Opinion: why the 'special soulfulness' of the Soviet people is a myth
'24.11.2020'
Source: Maxim Mirovich on LiveJournal
On my blog at LiveJournal Maxim Mirovich proposes to deal with one more myth of all fans of the USSR, anti-Westerners, readers of books about "priest" and Stalinophiles - that in the USSR people were supposedly somehow "more sincere" and kinder, helped each other and generally lived in perfect harmony , and now all this has gone irrevocably, sinking into oblivion together with the "Soviet Atlantis". Further - from the first person.
I think you have often come across such controversial statements on the Internet - especially in all sorts of "Odnoklassniki".
"Oh what a power was, ah what people lived in it!" - the fans of the USSR scream, and immediately run away to find fault with the damned nineties, when some gopniks and cattle were suddenly brought to the expanses of the once great country from Mars and Venus. In fact, Soviet people really differed in many respects from modern people, but what the fans of the USSR call “soulfulness” had completely different roots at its core.
So, in today's post - we are dealing with the myth of the Soviet "soulfulness".
The roots of Soviet hospitality
Under the Soviet "soulfulness" fans of the scoop usually understand Soviet hospitality. This word usually refers to the willingness at any time to receive any distant relatives at home and allow them to live there for an arbitrarily long time. The situation was played up many times in Soviet films - suddenly the door opens in the apartment, and “like a snow on the head” suddenly falls down some kind of relatives from the distant parts of the USSR, and after that the apartment is filled with joyful, almost festive bustle.
So - a similar situation arose not at all because of some special Soviet disposition to relatives or some kind of “special sincerity” there, but because of a twisted system of social relations. “Relatives” began to ride around the country either because of admission to universities, or because of the need to receive medical services, or simply “for shopping”. All this shows how unevenly the USSR was developed - people were simply forced to go to the union capitals and large cities in order to get at least something.
On the subject: 'Wretched dishes of Soviet cuisine': what treats from the USSR we do not miss
Secondly, the hotel and rental business was absent in the country as a class, it was possible to get to all hotels in large cities only "by pull" - having "acquaintances" among the administration, or adding over the cost of the room "on the paw" - which far away not all Soviet citizens. This is the only reason why people were forced to drag themselves to stay with relatives.
It looked like this - in a microscopic free Soviet Khrushchev on the outskirts of Moscow, Leningrad or Kiev, relatives came from the village and stayed to live for a period from several days to several months. Imagine a picture when from one to three or more people were crammed into the already cramped conditions of the cramped Soviet Khrushchev - two microscopic rooms turned out to be crammed with folding beds, or (if there were not enough folding beds) - the guests were laid “rolls” on the floor. In general, and so cramped life in "Khrushche" began to resemble life in some kind of hostel.
Why were the gatherings in the kitchens necessary?
Another example of Soviet "soulfulness" that fans of the scoop love to talk about is purely soviet gatherings in kitchens. "Oh, how sincerely we sat in the kitchens!" - fans of the USSR scream, and immediately run away to sing songs about fogs, smells of taiga and asses bitten by ants - singing the romance of senseless Soviet wanderings through forests and swamps.
These gatherings looked like this - in a microscopic Soviet kitchen, often with an area of no more than 6 square meters, from three to eight or more people gathered, who drank vodka, ate it with some sprat in a tomato and smoked almost at the same time, which is why there was such a tobacco shtyn in the apartment that one could hang an ax in the air. To a detuned seven-string guitar with darkened copper-plated strings, the same songs about the smells of the taiga were sung, as well as cautious conversations on political topics.
On the subject: Creepy home treatments that were considered the norm during the Soviet era
Actually - these "sincere" gatherings in the kitchens show two more huge problems of the scoop. Firstly, unlike Western countries, there were no normal cafes in the USSR where one could come and communicate normally with friends - in the scoop there were either dirty pubs for Soviet alcoholics, or children's cafes “Ice Cream”, or pretentious “restaurants” - in which it was necessary to leave half of the salary.
And the second problem is that it was possible to tell the truth in a scoop only at home in the kitchen - where only “all our own” were invited. Any political conversation in a cafe could end in denunciation.
In a country of forbidden democracy. Epilogue.
What do we get in the end? What the scoops call some kind of special Soviet "soulfulness" stemmed only from the shortcomings of the Soviet system - it was necessary to maintain relations with relatives, it was necessary to endure them from time to time at home - today we will help them, tomorrow they will help us - so and we will live in this unadapted country for life. The story is about the same with kitchen gatherings - they were held not because of some kind of “soulfulness”, but because of the lack of normal places of rest and the fear of telling the truth on the streets.
The original column was published in the blog of Maxim Mirovich at LiveJournal .
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