Not long ago I was in our Togliatti art museum at an exhibition dedicated to Soviet childhood, “Pioneer Fire”. The organizers, of course, did their best - they tied pioneer ties to all of us - not as solemnly, of course, as our parents had, but still...
Of course, everything there was just stylization. We were shown only a small piece of that magical pioneer childhood. For the older generation - a walk into the past, for me and, even more so, the children of first and second grade who were there - the discovery of a simply parallel reality. And it made me think - what happened in my childhood? Or do they have them now? And in general, what is there in the childhood of a particular era?
Of course, a child only has what adults give him. The reality that adults created, from the state to the toys in their room. But she was always different.
We start, as expected, with pre-revolutionary childhood.
Somehow I came across a book by E. Vodovozova “At the Dawn of Life”. Memoirs of a young lady from an impoverished noble family.
These memories have little in common with Tolstoy’s romantic story “Childhood,” although in both there is a landowner’s family. And the heroine’s father also fought on the fronts of World War II and was in Europe, where he acquired fairly liberal views. The author writes about him as a person who has a democratic attitude towards serfs and his own children, but an absolute atheist - the ideal Soviet image. This is how the writer Alexandra Brushtein portrays her father in the story “The Road Goes Away” (for those who haven’t read it, read it). By the way. For information, Mrs. Vodovozova also witnessed the Revolution and Soviet power and also fully and completely accepted it.
But we will still accept what she writes as the pure truth.
The childhood of a noble child was not heavenly. The main task of nannies and tutors was to make the child appear less visible to the parents. Tolstoy also writes about this - his Nikolenka communicates with her mother only in the morning, when she kisses her hand and wishes good morning and in the evening, when she baptizes him before going to bed. The rest of the time, the tutor Karl Ivanovich and the serf housekeeper Natalya Savishna become significant adults for him. He has no contact with his father at all. And Vodovozova also writes about the degraded position of children - they were slightly higher than serfs. “The darkest room was allocated for the nursery, which was not suitable for adults,” she writes. For sweets, the children got spoiled jam - the better ones were apparently for the mother and guests, the really bad ones were for the servants, and the slightly spoiled ones were for the children. However, this can also be explained by the fact that the heroine’s family went bankrupt, and there were many children.
The lives of poor children are not worth talking about at all. Hunger, labor from an early age, beatings and humiliation were described in detail by a variety of pre-revolutionary writers.
Soviet childhood
When talking about “Soviet childhood,” we need to clarify what exactly “Soviet” is? The Soviet world of the thirties and the sixties are two VERY big differences. I’m not even talking about the era of the Great Patriotic War, when children had to go through all the circles of hell along with adults - concentration camps, bombings, partisan work. And being a child in the 30s is also not a great joy. When strangers in uniform knock on your door at night, they take your father or mother and take you to an unknown place...
When they tell us about a happy Soviet childhood, they mean an era of twenty years - from the sixties to the eighties. One of my university professors even called this era “communism.” That this was the very “communism” that everyone could not build. Carefreeness, pioneer camps, pioneer dawns, songs around the fire and those same baked potatoes.
But I still want to add a fly in the ointment.
I came across articles about the Soviet school. Memoirs of a woman who admitted that Soviet school was hell for girls. Exactly for girls. When the teacher could humiliate you for daring to wear eyelashes. Of course, school is not a place for makeup, but teachers always had a ready-made cliché for such girls - a prostitute. You could be called a prostitute if you got a bad grade, or if your skirt was riding up, because you had grown out of it, and you couldn’t wear trousers according to your uniform. And what about women's restrooms, where such a thing as a "stall" simply did not exist? Trifle? But why should something as simple as going to the toilet turn into a real test and humiliation for a girl? It’s just that in Soviet times no one would have even thought about such things. “What? What kind of dignity do children have?? No, we haven’t heard.” But what is much worse is that not all Soviet teachers were ready to accept that a student could have his own opinion. Watch the movie "We'll Live Until Monday." Where the girl dared to write the truth in her essay about happiness - for her, happiness is getting married and having three children. For her, the main thing is Family. But collective work for the good of the country is still in second place. The teacher advised her to take a different topic, since she could not accept such an essay.
