I was watching YouTube with my little one the other day. We came across some young expert on the history of the USSR. I listened to it and realized: a simply phenomenal vinaigrette is brewing in the minds of today's children, informs Ukr.Media.
Where do they draw the image of that time from? There are two sources.
First – grandparents. Memory is a convenient thing, it filters out everything bad and leaves only sunny childhood. That's why the grass is always greener in their stories, everyone chopped firewood from diapers, helped grandmothers across the road, read classics and, of course, didn't stare at screens. The usual old man's tirade. Pure pedagogy, zero objectivity.
The second source is YouTubers. There's a whole bunch of stereotypes there. Here's what those born after 2010 really believe:
- The pinnacle of gastronomy is black bread, drizzled with oil and sprinkled with sugar.
- Apartments were being given away left and right just like that.
- Everything was free. But there was nothing in the stores. Apparently, the budget went to free apartments.
- Milk existed exclusively in triangular packages.
- Everyone drank soda from a single faceted glass in a vending machine. You couldn't go home to drink water – your mother would chase you away and never let you out again.
- Everyone wore their school uniform around the clock, even at home and away.
- From entertainment: the game “Cossacks-Robbers” (although I've never played them, I've only heard about them) and the same console “The Wolf Catches Eggs.” Where you have to score 1,000 points to see a cartoon that no one has seen.
- Everyone dreamed of becoming an astronaut, and all Soviet things were considered crap, so everyone dreamed of imported things.
- The KGB was listening to every kitchen. A step to the side was prison. But on May 1, everyone happily and voluntarily went to the demonstration.
Does that sound like wild game? Yes. But that's exactly what's going on in their heads.
And it's not just TikTokers or bloggers who collect views on myths who are to blame. It's the same relatives who, instead of telling honest stories about their lives, turn on preacher mode and tell tales about an ideal Soviet childhood, just to scold their child for having a phone in their hands.
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Is Soviet childhood a lost paradise or a big lie for grandchildren?
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🍦 Paradise and stability ⛓️ Poverty and propaganda 🤔 Everyone has their own truth
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🍦 Paradise and stability 0% ⛓️ Poverty and propaganda 33% 🤔 Everyone has their own truth 66%
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Bearded Pike ⛓️ Poverty and Propaganda 02/25/2026 19:21 I was born in 1981. My mother worked in construction, and my father was a policeman. My mother had a salary of 120 rubles, and my father – 80. Both of them, before marriage, lived in different dormitories, and after – in a rented apartment … because neither my mother's work nor my father's service provided a family dormitory. The apartment was actually bought – my mother joined a construction cooperative and for a very long time paid contributions for the apartment in which we lived. Transport: this was a separate story … a story about bullying people. My parents' salary was not enough to live on, so we had to go to the village to my grandparents for village food. But getting to the village, and even more so from it, was a huge problem, because there were several times fewer buses on the routes than those who wanted to ride them. Therefore, we (and I, as a child, too), for the most part, traveled standing in the aisle of the bus for several hours from the village to the city. Sweets – our main sweets were homemade cakes with lard and caramels, cooked in milk with sugar. That's what the USSR was like… 👍 1 + Reply