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Btw, whoever posted that real old pic of people lined up to soda kiosk. Gazirovka. Water with added CO2. Was SUPER popular back in ol country. Now, before you point at it and say - ewwhh, here's poor citizens lined up to get a glass of water - think of this. As I said, bars and restaurants were rather scarce. Next, remember - LIFE was IN the streets. Sidewalks packed with people. Thousands. So you either, on hot sunny day, had to produce hundreds of those kiosks or, you end up with a line to them.
We also had oh so popular gazirovka vending machines. 3 kopeka for glass of chilled water with some flavor added, 1 kopeyka for clear bubbly. They were all over the downtowns and popular parks and such.
Of course there was not enough of them. My city was about million population. Country had other priorities - defense; industrialization; other things, like "building the bright future of humanity". Bubbly kiosks were on the low priority end.
Thanks Yac. That was interesting. But I see your age now; you most likely "caught up" only with the late period of the "Socialist system." At that point "Fanta" and "Coca-Cola" ( or was it Pepsi ) has been sold in Moscow. But that last picture of yours - that must be the sixties or seventies, and what you referred to as "carbonated water with juice" (or rather "syrup") sold by the street vendors - I have some vague memories of it from my early childhood too. It was gone by the end of the seventies I think.
Overall I think ( judging by what I read of FB) the experience/memories of life under the Soviet system varies greatly depending on the time/place of every given person.
I remember once looking at certain pictures of different food products on one of those "Life in the USSR" sites, and discussion following them was something like this; "Yes, it all looks great, but I bet it was only for the privileged members of the society; that's not what you could find in stores for average citizens." I am staring at all this stuff, realizing that I must have been seven or eight when all these things were definitely IN THE STORES, in front of my nose, as "average citizen" as I was.
Overall I feel that the 60ies for example and the 80ies ( and up) in the Soviet Union were quite different periods of the system in many respects.
I was born in the 60s so the stores that I remember are all from the late 70s on.
I agree that what was / wasn't in the stores had more to do with time and especially place.
Kishinev, and Moldavia in general, was very generously supplied, and besides had plenty of their own agricultural produce, never in short order. Actually, it's far harder for us to find things like bing cherries, tart cherries, high quality plums and apricots here in the US - they have no flavor and cost an arm and a leg; there anyone could afford them by the bucket - but of course only when in season.
Some other capital cities I've been to, like Minsk, Riga or Kiev, were even better supplied. Of course no caviar or fancy steaks on the shelves, but the basic staples - bread, diary produce, cheese, some cuts of meat, some sorts of sausage - were found more or less readily. If you wanted fish, you had to hunt for it.
But when I went to central Russia, I was in for a shock. Half of the produce was being sold only to the locals on "talons" (ration cards). Stuff like butter, many sorts of meats, sausage etc. The fruits were also scarce, you had to buy them at a farmer's market at prices above what many families could afford on a regular basis. It's not like I was starving - they had cheap and often surprisingly good cafeterias - but there was certainly a deficit problem. And their bread.. cardboard tasting dunk, even though they used the same exact ingredients. Food was certainly not their forte. Again, nobody went hungry or malnourished, but shopping for food for a family of four would've been a chore. This was in the mid-80s.
According to my mom, the drop in the availability of certain more "fancy" food items happened in the early 70s. Before that, you could easily walk into a store and buy caviar (if you could afford it), hunter's sausage, cod liver or whatever other "deficit" items they had to hunt for in later times.
But then I went to Romania in 1988, and it made USSR look like Land of Plenty...
So what were they drinking I wonder?
I mean in Russia, when you'd see something like this - http://20th.su/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/kvas.jpg - it would be kvass the awesomeness of which still doesn't allow Pepsi and Coca Cola to take over Russian market.
So what was the "drink of choice" in Poland then?
That couldn't be the Soviet Union! Only the USA ever had overweight people!
I was born in the 60s so the stores that I remember are all from the late 70s on.
I agree that what was / wasn't in the stores had more to do with time and especially place.
Kishinev, and Moldavia in general, was very generously supplied, and besides had plenty of their own agricultural produce, never in short order. Actually, it's far harder for us to find things like bing cherries, tart cherries, high quality plums and apricots here in the US - they have no flavor and cost an arm and a leg; there anyone could afford them by the bucket - but of course only when in season.
Some other capital cities I've been to, like Minsk, Riga or Kiev, were even better supplied. Of course no caviar or fancy steaks on the shelves, but the basic staples - bread, diary produce, cheese, some cuts of meat, some sorts of sausage - were found more or less readily. If you wanted fish, you had to hunt for it.
But when I went to central Russia, I was in for a shock. Half of the produce was being sold only to the locals on "talons" (ration cards). Stuff like butter, many sorts of meats, sausage etc. The fruits were also scarce, you had to buy them at a farmer's market at prices above what many families could afford on a regular basis. It's not like I was starving - they had cheap and often surprisingly good cafeterias - but there was certainly a deficit problem. And their bread.. cardboard tasting dunk, even though they used the same exact ingredients. Food was certainly not their forte. Again, nobody went hungry or malnourished, but shopping for food for a family of four would've been a chore. This was in the mid-80s.