Childhood of a turning point
One of our school teachers once remarked: “In the 90s, only the bravest people, like your parents, dared to have children.” And indeed - the world collapsed, what next, God only knows what kind of children are here?? When you don’t even know what you’ll feed them later. So those born during these years have a double reason to bow to their parents. After all, we decided!
What created the childhood of my generation? (Sorry, it won’t be possible without personal memories either). Disney cartoons, Princess magazine (for girls, of course) and - I hope someone else will remember this - chips.
Remember this game? I caught her during primary school. A small crowd was gathering in the corridors. They made a terrible noise. The game was simple - you had to throw a chip so that it would turn over. If it didn’t turn over, it went over to your opponent. Round chips made of cardboard or plastic with Pokemon, superheroes and Sailor Moon passed from hand to hand. Some people collected entire packages.
And, of course, the childhood of my generation was created by “Harry Potter”. So we can sincerely say: “Thank you, JK Rowling, for our happy childhood!” Books about Harry Potter are a whole Universe. And her charm will not be destroyed even by this strange play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which was not even written by her. There was only permission from JK Rowling. But you and I can see what happens when a writer listens to the opinions of fans and begins to reshape his world in accordance with the wishes of the public. Do you want a daughter for Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange? Yes please! In the end it turned out to be nonsense, and everyone admits it.
Our generation is considered spoiled. And indeed - for the first time in the history of mankind, a child became the center! "All the best for children." This was not the case either before the Revolution or during Soviet times. Well, of course, a lot depends on the parents. Their views and material wealth.
Generation 2000s
Yes, these are the same lovers of gadgets and the Internet (although where will I post this material and where will you read it?? That’s right, on the Internet).
In fact, the difference between them and those who came before is not so great. They also strive for recognition among their peers and achieve this in all possible ways - for example, by climbing onto the roof and filming it all on their phone. Now they have a digital expression of their importance - likes. "I like" icons.
But let's be honest - the universal, one-for-all childhood ended in times pioneer camps. Nowadays, children grow up completely different conditions. Not everyone can afford even trips to Turkey. In addition, children in all centuries, and now, with the permissibility of diversity of opinions, especially, become victims of the madness of their parents. If your parents are vegetarians (or rather, vegans, since, in my opinion, vegetarians are somewhat different), then you will have to cry in kindergarten while friends are eating cutlets. Moreover, if a child has health problems or poor performance at school, vegan parents will never decide that this is related to nutrition. No. These "corpse eaters" are fools themselves. If religious fanatics, the child most likely has no escape from it. And what now, take a child away from the family if his parents took him to church?? There were rumors on the Internet that they were going to ban this - taking children to church - but this is nothing more than another Internet “duck”. But the main thing that Soviet children definitely did not have was the awareness that “my dad thinks this way, but Vasya’s dad thinks differently.” And what about the poor modern child what to do with this?? Just escape from all these difficulties into computer games.
It's the same with politics. Pre-revolutionary children grew up disconnected from political realities. The Soviet government gradually began to introduce children into politics - they conducted special lessons at school. Modern people don’t have this, but they simply have nowhere to escape from politics. Personal experience- did an internship at a private school. And in the textbook I came across the phrase “gates of Kyiv”. I had to make a proposal. The students wrote: “The gates of Kyiv saw the Maidan.” Let me clarify - at that time it was the sixth grade. However, I would not be surprised if even first-graders turn out to be well aware of the events in Kyiv. But it’s also impossible not to talk to children about politics. So, it’s okay to talk about sex, but not about politics? This information just needs to be presented correctly.
Miracles happen only in childhood.
Vladislav Grzegorczyk
Childhood is the light at the beginning of the tunnel.
Dmitry Pashkov
Fruits taste best to us when they are running low; Children are most beautiful when childhood ends.
Seneca
Childhood is the happiest years of life, but not for.
Michael Moorcock
Childhood: A time in life when all you have to do to lose weight is take a bath.
Richard Zera
Children have neither a past nor a future, but, unlike us adults, they know how to use the present.
Jean La Bruyère
Babies are innocent in their bodily weakness, and not in their soul.
