more questions for a project

Hello everyone, again,

As you all already probably know, I'm doing a project about the USSR and I have become very interested in the life in the USSR. So, I have a few questions.

1. Were Soviet apartments very dirty and filthy?
2. Was the situation in Soviet apartments terrible because of alcoholism (I heard alcoholism wasn't as bad back then as it is now)
3. Could Soviet citizens buy whatever they wanted in the clothes and furniture categories?

I read a fragment in a Dutch book about the USSR (the book is around 20 years old, so I'm pretty sure it's written in a very pro-Western vision) which talked about how sad and depressed everyone was back then, but that wasn't THAT bad, was it?

Thank you comrades,

USSR

USSR wrote:

Hello everyone, again,

As you all already probably know, I'm doing a project about the USSR and I have become very interested in the life in the USSR. So, I have a few questions.

1. Were Soviet apartments very dirty and filthy?
2. Was the situation in Soviet apartments terrible because of alcoholism (I heard alcoholism wasn't as bad back then as it is now)
3. Could Soviet citizens buy whatever they wanted in the clothes and furniture categories?

I read a fragment in a Dutch book about the USSR (the book is around 20 years old, so I'm pretty sure it's written in a very pro-Western vision) which talked about how sad and depressed everyone was back then, but that wasn't THAT bad, was it?

Thank you comrades,

USSR

I mean you cleaned your own apartment/house, how does your question even make sense? I am Czech, which was part of the Eastern Bloc and all goods were accessible here to anyone (if they had the money to buy it), wealthier people even had BMWs and mansions (of course that was extremely rare), don't know about Russia, everything was a bit worse there.

Quote:

I am Czech, which was part of the Eastern Bloc and all goods were accessible here to anyone (if they had the money to buy it), wealthier people even had BMWs and mansions (of course that was extremely rare), don't know about Russia, everything was a bit worse there.

Dumb Question: Were they (the mansions) still owned by the state or were they privatised?

Yes, I heard about that, how Czechoslovakia was kind of the wealthiest in the Eastern Bloc, but I don't think the USSR was very far behind, because the other Eastern Bloc countries were all very poor. But USSR imported a lot of stuff (also from the Eastern Bloc). I believe that basic furniture was made in the USSR, but better quality furniture in other Eastern Bloc countries. But cars were mostly just made in the USSR.

Katjuscha1917 wrote:

Dumb Question: Were they (the mansions) still owned by the state or were they privatised?

If they were paid for and bought they were private from day 1.

http://www.blesk.cz/clanek/celebrity-ce ... korun.html
There is an article about a Czech director, who paid around ~500k USD (in today's money) for her house, today it is worth 2 million USD.

Here is Havel, the first president after socialism, a dissident and a 'victim' of communism, driving his Mercedes.