucking way anywhere near at the standards of living of the West. Russia (and its vassals even more) was mostly a third world country, always. They had Moscow and Leningrad and a few other postcard cities that were kept well treated as a showroom. But 90-95% of the people were living at a third world country level.
And yes, in the 90s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the chaos it was for a while even worse. Because while there was serious scarcity of EVERYTHING under the communism, at least the little that was available, was being divided somewhat evenly. Or at least the system tried. Hence the ticket system. But after 90, a few oligarchs, mostly the different leaders under the communist regime, has bought up everything. Every land, every machine, every factory, every produce. So not only was there still a huge scarcity, the little that was available, was in the hands of a very few, very greedy oligarchs.
But that in no way means that beforehand people lived well, or anywhere close to western standards. Not at all.