Decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, only a few things about the communist state are still well-known enough to be part of the public conscience.
The Cold War, Sputnik, and the rule of Joseph Stalin are all infamous enough to be widely known. Yet, these larger-than-life facts and figures like this give us no hint as to how people in the Soviet Union actually lived.
Despite the privacy and secrecy of the Soviet Union, we’ve learned a lot over the years about the daily lives of Soviet citizens.
Here, we will go over 7 interesting facts about daily life in the Soviet Union that might seem bizarre today but were just normal life for those in the USSR.
People in the Soviet Union Loved Soda
Even back when the Soviet Union was in existence, the Pepsi and Coca-Cola rivalry was going strong.
At the time, trade negotiations between the United States weren’t exactly friendly, and despite the untapped market for soda products in the Soviet Union, neither of the two American soda powerhouses had managed to get a foothold.
That all changed in 1959 when the CEO of Pepsi snagged an invitation to the American National Convention in Moscow where he made his case for his soda to Khrushchev.
It took over a decade, but in 1971 the CEO finally brokered a deal to bring Pepsi to the Soviet Union long before Coca-Cola.
This made Pepsi the first foreign product legally sanctioned to be sold in the Soviet Union!
Pepsi was a hit, and its solo existence in Russia gave it a leg up on Coca-Cola for the first time.
While Coke would eventually make its way to Russia as well, there’s no replacing their first soda love.
Waiting in Line Was a Part of Life
Waiting in line, or ‘queueing’, isn’t unfamiliar to anyone. We wait in line for anything from a roller coaster at a theme park to a coffee from a favorite coffee shop early in the morning.
So why was queueing the Soviet Union interesting?
Since the Soviet Union was a Marxist-Communist state, all means of production were publicly owned by the government and distributed to citizens.
They made a normal trip to the grocery store for bread and milk impossible. Instead, people had to line up for hours in order to get basic life necessities like food, hygiene products, and even clothes.
Because of this unavoidable, forced lining up, queueing became a culture all its own. It paid off to be there first in line for things like meat because as the day went on, the quality of the products would go down.
A few spaces in line might mean the difference between a juicy steak and a gristly piece of beef. So people in the Soviet Union would show up early for the queue, and use the time to socialize and catch up with their peers.
Rationing in the Soviet Union Was the Norm
During multiple different periods of the Soviet Union’s existence, rationing of food, common goods, and even money itself was necessary.
These rationing practices were occasionally successful in helping the economy, but at other times the amount of food rations were so sparse that people starved to death.
One of the most notorious periods of rationing was between 1941 and 1947, due to the economic hardships of war. The worst rationing occurred during the German invasion, where the lower classes received incredibly sparse rations.
Communal Living Was More Common Than You Might Think
During the early days of the Soviet Union, there was a massive housing crisis, specifically in larger cities and more urban areas.
In response to this crisis, a new way of living was concocted to give everyone a roof over their head.
This response to the issue of homelessness in the Soviet Union was called kommunalka, or ‘communal apartments.’
With these communal apartments, multiple families would live within one apartment space, as opposed to each family having their own. These families would each have their own rooms which would have to serve as their bedroom and living area, but would have to share a kitchen and hallways.
While this arrangement ensured that more families than ever would have a roof over their heads, it wasn’t exactly convenient. New apartments were rarely constructed for communal living; instead, already existing single-family apartments would be converted into communal spaces, and up to seven families would be crammed into a space that had originally been built to serve just one.
Communal apartments were incredibly popular during the Soviet Union, playing perfectly into the idea of a Communist state, so much so that they became the main form of housing for decades.
Women Were Considered Equal to Men By Law in the Soviet Union
In the spirit of improving the Soviet Union overall, women were declared, by law, to be completely equal to men.
The Constitution of the USSR stated, “Women in the USSR are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social, and political life.”
Socially, women were still viewed differently than men. However, the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated fields in the workforce changed things, sometimes to a drastic degree. Women were able to find opportunities to gain higher education and enter fields like science and engineering for the first time.
Women were also welcomed into the military and would serve not just as nurses, but also as fighters.
Many female soldiers excelled as pilots and one woman, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, became one of the most legendary snipers of all time, having killed 309 enemy combatants during her stint in the war. 95 women were eventually awarded The Hero of the Soviet Union distinction.
To help women in the workforce, the Soviet Union attempted to provide aid to women who wanted to work but also have a family. Maternity leave and childcare were offered for mothers, as women and men both were encouraged to strive for the success of the Soviet Union as a whole rather than focusing strictly on family.
Music Had to Go Underground
Music has always been one of the most important forms of protest, and music during the Soviet Union was no expectation. The difference was that the government blacklisted many Western bands and even a good number of Soviet bands as well, fearing the anti-communist message that was inherent in so much of their music.
Rock music in particular was targeted, and the tunes were forbidden from being performed. This rule was occasionally enforced so strictly that some rock musicians even received jail time.
Distribution of this music was severely limited as well. But this didn’t stop the music fans who were hungry for new records to listen to. Most forbidden recordings were distributed through magnitizdat, which was the process of recording and distributing banned music throughout the Soviet Union via tapes.
One of the oddest footnotes to come out of the Soviet rock music ban was the creation of roentgenizdat, or Ribs. Ribs, also called ‘music on the ribs’ or ‘bone records’ were recorded onto used X-ray material using a recording lathe.
Because of the material they were created from, these Ribs, when exposed to light, would still show the X-rays that the film originally held. The process was time-consuming, and the quality wasn’t always great, which is why magnitizdat became the preferred method of banned music distribution.
Physical Activity and Sports Were a Huge Deal
It’s no surprise that sports were so important to the people of the Soviet Union. Even in modern-day Russia, training and sending elite athletes to the Olympics is still a large part of the culture.
Soviet leaders used learning and training for a sport to not only win against other countries but also keep their populations in tip-top shape.
Sports kept people busy, and the training was thought to make them more productive and effective in the workforce. It was also believed that when more people were trained, the more likely it was that top athletic talent would emerge from the crowd.
Being a sports star in the Soviet Union wasn’t easy, though. Soviet athletes weren’t encouraged to take joy in their sports but to consider it a job and a lifestyle.
The idea was to win, no matter what the cost. Add to that the fact that top athletes’ lives were controlled down to the minute by the government, and it’s easy to see why Soviet Olympians often appeared so grim.
Even if Soviet citizens didn’t train in a specific sport, physical activity and fitness were still a huge part of society. Calls for exercise would be played multiple times a day on the radio, and workers were expected to take breaks from their jobs to stretch and exercise to keep their minds and bodies sharp.