Augustine the Blessed
Children are impudent, picky, quick-tempered, envious, curious, self-seeking, lazy, frivolous, cowardly, intemperate, deceitful and secretive; they easily burst into laughter or, over trifles, indulge in immoderate joy or bitter sadness, cannot stand pain and love to inflict it - they are already people.
Jean La Bruyère
No wonder people are so terrible if they have to start life as children.
Kingsley Amis
The boy shouts: “You can’t! Two for one! He doesn’t know that this is the only way it will happen.
Ramon Gomez de la Serna
When I was a girl, I only had two girlfriends, and only imaginary ones. And they only played with each other.
Rita Rudner
The fun of adults is called business, and for children they are also business.
Augustine the Blessed
My mother served leftovers from dinner for thirty years. No one ever saw the dinner itself.
Calvin Trillin
Every child is an artist. is to remain an artist beyond childhood.
Pablo Picasso
Children's lies and the sincerity of adults are two shortcomings that cannot be forgiven.
Zdislav Kalandkiewicz
He suffered a concussion as a child and since then believed everything that was written in the Sunday newspapers.
George Eide
Who needs him - such a baby through whose lips the truth speaks?
Leonid Leonidov
Children are angels whose wings shorten as their arms and legs grow.
Children are our consolation in old age and help us reach it faster.
Lionel Kaufman
Children can be good or bad, but grandchildren are always amazing.
Ludwik Hirschfeld
Late children are early orphans.
Benjamin Franklin
Love is the last and most severe childhood disease.
A difficult childhood never ends.
Jerzy Urban
Childhood is freedom from age.
Arkady Davidovich
Childhood is a promise that never comes true.
Ken Hill
In the theater of life, the only real spectators are children.
Vladislav Grzeszczyk
The events of childhood do not pass away, but are repeated like years.
Elinor Farjeon
If you didn’t have a bicycle as a child, and now you have a BMW-745, then you still didn’t have a bicycle as a child.
Unknown author
When you finally return to your old house, it turns out that you were looking not for your old house, but for your childhood.
Sam Ewing
First we part with childhood, and then with youth.
Seneca Lucius Annaeus (the Younger)
Childhood should be given the greatest respect.
Juvenal Decimus Junius
It is better to cry in childhood than in old age.
Unknown author
Human customs and laws are such that if at the beginning of growth, in childhood, in the prime of youth, when the mind and understanding are very receptive and not overloaded, when talent and abilities are in their prime - if at this time a person does not comprehend anything in the sciences, then will not comprehend subsequently during a long life.
As-Samarkandi
Only that in a person is strong and reliable that was absorbed into him in the first period of life.
Jan Amos Comenius
Let childhood mature in childhood.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Many people think that childhood was the best and most enjoyable time of their life. But that's not true. These are the most difficult years, because then a person is under the yoke of discipline and can rarely have a true friend, and even less often - freedom.
Immanuel Kant
In very early childhood, heroic feelings should already be instilled, tuning the soul to deeds of love and nobility. And does history provide few examples of heroes?
Nikolai Vasilievich Shelgunov
Childhood is that great time of life when the foundation is laid for the entire future of a moral person.
Nikolai Vasilievich Shelgunov
The song that a mother sings at the cradle accompanies a person all his life, until the grave.
Henry Ward Beecher
Respect... pure, clear, immaculate holy childhood!
Janusz Korczak
The years of childhood are, first of all, education.
Many troubles have their roots precisely in the fact that from childhood a person is not taught to manage his desires, he is not taught to correctly relate to the concepts of what is possible, what is necessary, and what is not.
Vasily Alexandrovich Sukhomlinsky
By impoverishing the world of childhood, we make it difficult for the child to enter society, the team.
Vasily Alexandrovich Sukhomlinsky
Over the years, emptiness and disappointment develop in those young people whose childhood and adolescence were thoughtless satisfaction of their needs.
Vasily Alexandrovich Sukhomlinsky
In children's fantasies, there are almost always situations in which the child has power over someone.
Alfred Adler
Childhood is a time of many questions, possibilities and consequences.
