Imagine living in Siberia with sub zero temperatures and you have no food to eat. Your only two options are hunt a wild bear or wait in a 4 hour line for a piece of bread. What do you choose?
I was born in the Soviet Union, I was just a kid when it collapsed but I remember what it was like. Parents had to go stand in line for bread at 4am. Dad was the only one working and sometimes wouldn’t get paid for months because his bosses didn’t have any cash to give.Luckily, he worked on ships and was able to bring home frozen blocks of fish to feed us. Power and water outages were very common and would last for weeks. My parents sold everything they owned and fled to the US via green card with just the clothes on our back and $5000 in cash.Most of our family and friends also fled to western countries, Greece, Germany, Canada and so on, so we are all scattered all over the world now. I remember seeing Russian troops and tanks in our town during the Armenian/Azerbaijani conflict in the early 90s and me and my brother would go around collecting shell casings from tanks afterwards. What a crazy childhood 😂. Makes me appreciate the US so much.
I love reading people’s story in the comments and learn how they got through this dark period. The resiliency that some people show is insane. I hope all of you are now living better lives.
As a political refugee from Communist Czechoslovakiai 1968, I was a Defensive Contractor for the US Airforce when the Soviet Union collapsed. I was totally awestruck by the surreal nature of what I was seeing on the news. I had no idea that such a thing was possible.
I'm an American who lived through the Cold War and never thought I'd see the Berlin Wall fall. Fast forward to the mid 90s and I actually walked through the Brandenburg gate... it was a surreal experience. I'm glad you made it out, Stevo!
Nutty History is SO GOOD its almost nostalgic as though i grew up watching it on history channel, but i didnt! This is too good for history channel! Thanks for the Info-tainment
I hate the titles to these. OBVIOUSLY 10s of MILLIONS of people survived the collapse of the Soviet Union. 10s of MILLIONS. And, they didn't leave. Most stayed right where they were.
Most didn't have an ability or option to leave, or they would have. Stop trying to downplay tithe seriousness and suffering that people went through then.
@@Meight50five - Horse crap. The largest departure from Russia just happened earlier this year when almost 2 Million people left all at once. The largest departure since WW2. This is disinformation. And the title is stupid. I'm not trying to downplay Anything. You're just a simpleton.
@z Ed you tell me? How dense are you? WHY is he even pointing it out? Just the same way you're attempting to explain what he meant as "obvious" and my reply unnecessary, as was it being obvious the video was not implying that and his original comment unnecessary. But the reality is he's being a low key apologist for a regime that was at least as bad as, if not worse than, the 3rd Reich. So really, how dense can you be? Or are you defending a fellow apologist?
Unfortunately yes. Greed has gotten to USA. Also did you know that California is not American owned anymore. All of downtown building 🏢 are Chinese and Japanese owners.
The 1000th like! Also Living in the Soviet Union during the Stalin Era or as I call it, the Devil's Era you had nothing but the Grim Reaper breathing down your neck every single day.
My father grew up in the Soviet Union and says the standard of living in Russia is the highest it has ever been. Even our relatives in Crimea are doing well, much better than when I visited them in 2012. Crimea has gone from a backwater back to a thriving region over the last 8 years. Most of the eastern block nations are doing much better now. The westernmost ones got US and EU funding to rebuild their economies, but the eastern ones (in Asia) still have a ways to go since they had to rebuild their economies without any help.
@@QualityPen my family is still in Kaliningrad, and although you are correct the standard of living is the highest it has ever been, it is nothing compared to the prosperity many nations have enjoyed. As my mother once told me "You get to live, I must survive."
Eastern Bloc nations implies the former Warsaw Pact nations not in the USSR, i.e. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary etc. The EU funding given to Poland alone is the biggest transfer of wealth ever, more than the Marshall Plan, and that was to rebuild all of Western Europe. Politicians there have admitted they literally don't know what to spend the money on. There are brand spanking new motorways funded by the EU in remote areas, with hardly any cars using them, while the German Autobahns have roadworks and tailbacks every few miles, the days of no speed limits are long gone. Small towns in Eastern Europe have tram and underground networks, which only a couple of cities have access to in Western European countries. I was in Ostrava, a small town in Czechia, a few years back and in the early hours of the morning thought I heard a tram passing but told myself I must have dreamt it as in Western Europe trams don't run after midnight normally, a few minutes later I heard it again, looked out of the window to see an empty tram passing, they run 24/7 there. After communism fell, the state which formerly owned all property disappeared, and people bought houses and flats for peanuts. Even now young Eastern Europeans are able to outright buy or have new properties built after working 5 years in the UK or other Western European countries. Don't feel sorry for them. I used to feel sorry for some Polish alcoholics who looked like they were homeless in the Netherlands, until one of them showed me a photo of his - not his family's but his own personal - 3 story house with large garden back in Poland, which he had been given by a relative, which was empty. A lot of them have flats or houses in cities which they rent out while they come to work or not even work in Western Europe. Most of them have less worries than West Europeans and North Americans now. The boot is on the other foot now.
