--- title: 5 Weird Things About Everyday Life in the Soviet Union description: "The Soviet Union, an empire that once covered vast parts of Eurasia, has long captivated our imagination. Yet, most of our understanding is confined to Cold War rhetoric and iconic symbols such as Sputnik, nuclear weapons, and the Berlin Wall. While fascinating, this perspective only scratches the surface, and neglects the quirky and frankly… **WEIRD** aspects that characterized daily life in this complex nation that was oh so different from our own.\n\nSo, today, let's put aside the political chest-beating and grandiose military icons, and instead zoom in on those bizarre and weird details… this is 5 unusual things about life in the Soviet Union.\n\n## 1. Car Ownership\n\nCar ownership is something we all take for granted in the western world. For us, it is all but a given that basically anyone can afford a car one way or the other. Sure, it may not be a Rolls Royce or a Lamborghini, but still, the possibility of *A* car is open to basically all of us. This was not the case in the Soviet Union, where car ownership was a privilege enjoyed by only a select few. Worse still, for the lucky few who did manage to get their hands on a car, the process of **ACTUALLY acquiring** it was a bureaucratic hellscape that required the jumping of many hurdles, and often, the crossing of several palms with roubles.\n\nTo explain this further, let us begin with that most basic of obstacles to car ownership: the cost. For the average Soviet citizen in the 1980s, their yearly salary was roughly 2,000 rubles a year including all bonuses and incentives. This, frankly, was nowhere near enough to even begin to cover the cost of buying a car. Take for instance the most prestigious car a Soviet citizen could aspire to own – the mighty GAZ-24 Volga, the cost of this bucket of magnificence was a staggering 16,480 rubles in 1984… just over eight times that average salary of 2,000 rubles a year… so clearly, the average Soviet citizen wasn't affording a Volga.\n\nBut surely, we hear you cry! This was communism, the state must have provided a cheap and cheerful car to the *masses*? Well, they did… kind of, in the form of the venerable VAZ-2101. This reliable and utilitarian workhorse could be yours for the low low price of only 6,000 rubles in 1984… a mere three times the average salary – what a bargain, what a steal, how can you argue with such value!\n\nTo really put this AMAZING value into perspective, the equivalent cost of the Volga and VAZ in the United States would have been around $280,000 and $105,000 respectively in 1984. For comparison, a Lamborghini Countach and a Ferrari Testarossa cost $100,000 and $94,000 respectively in that same year.\n\nBut let's say someone *actually managed* to save up the mega bucks needed to buy a car in the Soviet Union, after all, people did own these cars, so evidently it was viable on some level… what then was the process of actually getting your hands on one?\n\nWell, there were no car dealers in the Soviet Union, so rather than the time-honoured western tradition of verbally jousting with a silver-tongued con man eager to empty your wallet, you instead had to go to your employer, and while putting on your best Oliver Twist impression ask if: \"Please sir, may I have a car?\"\n\nYou see, in the Soviet Union the allocation of cars was controlled by the trade unions, with each union being given a quota of cars to distribute to the companies under its purview each year. Then, it was the responsibility of the companies to decide which of its workers deserved to be allowed to buy the cars they had been assigned. But the bureaucracy didn't stop there folks, oh no no, because if you were lucky enough to be selected to buy a car, your application then had to go back to the government, who would then run a background check to make sure you hadn't had any naughty opinions that would make you unworthy of owning a car – this background check alone could easily take over a year.\n\nThen, after waiting just to find out if you were allowed to buy a car, you then had to go on a waiting list. For you see, if a company had more wannabe motorists than cars (which they always did, all of the time) names were added to a list, with the companies incoming allocation of cars being distributed to the people at the top of the list, and given the low number of cars produced by the Soviet Union, it could easily take up to ten years for your name to reach the top of the list.\n\nIt wasn't all bad however, at least car insurance was cheap in the Soviet Union, and better still, if you didn't hit anyone all year you got your premium refunded… so that's something!