Alfred Adler
Poor is childhood that is sacrificed to mature years.
Wilhelm Dilthey
Conscious childishness is a person’s glory, not shame.
Georges Bataille
Snow, in other words - childhood, in other words - happiness.
Emil Michel Cioran
Childhood is when everything is surprising and nothing is surprising.
A. Rivarol
Childhood is a state that you cannot return to, but you can fall into.
Author unknown
Childhood is a butterfly that cannot wait to burn its white wings in the flame of youth.
A. Bertrand
Many people think that childhood was the best and most enjoyable time of their life. But that's not true. These are the most difficult years, because then a person is under the yoke of discipline and can rarely have a true friend, and even less often - freedom.
I. Kant
Whole generations lost their childhood and youth along with their homeland, the USSR. It is not surprising that now, with the passage of time, these concepts - the Soviet Union and childhood - have merged into one whole.
It is a medical fact that human memory weeds out negative memories and tries to leave only positive ones. Moreover, they are associated with childhood and adolescence - for most people - the happiest time in life. Therefore, it is not surprising that for many, the times of the Soviet Union are now perceived as the best thing that happened in their lives.
This nostalgic “test”, mixed with photographs of Soviet children from the 60s to the mid-80s, will allow you to remember, if not everything, then a lot. And once again experience the painful and at the same time bright feeling - nostalgia.
You were born in the USSR in the 70-80s if:
Remember Oleg Popov's checkered cap and the number with the capture of a ray of sunshine. But adults explained to you who Pencil is.
In your class, the short kids were teased as “Passepartout,” and the teacher’s intrigues were called “Mr. Fix’s tricks.”
Until now, you shudder and remember whether you packed your briefcase if someone nearby says: “Pioneer dawn is on the air!”
The girls in your class constantly chanted “Mari-i-i-i-i-Mirabe-e-e-l-a-a-a-a...”.
Do you remember the name of the editor of subtitles for films that were constantly shown on the quadruple TV curriculum - Eero
You associate the word “Alarm Clock” with Nadezhda Rumyantseva.
You have seen portraits of Gorbachev without a birthmark.
You don’t need to explain who Avdotya Nikitishna and Veronica Mavrikievna are.
The TV remote is like pliers!
It’s strange that the second one in “Modern Talking” is also a man, with such and such hair and voice.
Sometimes you want to pick up a braided handle, hang a devil made of wire or an angelfish made of braided wires from a chandelier.
Your parents strictly forbade you to drink soda from the vending machine because sharing glasses transmitted syphilis!
“Blue Puppy” is not at all what everyone would think now.
With the acronym LTO, you are overcome with such complex sensations that you become self-absorbed for a minute.
Are you still wondering why this Code of Criminal Procedure was necessary?
Are you sure that best group Europe is ABBA, and America is BoneyM.
Japanese cartoon "The Little Mermaid" - the hall is filled with first-graders, everyone is crying!!!
The coolest store in the city is a thrift store, because it sells an imported two-cassette tape recorder.
From the first bars of the song “Soar with bonfires,” your hand is trying to give a pioneer salute.
At the song review, you sang “The Buchenwald Alarm”: “... it was the fiery blood that was tempered and strengthened in our hearts... and they rebelled, and rebelled, and rose again!”
You understand who we are talking about when you hear the names: Farid Seiful-Mulyukov, Genrikh Borovik, Valentin Tsvetov, Vsevolod Ovchinnikov, Alexander Bovin, Valentin Zorin.
You have long calculated how old you will be in the year 2000 - and did not expect to live to this advanced age.
A blanket on the window, a red lantern, counting slowly: one-two-three... click! “Bromportrait”, “unibrom”, fixer, bath full of photographs, glosser. What?! A? That's the same...
You chewed tar.
You remember that changing the channel is a hassle, because you have to get out from under the warm blanket.
My parents' friends had such interesting things - printouts! Such long sheets of paper, and on them were the Strugatskys, Bulgakov and the erotic treatise “peach branches” printed on the ATsPU in the CC in capital letters. With holes on the sides.
Your friends had an acquaintance who knew a person whose cousin won 1000 rubles in Sportloto! A thousand!