Right. What these socialists ignore is that you never see people risking life and limb to leave America or other western countries.. but you certainly see people risking it all to leave socialist countries alllll the time. That right there should tell you everything you need to know about socialism.
@@darthsilversith667 there have only been shitty socialist countries, but socialism doesn’t have to be Leninist or Stanilist. Sadly it has never been tried.
I have no link to the Soviet Union but students of my country. They used to go to deepen their studies there! I remember one of them, returning from the Soviet Union, reporting to me that the wears there were expensive and nobody could buy them. He reported me too, that all the years studying in Moscow, he and other students, were provided only with milk and chicken, all long he was there! He got married with a russian woman, and lived in the appartment of her parents, because a couple has to wait years, before obtaining an appartment! 😥👀 It was at the beginning of the 80s!
I was sitting next to a guy from Russia on a flight. He was from Siberia and was flying home to his wife. She was from Siberia. They met in a bar in Seattle
Suddenly I have a taste for Pizza Hut. I almost forgot how rich and buttery their pizza crust is. They say the Russian Communist Party was a puppet for the Christian Church all along anyway. Amongst other similarities they cried poverty but in fact enjoyed abundance and luxury like the Catholic clergy. I personally know this guy who's a professional singer/songwriter but served as an unofficial German diplomat to China as far back as the '80's. I'm pretty sure he was a fake poor fake garage band leader too. Plus he told me to my face that he was a redneck. Coca-Cola in particular stole all the water from a lake near their Mexican production plant. This placed the Mexicans under additional survival stress and all Hell unraveled including a booming illegal slave trade across the US border. They still do stuff to blacks too.
I'd put a pitchfork and club, and horse and plow symbol on my sub and put it in a forest paintball field by my forge probably, while some doctors like to do underwater therapy and things. I'm not sure if a singing revolution and not getting run over by tanks would work as well these days though, or at least not my favorite way of winning independance anyway?
Soviet citizens survived fine but yeah my parents moved to the Philippines in 1985. Apparently was wrong timing as month later the EDSA Revolution happened and partially helped by the local communists.
Sounds and feels like a Western propaganda piece. Their own people live 1 salary/payment away from homelessness, and they blame the Soviet Union for it! I would love to be given a free apartment like they did in the old Soviet Union. I have worked in the US for 20 years, and I have certainly earned one.
Good history/ autobiography shows what communism does to a country. It’s called Forgive Me Natasha by Sergi Kourdakov and has another title called The Persecuter. It’s about an orphan boy who loses his whole family during Stalin purges and purges after Stalin died. He became #1 communist youth leader, worked for secret police, & eventually defected to Canada
I lived in the Soviet Union, in Feodosiya, Ukraine. I remember the paper money became so worthless people used it as wallpaper. Bread was valuable and we never had meat. Every now and then we’d have stewed goose necks.
Wow this was a good video. I think I will send it to my daughter who doesn't quite get why I am not big on even Socialism. She was born in 99' no big surprise. I am glad RU-vid brought you up.👍🏼💐
What was happening in the USSR wasn’t the true ideals of communism or socialism, it was totalitarian communism which is a different and much more dangerous form of government. Capitalism isn’t safe either though and our two party system and elites in government is becoming frightening here.
@@VMAN00ful the title is barely relevant. It's just an informative video in general. Why are you being so negative? Is there a reason you need to be so hostile ? If you don't have an interest in this video than don't interact with it. If you don't like the content hit the thumbs down and block the page. No need to be a jerk.
I am a bisexual intellectual who don't know when to shut up and am physically weak. I wouldn't be able to survive the Chinese cultural revolution much less the Soviet gulags.