\n\n## 2. Air Travel\n\nAir travel, to most of us in the western world, is mundane to the point of being a chore; an unenjoyable but necessary exercise we all endure to jet off to exotic locales around the world. But really, when you think about it, we actually have it pretty good: basically everyone can afford to do it, the government doesn't restrict how and why we can travel, and we have a smorgasbord of airlines to choose from, each competing to offer us the most convenient schedules, the best prices, and the finest in-flight services. This… was not the case in the Soviet Union.\n\nLet's start with the choice (or rather lack thereof) of airlines available to the Soviet jetsetter. They had just one: Aeroflot. But while Aeroflot (state owned of course) may have been the only game in town, they were a behemoth of a company, with a fleet of over 10,000 aircraft, and over 600,000 people on its payroll. This however shouldn't be taken to assume that the Soviet Union had surprisingly advanced infrastructure, quite the opposite, airports and planes simply proved cheaper to build than modern rail and road infrastructure.\n\nThen there was the cost, which was simply astronomical. Consider this: a one-way ticket from Moscow to Khabarovsk, a city in the country's far east, would cost about 180 rubles in the 1980s, just over the nation's whole average monthly salary. More staggering was the cost of a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok, which would set one back an exorbitant 240 rubles. Contrast this to the present day, where a Muscovite earning an average monthly salary of 51,000 rubles can secure a one-way ticket to Vladivostok for approximately a tenth of their monthly salary, and the inaccessibility of air travel in the Soviet era truly becomes apparent.\n\nBut the weirdness doesn't stop there, as for some reason, Aeroflot, the only airline in the whole country, advertised. The adverts were suitably odd too. Some, such as the typical glamour shots of picture perfect air stewardesses who looked mysteriously just like the picture perfect girls in all the other adverts were understandable enough, but where it got really weird was when it got… well, for want of a better description, SOVIET, such as this 1962 poster which advertises Aeroflot with all the patriotic zeal you'd expect from a 1930s propaganda poster encouraging you to charge into Nazi machine gun fire for the Motherland. As for why a company with a state provided monopoly put so much effort into its advertising… your guess is as good as ours.\n\nThen there was the food on board. Considering this presents us with two possibilities: either Aeroflot was used exclusively by bodybuilders, or the service was just a bit crap, because you had one option – the ever tasty, the ever nutritious, and not at all bland: chicken and rice. The dish became so predictable in fact that it became a running joke amongst frequent flyers, not the funny kind of joke mind you, the 'laugh the pain away' kind of joke.\n\nThere was one exception to this monotonous culinary litany however – international flights. Because you see, on international flights, there might be foreigners, and the foreigners might go back home and tell their foreigner friends about the chicken and rice, thus besmirching the glorious name of the Soviet Union and all of its efforts in illustrious socialist construction!\n\nPhotography was also explicitly banned on flights. This seems to be rooted primarily in jingoistic ego, with the Soviet Government, for some reason, being **absolutely terrified** that the west would discover what the cabins of its airliners looked like… again, your guess is as good as ours!\n\n## 3. Militarised Education\n\nThe Soviet Education system is often touted as one of the regime's major successes, and frankly, it's hard to disagree with this. It was renowned for its high standards of teaching, particularly in the STEM subjects, it was free at all levels regardless of social status, and typically did a fantastic job sending talented young people off into suitable fields that would allow them to thrive in their future careers. But despite this overall quality, like everything in the Soviet Union, it also had its fair share of eyebrow raising weirdness, primarily its highly militarised nature.\n\nUnder this system children were free to enjoy their innocence until their teenage years, at which point 'Initial Military Training' was introduced into their curriculum. This had two aims. Firstly, it was to prepare young men for their compulsory military service, ensuring that they were familiar with the rudiments of military life and basic operations before their formal induction, and secondly, it was to foster a sense of camaraderie and collectivist thinking within all members of the class – collectivism naturally being a bit of a big deal in the communist Soviet Union.