Three hundred varieties of sausage and one hundred and eight cheeses are simply incomprehensible.
Major classmates had real Japanese pencil cases with big-eyed girls, brought from abroad. From there came fragrant, delicious erasers that were even delicious to chew.
Do you know for sure that fashion clothes It is not bought, but sewn.
You rewrote the lyrics of the song “Winged Swing” and were sure that Ressie was a breed of dog.
IN primary school you kept a “Diary of Nature Observations”.
Sometimes you bought an amazing delicacy in the store: “corn flakes”. With sugar - 10 kopecks a pack and without sugar - 7.
The best films are “Pirates of the 20th Century” and “Disco Dancer”.
In the elevator of your building there was an inscription KISS and ASDS in a foreign language.
Construction cartridges are a thing!
You still admire Dean Reed's civic stance and Angela Davis' hairstyle.
You drank juice at the grocery store. The most delicious was tomato, and the spoons for salt were in a glass of water.
You fought until first blood. Behind the gym or in the locker room.
The most banned film is Emmanuelle. There it is!..
You had a piggy bank in the form of a champagne bottle for 10 kopeck coins
You set fire to a child's plastic spatula, and then, with bated breath, watched the fiery drops flowing from it.
Karate was very cool. You knew a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend who had secret knowledge, broke bricks with his bare hands and could kill six people. Then he was imprisoned.
There is no need to explain to you what “film sketches” are – small stories on TV between programs between programs accompanied by smooth music.
You were addicted to the series “Lassie” and everyone in the class dreamed of a collie dog.
When you hear the song “A Dog Named Buddy Is Missing,” your eyes become moist.
You know what a bicycle spoke, bent at a right angle, is for; the head is screwed on, and sulfur from matches is tightly packed into it.
Despite the jammers, you listened to obscene ditties on the Voice of America and waited for the call signs “Seva, Seva Novgorodtsev - city of London, BBC!!!”
Until now, the best kvass for you is the one from a barrel on wheels, small - 3 kopecks, large - 6 kopecks.
The word “Decree” has a negative connotation for you, as it is associated with one single decree - “On measures to combat drunkenness and alcoholism.”
The words “beer can broke” do not confuse you.
Our hockey team always won!
You can definitely list all the figures when playing rubber band (if you are a girl). And how can you play this??? (if you are a boy)
Do you remember that an indispensable attribute of every home was an opener in the form of a wolf “Well, wait a minute”, who was holding a nickel-plated guitar in his hands. It was not used, it stood behind glass in the sideboards.
The words “Maurice Druon” and “waste paper” are connected in an incomprehensible way for you.
You bought Vietnamese ping-pong balls, mercilessly cut them, and, wrapping their scraps in foil, made “smoke machines.”
You know that tape reels come in lengths of 270, 375, and 525 meters. 525 is best because you can record one entire disc on one side.
We climbed the Construction site, and always in company. There were terrible legends that there were bad people at the Construction site. In the underground passages dug under the pipes there was abundant rock art that explains the structure of this labyrinth. They took torches there. In especially inconspicuous places of the Construction site, “halabuds” were built from plywood found there.
You understand that a criminal is not a criminal, but a wealthy businessman or a relative of the authorities.
You know that in the country there is a magazine for very little ones: “Funny Pictures”, a magazine for little ones “Murzilka” and two magazines for almost big ones “Pioneer” and “Koster”.
The word “deficit” is close and understandable to you—and not only in relation to money.
In the hierarchy of prestigious professions, academicians and cosmonauts came after butcher and car mechanic.
The asphalt in the yard is lined with arrows and hopscotches.
There was a construction site in your yard. Your parents and older children in the yard say that the Construction site was there even before you were born. She remained there even when you, having matured, left.
Have you known a man to whom speculators sold one leg of his jeans?
In the pioneer camp, you were somehow assigned to a ward with the Elders and all day you listened to their (as you realized much later, exclusively empirical) conversations about E..LYU and P...U. It was something from a parallel world.
You were shocked to learn that your parents are doing about the same thing as naked uncles and aunts in faded photographs taken 50 times. This shock has not yet passed.
