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“Socialism and food are two incompatible things,” jokes an associate professor at Vilnius University (VU), who studies the period of Soviet occupation, dr. Algirdas Jakubčionis.
The shortage of goods, the “blat” and the lines in the stores were the Soviet reality and a kind of attribute of the daily life of a person living in the USSR. In the queues in stores, people spent hours and hours, and the variety of assortment and the quality of the products simply did not exist.
However, historian dr. A. Jakubčionis recalled what stores were like in the Soviet Union, who and how bought better and scarce products and if “Russia was better”.
Khrushchev’s ambitions and the image of a Soviet store
The historian recalls that the construction of the type of shops, or at least similar to the one we have now, began only in the early 80s, in the mid 80s, during the reign of Leonid Brezhnev in the USSR (leader of the USSR in 1964-1982).
“The winds of new trade are associated with the visit of Nikita Khrushchev (the leader of the USSR in 1953-1964 to the United States when he saw a self-service in stores. He saw refrigerators with display cases. It was then that it was said that a restructuring: self-service installation, development of refrigeration systems with showcases.
PHOTO GALLERY. Buy in the Soviet Union
However, the design and construction of the new type of stores did not begin until the early and mid-1980s. Then new neighborhoods began to grow in the cities and a new shopping center appeared there. Those stores had a very large storage space, which is now becoming almost superfluous. At that time, stocks were needed, warehouses were needed.
Mercury, which has already been demolished in Kaunas (Laisvės al. 60, Kaunas, – aut. Past.), Is probably worth mentioning in Kaunas. It has been integrated into the architecture of the city ”, says the associate professor.
According to the historian, the idea of self-service stores brought from the United States fell to the USSR. It was unsuccessful and the queues of people continued to form near the stores:
“If it is a separate type of product, it is also a separate line, a place of commerce, even in the store itself. There was a line in each section. Usually the queues were always there if there were merchandise. Buy without Cola is a very rare case. It was a kind of attribute of life. Self-service cannot be absolute and complete. If the product is prepackaged, everything is fine. Some products were not packaged because there were simply no materials to pack them. Consequently , the meat is not prepackaged, it needs to be cut, weighed.
It is self service and not self service. Only packaged goods and baked goods were included in the self-service. They took beer, wine, and vodka from the buffet so they wouldn’t be taken or stolen. There was no protection for that. There had to be a separate queue. So what is it called: semi-self-service? It became impossible for the self-service to function fully. With the shortage of goods, especially in the 1990s, self-service began to decline. If there are no goods, we go back to those usual queues. “
Product range, disappearing bananas and total deficit
In the Soviet store, unlike these days, the shelves were empty most of the time. The historian jokingly assures that there is a saying that you can always find only salt and matches in the USSR store.
“There is a unique answer to the question about the variety of products in the stores. There was always salt and matches. There were group deficits in stores. The most deficient was felt in the fruits of the south: lemons, bananas. It was a huge deficit. Here are the peas. Globus in particular is Hungarian. Also, quality sausage.
There was a shortage of vegetables during the winter, especially before spring. No one from the South brought, but they rotted in their warehouses. The lack of vegetables was felt very strongly.
Some said there was an eternal coffee deficit. There was not a large coffee deficit in Lithuania, because, as I laugh, Russia does not drink coffee. Consequently, no matter how much he bought, he went more to the Baltic countries. In a period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, instant coffee was very much in vogue. His deficit really was. There was such oatmeal coffee, but it was not coffee, but a coffee drink, ”says A. Jakubčionis.
According to him, bananas in stores were also just a kind of accessories, and exotic fruits appeared very rarely:
“It just came to our attention then. Every now and then, as they said, ‘they brought bananas.’ They were extremely green and, when bought, they also needed support to ripen. They disappeared immediately. It was said that they only traded enough to know that there were otherwise they would all have been distributed by those who distributed them.
Lemons were more common, but also very rare. In principle, the USSR did not bear fruit until 1953. end, that is, until the death of Stalin. Only after Stalin’s death did food imports gradually begin. Khrushchev began to talk about the need to better feed the people of the USSR, provide them with food, etc. The goal was good, but the measures … “
The situation worsened in the early 1990s, and when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power a few years later, there was not even sugar left on the shelves.
“If we look at the period after 1982, it was going to be an absolute food deficit. There was a lack of meat products, sausages, a lack of sugar and cereals. The main reason for the total shortage, which will begin in 1985-1986, is the campaign against alcohol. by Mikhail Gorbachev. Then insert sugar coupons because sugar was used for the propulsion of samagon. That sugar seems to have been produced enough, but it’s not in the store.
Industrial Products – If there was 1 pair of shoes in the store, it was already good. The shoes were very poor, but a normal person could not buy a different one ”, explains the professor who works at VU.
Buyer cheated 3 times and “blato” system
The historian says that fraud was a common practice among sellers. During a shopping trip, a person can be fooled at least 3 times:
“Sellers can” unscrew “from a buyer 3 times. If the product, sugar or something else is poured, do not add even 100 grams. The sugar also was not packaged for a long time. The method of packaging sugar or any kind of groats is a sheet of paper, from which a nozzle is made that tapers down. That bottom is bent, the item is poured, and the top is also bent. How much and who had sugar or semolina, is another matter here.
There was a so-called “toss in the balance.” The scales were mechanical and that arrow fluctuated until it was showing the weight. Usually there was a queue in the shops, so the sellers, waiting for others to wait, did not wait for the arrow to land. They took the article and said the weight of the eye. The scales may have been set incorrectly. Well, and taking a walk. Aren’t people going to count those kopecks when it’s their turn? “
Like fraud, “blat” is an everyday attribute of people. Without acquaintances, you don’t get better products either.
“If the person was unfamiliar with the store employees, they didn’t have a ‘blato.’ This means that you will not receive, say, Czech footwear that is considered to be of very good quality.
A common worker or a worker, how will you approach a seller if he is not your relative? The lack of acquaintances prevented a common person from buying better quality goods or substandard goods. There was a system of how that “blat” came about.
The store must comply with the cash sales plan. If you do not comply with the sales plan, I will not receive bonuses. You will be criticized for working poorly. The manager gives the sellers the impression that each has to bring him, say, 10 rubles. The seller then “turns his back” on the buyers and takes the money to the manager. The director, having taken the money, part of it, obviously left alone, goes to the base. He agrees with the head of the base that he will be given deficit goods.
For this he pays the director of the base and receives the deficit goods. The store manager brings the defective products to the store. Sell some of them to your acquaintances, others to salespeople. Sellers supply their circle of acquaintances with one or another item. This is how the whole blat and deficit system is formed ”, A. Jakubčionis gave a picturesque example of the system at the time.
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