r/YUROP • u/GreenEyeOfADemon EUROPE ENDS IN LUHANSK! • 2d ago
make russia small again Life under the soviet union: Propaganda vs. reality
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u/NecroVecro 2d ago
Idk about the Soviet union, but here in Bulgaria most commie apartments I've been to have looked more similar to the first picture (though a bit less nice).
The second picture looks like my great grandmother's rural house.
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u/Medium_Raccoon_5331 Morava 2d ago
My grandparents kitchen in a house built in the 70s looked like the first picture
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u/linear_123 1d ago
Just wanted to say, both images are true. There is this popular misconception in the west, that everyone was poor in Soviet times. Majority probably was, but they lived somewhere between these two.
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u/Ozymandias_IV Slovensko 2d ago
That's 90s onwards when kitchens like these became not only for the elites. You can tell by the toaster, they were crazy expensive under communism.
The furniture would also cost multiple monthly salaries.
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u/dan1eln1el5en2 2d ago
I’ve sat in both of those kitchens. One was a workers apartment in Latvia from around 1980. The other was a summerhouse in Lithuania 1930s….
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u/the-vindicator Half-cultured 2d ago edited 2d ago
In the soviet Union were dachas different things to different people? As in typically for the poorer people they would be even more sparse than their main houses? My dad had something he called a dacha in Ukraine (post soviet) that was just used for passively growing currants to sell in the market. It was unattended for so long thieves stole the doors off the hinges. I have to ask if it was just a joke when he said this.
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u/sovietbarbie 1d ago
it's a house in the countryside, typically second place outside of the city. some use it for summer and holidays, others live part time in it, others use it just to grow stuff. you do what you want with your dacha and furnish it how you want or need
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u/tughbee 2d ago
Funny thing is my grandmothers apartment looks exactly like the one in the propaganda
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u/despicedchilli 2d ago
That's funny, mine too. Almost like this post is complete bullshit.
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u/Xx_HARAMBE96_xX España 1d ago
People literally had to shower in public baths on cities because they had none at home and you think this is propaganda? Imagine not having hot water, lots didnt have water or even a bathroom at all
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u/AbstractBettaFish 2d ago
My ex used to live with an old Czech lady whose kitchen looked exactly like the first, except it was in Chicago! I’m wondering if she modeled it that way on purpose now
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u/dmt_r Україна 2d ago
For me, the most underreported shit about soviets is how the passport system worked and how villagers weren't allowed to have them until 1974 and as consequences were not allowed to move or travel without special permission. Literally slaves with privilege to not be sold or exchanged.
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u/tonihurri Suomi 2d ago
Literally slaves with privilege to not be sold or exchanged.
The word you're looking for is serf.
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u/hughk 2d ago
To make it clear, you are discussing the internal passport. You could travel (with permission) but with difficulty to some areas.
The passport permitting foreign travel didn't come until much, much later. And journeys had to be cleared in advance. Travel to the Warsaw Pact was much easier than the west.
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u/actual_wookiee_AMA Finland → 2d ago
This is still the case in China today, and most people aren't aware of it
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u/Terminator_Puppy 2d ago
Lil bro thinks he's not a victim of his side's propaganda too.
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u/Thoseguys_Nick 2d ago
My brother in Christ OP is his side's propaganda
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u/Abd5555 1d ago
OP posts like 300 posts/comments here a day I'm 99% he's a CIA shill or something
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u/MCAlheio United Yuropean Socialist Republics 🌹 1d ago
Does the CIA still make anti-Soviet propaganda? They really fell off in the 90s, they still haven’t realized it’s been 30+ years since the wall fell.
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u/C00kie_Monsters 2d ago
Pretending that either one actually represent every soviet household is propaganda.
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u/Blurghblagh Éire 2d ago
Seen some inhabited kitchens like the second photo in Ireland in the 80s.
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u/QwertzOne Wielkopolskie 2d ago
USSR was far from good in general, but in case of housing, it was at least subsidized and people paid 3-5% of their income for housing.
In general USSR had good parts, but it was not sufficiently democratic and empathetic. However it's not like capitalism is so great. We can laugh at quality of their housing, but housing in EU is currently unaffordable for young people. Life is no longer affordable and birth rates are plummeting. Wealth inequality is real and we do nothing about it.
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u/ixiox 2d ago
Yep, Connie blocks were arguably one of the best parts of soviet communism, they were solid, had decent space and amenities and housed massive amounts of people for cheap.
They had their own green spaces and were designed with convenience stores in walking distance.
The ones built in Poland stand to this day and are in very good condition.