According to my mom, the drop in the availability of certain more "fancy" food items happened in the early 70s. Before that, you could easily walk into a store and buy caviar (if you could afford it), hunter's sausage, cod liver or whatever other "deficit" items they had to hunt for in later times.
That was my observation too, that "Russia proper" ( Central regions to be precise) was in the worst shape in terms of supplies. Yep, the "conquerors and exploiters" suffered the most, so go figure. I traveled a lot in the middle of the eighties, and what I saw in Yaroslavl ( I think that's what it was) was a shocker. Whenever I'd have couple of free hours, I'd snick away from the hotel ( usually the best in town,) and went to explore the vicinities. They've had bare shelves there, stocked with that "cardboard tasting junk" - exactly the kind of bread you've described and really nothing else. (Food in the hotel was still ok though - at least I don't remember anything out of the ordinary.)
I haven't seen anything like that anywhere else in all other places I traveled to; either in Stans, or in Baltics, or in Siberia. Although when in *Stans,* you'd basically have a clue that they've had their own "systems of distribution" - be that local markets or "someone they knew working in the warehouse."
And speaking about the local markets - we've had about seven of them in Moscow; I remember they were huge for the most part and full of crazily fresh and enticing aromas. I totally understand what you are saying about not being able to find decent fruits and vegetables in the US. Those of us born in the USSR in earlier days never will be able to. All the foreigners usually could see in Moscow were pitifully -looking wilted carrots and cabbage in the state stores. The smart ones however were learning Russian and heading to one of those markets. They could afford all that luscious produce coming from Central Asia and Caucasus, and even from near-by Russian villages during the summer season. Even that produce was awfully good, not to mention all the fresh dairy products to die for. Of course you could buy freshly-cut meat there too, but everything was very expensive. I mean the Moscovites would still go there now and then, but I am not sure who could afford to shop there on a regular basis.
If your mother is saying that all the fancy stuff disappeared from the stores in the beginning of the seventies - it was by the end of the seventies in Moscow; we still had plenty of supplies from the "satellite countries" ( Hungary, Bulgaria) as well. What I could never understand though, was all the complaints from my grand-mother, who still used to say that during Stalin's times the food was so much better in Moscow- all those smoked meats and sausages and fish, and caviar of course and god knows what else! She kept on talking about some "marzipans" that she missed so much, and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. (Everything was available but very pricey in the stores she was saying, unaffordable for the majority of factory workers.)
Then I remember when Gorby came to power, ( and food supply in the state stores went about kaput,) he allowed some semi-privatized enterprises and then some of those "specialty" Russian foods reappeared briefly in the co-op stores. So I finally could have a glimpse into my grand-mother obsessions, (still no marzipans though. ) Thinking of what I could remember from the 60ies, plus adding what I could sample in the 80ies, I arrive to a safe conclusion that decent Russian food is very comparable to European foods ( I think Germany first of all, minus cheese. Cheese in Russia was still very American-like.) But then of course, all the domestic production has been shut down and Russian market has been flooded with foreign foods of the worst quality for double-triple price. ( We all know by now I guess why it happened.)
Generally-speaking this is one of the examples that make me think that Russia has a lot of interesting ideas, a lot to offer, but all her *worthy beginnings* are never allowed to come to fruition, they always seems to be dismissed or suppressed.
Quote:
But then I went to Romania in 1988, and it made USSR look like Land of Plenty...
As I've mentioned earlier, Romania ( Ceausescu's Romania to be precise) with all its orphanages comes across as a very wicked place.
So...what can you tell about your personal experience there?
That couldn't be the Soviet Union! Only the USA ever had overweight people!
At least that's what I read...
Lol no. WOMEN ( older women in particular) were mostly obese in the USSR.
Poor diet ( mostly bread/potatoes and a lot of sweets.)
It was *culturally acceptable* for women to put weight once they've had children.
For men, however, it was not acceptable. Some extra weight gained with age - yes. But the kind of obesity that you sometimes see in men in the US - no, you'd practically never encounter it in Russia.
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But I see your age now; you most likely "caught up" only with the late period of the "Socialist system." At that point "Fanta" and "Coca-Cola" ( or was it Pepsi 
) has been sold in Moscow. But that last picture of yours - that must be the sixties or seventies, and what you referred to as "carbonated water with juice" (or rather "syrup") sold by the street vendors - I have some vague memories of it from my early childhood too. It was gone by the end of the seventies I think. 
I traveled a lot in the middle of the eighties, and what I saw in Yaroslavl ( I think that's what it was) was a shocker. Whenever I'd have couple of free hours, I'd snick away from the hotel ( usually the best in town,) and went to explore the vicinities. They've had bare shelves there, stocked with that "cardboard tasting junk" - exactly the kind of bread you've described and really nothing else. (Food in the hotel was still ok though - at least I don't remember anything out of the ordinary.) 
She kept on talking about some "marzipans" that she missed so much, and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. (Everything was available but very pricey in the stores she was saying, unaffordable for the majority of factory workers.)
) Thinking of what I could remember from the 60ies, plus adding what I could sample in the 80ies, I arrive to a safe conclusion that decent Russian food is very comparable to European foods ( I think Germany first of all, minus cheese. 
