What habits give you a person from the USSR

The Soviet Union collapsed long ago, but people still have habits that unmistakably give them a person from the country of advice. Blogger Maxim Mirovich in livejournal He described in detail the habits that no longer have to do with 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 at the same time poverty was spread over a fairly even layer throughout society (the life of some scientist was not very different from the life of a plumber), which was not so noticeable. There were not so many ways to earn extra money in the USSR, and many of them were considered illegal (for example, entrepreneurship), which was why the budget deficit was usually covered with savings on virtually everything, including matches — I read about the descriptions of public utility scandals kitchens in which neighbors were accused of using someone else's matches - they say, our box was noticeably thinner, you robbed us, profited from us!

Surprisingly, this habit of saving on literally everything has spread to this day - and often even quite wealthy people save on some nonsense, not noticing large, but less noticeable overspending. Example - a person does not have a personal car, he buys full bags of expensive products in a supermarket, having paid $ 100-150 for a trip to the store and drags all this into public transport, “saving” $ 3-4 for a taxi. I meet this all the time.

Фото: Depositphotos

2. Stocking salt, matches and cereals

Good products in the USSR were scarce, and from time to time even the simplest products, such as pasta or groats, disappeared from the shops. If the croup appeared, it was far from superfluous to get 5-6 packages home right away so that there was some kind of supply.

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 tea", necessarily a bite with some unhealthy product, like cookies, jam or sweets. In the USSR, such a tradition existed in the form of an everyday “afternoon snack” (that is, a meal between lunch and dinner), plus guests were often met this way.

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 where carbohydrates or flour are already present in large quantities - potatoes, dumplings, pasta, dumplings, etc. In the USSR it was believed that only eating with bread could to get enough - I think many of you heard in childhood from your mother or grandmother: “eat with bread, otherwise you will not be full!”.

Now everyone is literate, and I think it’s not worth writing once again that bread is excess carbohydrates, which, apart from diminishing the feeling of hunger for a longer period, do not give the body absolutely nothing useful. Personally, I use bread in a very limited way - only with some soups, like borscht, but I don’t buy it at home. If you still eat everything with bread, then for the sake of interest, try to give up this habit, you will not lose anything.

5. Collect "souvenirs" in the sideboard, collect

A passion for collecting - in many ways a purely Soviet weakness, very many people in the USSR collected stamps, badges, postcards with Lenin, commemorative rubles, and so on. In principle, there is nothing wrong with that, but I suggest looking at this hobby from another side - in those years people did it often just to take leisure and entertainment in the USSR was not so much. Personally, I consider it an empty occupation to collect something that does not have any objective value (such as brands or candy wrappers from gum), but at the same time it takes a lot of time to search, exchange, sort, 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, originally from the USSR, is not to throw away old trash, garbage and food leftovers, especially bread (more on that below). Life in the USSR was rather poor, and therefore people most often did not throw away what "might come in handy someday." In the nooks, closets and lockers of any Soviet apartment, there were always kept some old screws, coils of string, an ax handle, old chisels and chisels, half of scissors, broken collet pencils, etc., etc. All this was carefully kept hoping that "someday it might come in handy."

This also includes the notorious "package with packages", about which many jokes have already been made up on the Internet. It all started with the fact that ordinary cellophane bags (both small transparent for packing and large ones with handles and prints) were in 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 gigantic package.

If you have an old, unused rubbish and a package with packages at home, throw it away immediately.

Фото: Depositphotos

7. Keep things on the balcony, glass it

It is believed that glazing balconies in the USSR was prohibited, but this is not entirely true - glazed balconies began to appear in the last decade of the USSR, for example, I personally saw quite a few glazed balconies in Pripyat - in which, as you know, no one has lived since 1986 of the year. The balcony was usually glazed in order to fill it with the old rubbish listed in the previous section, which was also supplemented with some old crumbling chest of drawers, a pillowcase with dried podleschik, broken Telekhana skis and a filing of Science and Life for 1983-88.

If you want to be considered a modern person, then never glaze the balcony in your apartment - it is created in order to breathe fresh air and not keep old rubbish there. In the extreme case (if you’ve already glazed) - don’t take the garbage there, better just throw it away, the old skis will never come in handy 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 walk at home in the most shabby clothes - at best it was some kind of greasy dressing gown, at worst - blue woolen sweatpants stretched out on the knees with torn off straps, some old shapeless T-shirt and worn-out slippers. I have no versions of why it was like this - apparently, it was believed that at home you can walk in whatever you want, “no one sees anyway”. Interestingly, this habit has largely migrated to modern times. From time to time I visit my friends and often see their neighbors going out into the entrance “at home” - to smoke, pick up the newspaper or take out the trash. The same people who go out into the street in beautiful clothes, new shoes and with a hairdo, at home they wear anything at home.

9. Believe in domestic superstition

From old times (from the USSR, and even earlier), many superstitions of everyday life came to our life, such as: not to take out the garbage in the evenings, to be afraid to spill salt, or not to throw out old bread. Very many of these superstitions were brought to the city just in Soviet times, 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 was very expensive at one time) a quarrel could really break out, and bread was not thrown away for fear of hunger and crop failure - there was a whole rural home separate bag for collecting crusts left over from lunch. If the year was fruitful, then the old crackers were fed to the pigs.

It is obvious that in the 21st century it is simply ridiculous to believe in such superstitions - they have no practical significance and are already practically in no way connected with our modern life.

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