You were really afraid of nuclear war.
If in a conversation or text someone uses the phrase “do with us, do like us, do better than us,” you will smile and remember the GDR.
The word "condom" is terribly indecent.
You wince when you hear “All radio stations in the Soviet Union are working.”
You danced in a pioneer camp to “The Bird of Tomorrow’s Happiness, Arrived and Flew with Jingling Wings...” (but you personally liked “Ottavan” better)
Nostalgia begins to torment you when you read: “Chairman of the MPLA-Party of Labor, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.”
The elastic band from the panties, as you remember, perfectly holds both panties and tights, and mittens, and, of course, a child’s winter hat.
You have heard a lot about the game “Zarnitsa”, you have seen reports and even a film about children playing too hard. And then they themselves took part in it.
You never guessed which side the jam would flow out of the jam pie.
During breaks, you doused each other with water from old reusable syringes.
It is ALWAYS midnight in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
When leaving, my grandmother always said the same phrase: “Just return the cans!”
You didn’t start thinking badly about her when your mom said, “I’m buying it for you now, but it’s for your birthday.”
The name Samantha Smith brings back both fond and embarrassing memories.
Your tape recorder was chewing cassette tapes.
The word “governor” makes you feel like you are reading a historical novel, and the word “senator” makes you feel even more historical.
The holiday is strongly associated with the word “order”.
You didn’t even envy Senkevich - realizing that only one person in the whole country could travel THIS way.
You could easily continue the lines “Oh, how many wonderful discoveries we have…”.
You are overcome with spiritual trepidation when the words are cheerfully pronounced: “The nut of knowledge is hard, but still we are not used to retreating! The newsreel “I want!” will help us split it. All! Know!"
At least one of your classmates was a metalhead, and the other was a breaker.
You remember that parents signed up for a queue on some kind of “wall”.
In the Fundamentals of State and Law lessons, for some reason all the guys were interested in Articles of the Criminal Code No. 117 and 121, while they laughed like idiots.
There are only two bicycles: Kama and Salyut. The Eaglet is no good, and the Schoolboy is not serious.
Your father brought you to Luna Park and you would like to stay there forever.
You know who Marat Kazei, Zina Portnova and, of course, Pavlik Morozov are.
IN New Year's Eve you bravely fought against sleep in order to watch “foreign variety” at 3 o’clock: GDR television, Marylya Rodovich, Karel Gott and the Italians.
Do you remember three types of hairstyles: zero - 10 kopecks, Canadian - 40 kopecks, model - 1 ruble 20 kopecks.
For you, the best cigarettes are Rodopi and BT, and the best Belomor is from Uritsky’s factories.
You remember the key word of the era for philatelists - “Mongol Shuudan”.
Smoked sausage needs to be cut thinly, until transparent, in a layer - the next time you will see it in six months.
Soviet chewing gum - orange, such thin plates, to be honest, could not be compared with foreign ones.
The absolutely inexplicable small window from the kitchen to the bathroom did not raise any questions in your mind.
You know that tooth powder is for cleaning plaques and silverware.
What you have completely different people even in different cities there was the same boy peeing on the toilet door did not evoke mystical fear in you.
You know that burning doesn't hurt.
You logged in early in the morning to buy the weekly Football=Hockey, and articles from Arguments and Facts were retold to you on political information.
Women's magazines are subscribed to only for the patterns. Why else are they needed?
You understood that if only bad things are said throughout the country from morning to night, and at the same time jeans and chewing gum are sold in stores there, and some go there to live, then there is something in this America.
“Hands off Nicaragua!” is not an empty phrase for you.
Oh, what wonderful cartoons there were in the fraternal countries of the socialist camp. Rex, Mole and, of course, Lelek and Bolek.
You know that “Pravda” is: “Separate Camp David deal”, “Pharisees from the White House”, “Ian Smith is the executioner of Rhodesia”, “Your sanctions are finished, Mr. Reagan!”, “Israeli military”, “hawks” Pentagon saber rattling."
More and more often on the Internet I come across articles that talk about what a “happy Soviet childhood” was like! Like, all the children did was read good books and eat good products, and they were raised by kind and caring teachers in kindergartens and teachers in schools. “Everything was state-owned, everything was controlled, the state would not wish anything bad!”
