Reply #32: She says that she remembers, of course, limited

[Union Thug]

choices ie. not much a selection in the stores for toys, etc, the whole toilet paper shortage thing, (she interjects she had stuffed animals and such as a girl), and there was certainly a black market where you could get ANYTHING. The corruption was a huge problem.

She says that they were more self-sustaining than americans in some ways. She says her family had their own garden..a real garden (at least as big as the piece of property our house is on..a decent sized lot) with a "dacha" - I guess it's a little tiny cabin, and they had apple trees, plums and grew vegetables which they canned for the winter). She says that her whole family would pile into the Zapparoshetz (sp?), a little car about the size of a VW bug (original bugs)and spend their weekends there during the summer.

Part of high school had them helping local farmers on the collectives. They would spend about a month out on the farm. She said it was fun, not a labor camp (as some would say). There was music, dances, DJs, food.

No one was starving in the streets, as some would have you believe, while she was in Russia (she came to the states in 2000). Funny, she says, that New Years ornaments of Soviet Times are very desirable these days. (not sure why that came out) :-)

She says that,yes, there were a lot of problems, but that her family and friends didn't feel oppressed by the state or anything like that. She says that she really didn't like the amount of time they had to spend studying Lenin's life in school, but that her school days were good ones. She was part of the audio/visual crew, organized dances, etc. An outgoing kid. She was able to try many different sports, and participate in academic clubs, arts, music, dance.

I wish I could show you the pictures of her family during these times. I think a lot of Americans would be surprised. A lot of things were very similar. For example, their were pop music icons (for ex. Pugochova (sp?)) was a big deal. She mentioned others, but I can't for the life of me attempt to transcribe their names!!! They had ice villages in the winter in her home town of Kamensk Uralsky (ural mountain region not terribly far from Yekaterinburg).