Did anyone grow up in an Eastern Bloc country? What was it like?

[garlictwist]

I've just come back from a trip to Hungary. I've never been to that part of the world before and have been doing some reading about the Soviet times.

I understand Hungary was perhaps the freesest of the soviet states but life must have been quite different there nonetheless compared to me growing up in 1980s UK.

Did anyone here grow up in a former Soviet country? What can you remember?

i grew up in one during post communist times and it was great. The work ethic, the morals, caring for society and what’s public, people’s honesty, no political correctness, eagerness to learn and develop as individual, as a society and country, and more, made us a great, safe country. We are getting ahead of the western countries, the quality of life, even in small cities or towns is so much better, fresh local fruit and veg and dairy products, we generally are a very ambitious and hard working part of Europe. For example it is said that Poland will be richer than UK by 2030, and I am not surprised! Go and see it for yourself. It’s amazing :)

I was born in the Eastern Block during communism. Was hell, people losing their homes and jobs over anonymous accusations of criticising the Party (the state was the only employer so they basically had no means to sustain themselves, there was no ‘dole’). My mother worked in a psychiatric hospital and said they were likely experimenting on the patients, also people got diagnosed with schizophrenia or some other disorder and locked up in these houses of horror for having wrong opinions. I have some personal stories but won’t share as they’re outing. Suffice to say some of my family members were in the resistance and paid a hefty price for it. Our diet was black pudding, herring, sauerkraut and potatoes. Apples and pears in summer only. Oranges once a year for Christmas if we were lucky (from Cuba).

And then it ended, the 90s were hard, I remember my friends’ gums bleeding from lack of vitamins. Was a common thing. But then it got better. People have embraced the freedom to work, earn, look after their community and country. I often feel I want to go back. Like the previous poster said, it’s actually quite amazing now. Clean streets, safe (also for women at night), solid work ethics, the police focus on actual crime and not wrongthink, no cancel culture. Long may it continue.

I spent a month in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) one April in the mid 1970s with a group on an organised student exchange. I remember the queue outside the supermarket which was next to our hotel, when oranges had come in.

As far as I remember everyone was friendly.

We spent an evening in a student hostel, where we’d gone for a social event. I went to the ladies’ loos upstairs where the bedrooms were. Typical set up, sinks on one wall, row of cubicles facing them. There were partitions between each toilet but no doors. (The doors hadn’t been removed, they were built like that.)

We would have been noticeably foreign. If we wanted to get on a bus (tram?) which already looked full the people already inside would squash up and welcome us aboard.