In fact, upon closer examination, all these “advantages of Soviet childhood” turn out to be ordinary myths that, for some unknown reason, migrate from forum to forum. In this post, I have collected the main myths about the “happy Soviet childhood”, which many (and perhaps you yourself) continue to religiously believe. Go to the cut, it’s interesting)
1. The myth about “excellent nurseries and kindergartens.”
Almost all the years of its existence, the USSR was proud of the fact that it had more kindergartens than in the USA - therefore, these damned Pindos would soon die. This myth is based on the same basis as the myths about endlessly huge tons of pig iron and grain milling, supposedly supposed to show an excellent situation in the economy.
Billions of tons of cast iron were not available in the United States for one simple reason: it was simply not needed in more modern production chains. The situation with kindergartens was approximately the same - in the USA one working family member(most often the father) could provide for the family perfectly. With the Soviet Union, both parents were forced to work in order to feed the family and not be considered “parasites” (a criminal article in the USSR), “ maternity leave“for mothers (the size of a year) was introduced in the USSR only in 1968 - that’s the whole reason for such a huge number of kindergartens and nurseries.
Now about the quality. As in all other areas, bureaucracy and coercion flourished in Soviet kindergartens. For some innocent offenses, children were punished by standing in a corner in their underpants and could often be hit - in the USSR, corporal punishment was considered the norm. Often the child did not even understand why he was being punished, but he became accustomed to the idea that “authority is always stronger” and “one must obey.”
Purely Soviet “collectivism” began already in kindergarten - children, still quite free and different, were drawn into all sorts of group games and round dances, singing in chorus, marching in formation, etc. — accustoming people to the idea that individual aspirations and desires are very bad, but marching in formation is good.
If you are still yearning for a kindergarten “like in the USSR”, just think about whether you want to send your child to an institution where they will be taught in formation, slapped on the wrist for the slightest “freethinking”, some fat woman can do it at any time. moment to hit him, and the child will also be instilled with the idea that this bald grandfather from the portrait is a genius of all times and peoples, whom no one can surpass.
Well, do you want to send your child to such a kindergarten? That's it.
2. The myth about “excellent baby food, non-GMO!”
I have already written more than once about the myth of some “especially good” Soviet food (consisting of sausages, cereals, potatoes, diluted milk and blue chickens), but we need to dwell separately on children’s food. Let's start with the fact that many children in the USSR were brought up without breast milk- in the Soviet prenatal system this was considered the absolute norm. Why is this bad? Google it, it’s too much to write.
What happened next? From the maternity hospital the child went home, where there was nothing normal for him baby food. Just for fun, ask your mother what she fed you during this period, you will learn a lot of interesting things - how mothers tried to prepare at least something suitable for feeding the child from the available products using diluted milk, semolina and a meat grinder. According to WHO, in the 1970s (that same “blessed stagnation” of yours), about 70% of Soviet babies were obese due to eating almost exclusively carbohydrates. But there were rockets - wow! And the satellites - hey, hey! And also in the field of ballet, we gave the States pussy.
Then the child ended up in a nursery or kindergarten (almost necessarily, see myth number 1), where the feeding was, as a rule, terrible - even if “according to the rules” there was something good. Remember the kindergarten cooks and canteen workers in the USSR. What, did you remember? Do you remember at least one skinny woman there even in the “worst times of perestroika”? They simply weren’t there - food was carried from kindergarten canteens in trunks, and everyone carried it - from the senior cook to the last caretaker; the position meant only “ranking the liquefied food” by quality and quantity. What was left for the children? The children were left to eat liquid nasty borscht, watery semolina with lumps, stinking bread-honest crumbs called “cutlets” and pasta boiled to the point of paste - many children simply vomited from the kindergarten food (literally).
And if you can say about other facts about the USSR - “you don’t remember what it was like, Maxim”, then I remember my Soviet kindergarten very well - everything was exactly as I write. And this was another one of the best kindergartens in the capital of the BSSR! I'm scared to imagine what happened in the provinces.
