What habits give you a person from the USSR

The Soviet Union collapsed long ago, but people still have habits that unmistakably identify them as being from the “Country of Soviets.” Blogger Maxim Mirovich in livejournal described in detail habits that are no longer relevant to the realities of modern life, but continue to be in use.

Фото: Depositphotos

1. Save on everything, including trivia

In the USSR, people lived quite poorly, but poverty was spread in a fairly even layer throughout society (the life of a scientist was not very different from the life of a plumber), so it was not so noticeable. There weren’t many ways to earn extra money in the USSR, and most of them were considered illegal (for example, entrepreneurship). Therefore, it was customary to cover the budget shortfall by saving on literally everything, including matches - I read about scandals in communal kitchens, where neighbors were accused of using other people’s matches: they say, our box has noticeably lost weight, you robbed us, profited from us!

Surprisingly, this habit of saving on literally everything has passed on to the present day - and often even quite wealthy people save on some nonsense without noticing large, but less noticeable overexpenditures. Example: a person does not have a personal car, he buys full bags of expensive products in a supermarket, paying $100-150 for a trip to the store, and drags it all to public transport, “saving” $3-4 on a taxi. I see this all the time.

Фото: Depositphotos

2. Stocking salt, matches and cereals

Good products were in short supply in the USSR, and from time to time even the simplest of them, such as pasta or cereal, disappeared from stores. If cereal appeared, then it was not a bad idea to take home 5-6 packages at once so that there was some kind of reserve.

Now the deficit is long gone, any goods are available in any quantity, and the price of products such as pasta or cereals is practically not growing. Nevertheless, many of the old habit continue to fill kitchen cabinets with kilograms of buckwheat, oatmeal, packages of salt and sugar, as well as matches. Why do it today - I do not know.

3. Drink tea with cookies and other crap

A purely Soviet food habit - the so-called drinking of tea must be accompanied by some unhealthful product such as cookies, jam or sweets. In the USSR, such a tradition existed in the form of a daily “afternoon snack” (that is, a meal between lunch and dinner); This is how guests were often greeted.

I think there is no need to tell that there is nothing useful in tea (especially in the Soviet one), just as there is nothing useful in cookies with sweets. At lunch, it is better to eat some yogurt or drink fresh, or just eat an apple - it is much more useful. I am sure that they would have done the same in the USSR if these products were freely available there. Yes, and guests are better to meet the same fruit sliced ​​than infinitely drink this tea is not clear with what a bit of sugar.

Фото: Depositphotos

4. There is everything with bread

Another purely Soviet food habit is to eat absolutely everything with bread, even those products that already contain carbohydrates or flour in large quantities: potatoes, dumplings, pasta, dumplings, etc. In the USSR, it was believed that only by eating with bread can you be satisfied - I think many of you heard in childhood from your mother or grandmother: “Eat with bread, otherwise you won’t be satisfied!”

Now everyone is literate, and I think it’s not worth writing once again that bread is carbohydrates, which, apart from dulling the feeling of hunger for a longer period, do not provide the body with absolutely anything useful. Personally, I use bread very limitedly - only with some soups, like borscht, and I don’t buy it at home at all. If you still eat everything with bread, then just for fun, try giving up this habit - and you won’t lose anything.

5. Collect souvenirs in the sideboard, collect

The passion for collecting is in many ways an exclusively Soviet weakness. Many residents of the USSR collected stamps, badges, postcards with Lenin, anniversary rubles, and so on. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this, but I propose to look at this hobby from the other side - in those years, people often did this simply to occupy their leisure time with something; there was not so much entertainment in the USSR. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time to collect something that doesn’t have any objective value (like stamps or chewing gum wrappers), but at the same time takes a lot of time searching, exchanging, sorting, etc.

Here, by the way, we can include the collection of all kinds of rubbish like dishes in a cupboard, as well as the collection of magnets on the refrigerator - as for me, a waste of time and effort.

6. Do not throw out the old trash, have a "package with packages"

Another habit that comes from the USSR is not to throw away old trash, garbage and leftover food, especially bread (more on this below). Life in the USSR was quite poor, so people most often did not throw away things that “might come in handy someday.” In the nooks, pantries and cabinets of any Soviet apartment there were always some old screws, skeins of rope, an unnecessary ax handle, old chisels and chisels, half a pair of scissors, broken collet pencils, etc., etc. in the hope that “someday this might come in handy.”

This also includes the notorious “package with packages,” about which many jokes have already been made on the Internet. It all started with the fact that ordinary cellophane bags (both small transparent ones for packaging and large ones, with handles and prints) were in great short supply, and ordinary disposable bags became reusable - after use they were washed in the bathroom and dried on clothespins, and then folded in one biggest package.

If you have old junk and a bag of bags in your home that has not been used for years, throw it away immediately.

Фото: Depositphotos

7. Keep things on the balcony, glass it

It is believed that glazing balconies was prohibited in the USSR, but this is not entirely true - glazed balconies began to appear precisely in the last decade of the USSR. For example, I personally saw quite a lot of glass balconies in Pripyat - which, as you know, no one has lived in since 1986. The balcony was usually glassed in order to fill it with the old rubbish listed in the previous section. It was complemented by some chest of drawers that had dried out from many years of use, a pillowcase with dried forest species, broken Telekhany skis, and a binder of the Science and Life magazine for the years 1983-1988.

If you want to be considered a modern person, then never glaze the balcony in your apartment - it was created to breathe fresh air, and not to store unnecessary rubbish there. As a last resort (if you've already glazed it), don't take the trash there, it's better to just throw it away; you'll never need your old skis for anything.

8. Walk at home in an alcoholic shirt and old sneakers

I don’t know why, but often in the USSR it was customary to wear the most shabby clothes at home - at best it was some kind of greasy robe, at worst - blue woolen sweatpants stretched over the knees with torn straps, an old shapeless T-shirt and worn-out slippers. I have no version why this was so - apparently, it was believed that you can walk around at home in whatever you want, “no one sees anyway.” What’s interesting is that this habit has largely migrated into modern times. From time to time I visit friends and often see their neighbors going out to the entrance “at home” - to smoke, pick up a newspaper or take out the trash. The same people who go out into the street in beautiful clothes, new shoes and a haircut, wear whatever they like at home.

9. Believe in domestic superstition

From old times (from the USSR, or even earlier), many everyday superstitions have come into our lives, such as: not taking out the garbage in the evenings, not spilling salt or throwing away dried bread. Many of these superstitions were brought to the city during the Soviet era with the process of mass urbanization. In the old days (especially in rural areas) they really made sense - for example, because of spilled salt (which at one time was very expensive) a quarrel could really break out, and bread was not thrown away for fear of hunger and crop failure - in rural houses there was a whole separate a bag for collecting crusts left over from lunch. If the year was fruitful, the old crackers were fed to the pigs.

Obviously, in the XNUMXst century it is simply ridiculous to believe in such superstitions - they have no practical significance and are no longer connected with our modern life at all.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Who, where and why emigrate from Israel

How does the granddaughter of Stalin live in America

What is it like for an emigrant from Russia to watch films about “bad Russians”

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.