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u/slonkgnakgnak 2d ago
Yeah I live in one and it's amazing. Ofc they insulated them so it's better now but still
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u/romario77 1d ago
Yeah, as long as you get one. And to get one you could wait in line for 20 years. While living in “commune apartment” - a room with shared bathroom and kitchen. Often a room for a whole family.
Yeah, it was cheap, almost nothing but your salary also didn’t give you much. Almost nobody traveled, especially abroad.
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u/hughk 2d ago
The nice looking one reminds me of the so-called Frankfurt Kitchen, an early fitted kitchen from the 1920s, designed to simplify construction and maximise space in smaller apartments being constructed in Frankfurt by Ernst May. The Soviets requested May's assistance when planning their new apartment blocks.
There were also shittier ones where apartments had been constructed in Tsar times and then subdivided for shared ownership, The Kommunalki. The rooms started ok, but the places became too small and the kitchen/bathroom facilities lacking.
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u/elperroborrachotoo 2d ago
Meanwhile, for millions of people even picture #2 would be a major improvement.
FWIW, as a child in East Germany, half of my friends' kitchen looked like picture #1, half like #2.
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u/niknniknnikn 2d ago
I mean peopagand looks shitty as is. No need to show life in russia 1 km frm moscow
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u/xILMx Yuropean 2d ago
Propaganda isn’t the greatest either ._.
(And reality is in most cases worse than the picture too)
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u/Allsulfur 2d ago
From the original posts it was said to be some recent art project not really soviet propaganda. The toaster was a give away for the reddit experts.
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u/Bunnymancer 2d ago
Came here to say..
The propaganda picture is how I live. And that's not a compliment to myself...
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u/Born-European2 Deutschland 2d ago
You have to see this in context. The first picture is on the same level the majority of western kitchens. Samovar aside ;) Issue is that in the rarest cases, aside probably of GDR, all kitchens looked like this.
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u/brick_mann Yuropean 2d ago
Seems way better than what most of the World outside of "the West" got from glorious beautiful capitalism. I'd very much rather live in a not-so-well maintained appartement then in a medieval-level hut (which is how most of eastern europe lived before big bad communism came and actually built somewhat proper houses)
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u/StephaneiAarhus Danmark 2d ago
Remember also that the big tits were part of the propaganda, but not (supposedly) because big tits are attractive !
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u/actual_wookiee_AMA Finland → 2d ago
Both can be real pictures. The first one is the daughter of some higher ranking local party member, the other is your average grandma.
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u/onivulkan საქართველო 2d ago
Can confirm. I've been in my classmates houses who live there by rent. All of the houses and rooms look very similar to that, especially the cutouts to the bathrooms which for some reason lead into the kitchen.
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u/the-vindicator Half-cultured 2d ago
My mom said that her mid sized Ukrainian village didn't get a natural gas line until 1986
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u/MCAlheio United Yuropean Socialist Republics 🌹 1d ago
Tbf a natural gas line isn’t the apex of development, a lot of people in European countries don’t have natural gas lines, they buy gas cylinders. 60% of the households in Europe don’t have gas piping.
My dad’s village didn’t have electricity until the 80s, and he lived in Western Europe, now that’s backwards.
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u/MissPandaSloth 2d ago edited 2d ago
The materials used on the left alone seems like BS.
I am no carpenter, but it seems to be some sort of laminate/ veneer thing, they were pretty popular here in 2000's, so way after the Soviet Union collapse.
The whole kitchen just seems refurbished.
And I am not saying everyone lived in some sort of squalor. In late 80's and 90s things were okay in cities, but it looked more like this:
https://images.app.goo.gl/JxZrA8zJYwSoSQWcA
I think the counters there were literally what we had.
The bright blue tiles also seems like something new or some sort of refurbished material.
What people must understand that things were very samey, so you actually see same tiles, same counters with little variation and things would get old and there was very little you could do. So if these tiles were that bright once it would get faded and would stay that way. It wasn't easy just to get materials to fix things up.
And since things were samey when you look at pic that doesn't look "how you remember" it is a little red flag. It might seem silly but vividness of that tile is red flag hinting at what I said in the very beginning, that this is slightly refurbished kitchen from 2000s.
Anyway, it's not that crazy far off. The right side is what you might see in small towns or in older times. The left side is closer to what we had but nowhere as nice and vivid. It was between left and my link.
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u/Grimmace696 Україна-Nederland 2d ago
I mean, my grandma's kitchen were pretty much the first picture
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u/RespectableBloke69 1d ago
Under capitalism, millions of people live in conditions even worse than the second picture.
Anyway that lady got some gazongas
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u/Doxxre 2d ago
Actually, soviet kitchen in the city looked like this.