3. The myth about “excellent children’s education and schools.”
The myth about “excellent Soviet education” is perhaps one of the most tenacious and harmful. I’ll also write separately about how “highly educated Soviet people” charged cans of water in front of the TV in the late eighties, and today we’ll talk about school.
In the same way as in kindergarten, in Soviet schools “corporate values” were imposed and they were taught to walk in formation. Everyone had to wear the same uniform and tie, undergoing the appropriate “rite of passage.” Education was based on coercion - left-handers were forcibly retrained to be right-handed, talented and gifted children were often pecked to the point of being half-vegetable by Soviet teachers - “be like everyone else, don’t stand out, don’t show off!” Reprisals against “white crows” were also popular - a class consisting of mediocre minds, encouraged and controlled by a gang of 3-4 poor students, could in every possible way persecute and mock the “excellent students and crammed students” - that is, those who wanted and could study well, read a lot, etc. Of course, this was not the case everywhere - but it happened very often and with the full connivance of the teachers.
The Soviet education system itself was built on “providing indicators.” No one cared about giving the child some fundamental knowledge and teaching him to think freely - the main thing was that he rattled off everything he had learned by heart and received a good grade; the indicator of “class success” was considered to be the absence of poor students in it, and not the presence of any gifted minds .
In general, children often left Soviet schools with very mediocre knowledge, but with an instilled (often for life) feeling that they must “obey the team” and not argue with the authorities.
4. The myth about “freedom of children in the USSR.”
Soviet ideologists of those years trumpeted everywhere that children in the USSR were somehow “especially free,” that only in the Soviet system did this become possible, etc.
In fact, the childhood of a Soviet child was full of real forced labor in the full sense of the word. Starting from kindergarten, children were assigned “duties” - the children were obliged to take turns doing some kind of barracks work, for example, cleaning the premises, washing windows, weeding beds in the school plot, etc. “Refuseniks” were subjected to all kinds of ostracism both from the “authorities” (teachers, educators) and from within the team.
Moreover, it was considered the “norm” to send children “to the potatoes”, and in Central Asia - “to the cotton”, where, with the help of forced child labor the indicators of “collective farms-millionaires” were achieved. Do you know what cotton harvesting is? These are not pleasant walks of moon-faced Aigul through sun-drenched fields - this is the hardest work of dragging 20-kilogram bags and manually collecting plants sprayed with defoliants and desiccant. Children often returned sick from these jobs. No money was paid for this; this work was considered a “pioneer duty.”
In general, there was no “freedom for children” in the USSR - there was real exploitation.
5. The myth about the “special security of Soviet childhood.”
A separate and very popular myth is supposedly about the “special security” of Soviet childhood - supposedly at that time “even the doors weren’t locked, all people were brothers!” Yes, and everyone lived to be 150 years old and woke up at night laughing happily.
I recommend that all believers in this myth familiarize themselves with Soviet statistics on robberies and banditry - the figures were very high even according to official data. In addition, in those years there were many serial maniacs and murderers - like Chikatilo or the lesser-known Moscow maniac named Mosgaz - yes, these terrible monsters in human form were born in the USSR and operated under the Soviet system. In those years there was also a much more tolerant attitude towards pedophilia - well, the uncle pinched the girl’s butt, so what’s wrong with that! Cases of rape of children were also very common - often this happened on the very “potato” where the girls were sent from school.
At this point I would like to raise another issue - in fact, the safety of the environment for the child. Due to crowded and cramped housing, children spent a considerable part of their time on the street. I, when many “Soviet entertainments” from the 1970s and 80s remained popular, such as throwing dichlorvos cylinders into a fire, scarecrows made of bolts, carbide, saltpeter rockets, as well as walking on roofs and construction sites.
You have to be a complete idiot to argue that today's children, who spend more time at the computer and civilized outdoor activities, such as cycling or skateboarding, are somehow “deprived” in comparison with the Soviet ones. Today's childhood is much more interesting and safer than childhood in the USSR.
These are the myths about childhood that I was able to collect. I will be glad if you share this post with your friends)
And write in the comments, was your Soviet childhood like that, what do you remember about it?