\n\nAs part of this program, twice a week, the students would swap their usual classrooms for makeshift military grounds, donning khaki uniforms and being led through their paces by retired military officers. These individuals, often battle-hardened veterans, saw their jobs as either a great honour, raising the next generation of New Soviet Men, *or*, an easy way of topping up their military pension – it depends who you ask!\n\nThe training was immersive and comprehensive. Beyond mere marching drills, the students were taught tactical manoeuvring, how to respond to chemical and nuclear attacks, and even basic medical procedures like wound dressing and CPR. The realities of handling a weapon, from maintenance to accurate firing, were also part of this intense immersion. Anecdotal evidence suggests that for many students, the sheer thrill of holding an actual firearm, albeit in a controlled environment, was an experience unlike any other.\n\nThe training was also not just confined to school boundaries. As sometimes, for a special treat, students would get to go to local military bases, where they would test their skills, and get to do the *really cool* stuff that was not safe to do on school grounds. One such example being hand grenade throwing, an activity that for many was the highlight of the course.\n\nBut as fun as this all was, as the students progressed towards the end of their tenth grade, the reality of their training began to dawn upon them, as in an act that signified the transition from the controlled environment of school to the real world, the military instructors would ask each male student about their preferred direction when they were drafted into the military. This was nothing if not a reality check, reminding students that while ditching normal lessons to play with Kalashnikovs was certainly fun, there was ultimately a very serious, and quite morbid methodology behind it all.\n\nYet, despite this distinctly macabre undernote, years later, many of the students look back on this time with a strange sense of nostalgia. They recall the excitement, the novelty, and the sense of belonging that this unique part of their education brought them. For them, it was an embodiment of the larger societal values prevalent in the Soviet Union and an ingenious mechanism to instil discipline, resilience, and unity amongst its young citizens, and in the process, it left an indelible mark on those who underwent it, creating generations of individuals who were as adept at navigating the challenges of life as they were the battleground.\n\n## 4. Grocery Shopping\n\nIn the Soviet Union, even the common ritual of grocery shopping, a typically mundane chore, was just a bit odd.\n\nFor starters, the range of food stuffs was limited, and the few available were always in short supply, making the term \"deficit\" a customary part of the Soviet lexicon… except in Moscow that was, which, as the capital and most important city in the country, was always prioritised for grocery goods, becoming something of a commercial promised land – a utopia where all goods were available at all times… usually. This relative abundance triggered regular mass influxes of shoppers from surrounding towns and cities (and occasionally even other republics) on shopping expeditions colloquially referred to as \"sausage trains\".\n\nThis phenomenon extended to other cities too. Moscow might have been the pièce de résistance of the Soviet Union, and therefore received the highest priority for supplying with grocery goods, but many other cities, such as republic capitals like Kyiv and Yerevan, and nuclear cities such as Pripyat, were also given a high priority for supplying with food, and so they received \"sausage trains\" of their own from their surrounding areas.\n\nBut while the distribution of food in the Soviet Union might have been unusual, so too was its retailing. Far removed from the one-stop supermarkets of the West, the Soviet Union was characterised by highly specialized stores – bread stores, milk stores, fish stores, meat stores, and the like, each dedicated to a single type of product. But even these highly focused outlets had their idiosyncrasies; for instance, bread (when available) was highly subsidised by the state and therefore extremely cheap, which led to farmers buying it in excessive quantities to feed their livestock as it was cheaper than animal fodder (the difference of course going straight into their pockets). Similarly, milk products weren't typically pre-packaged, instead being cut or portioned out on the spot – leading to customers turning with all manner of bizarre household containers to fill up with milk.\n\nBut perhaps the oddest, and certainly most famous aspect of Soviet grocery shopping was the endless queuing. This was a consequence of the sporadic supply of goods, as if you didn't know when the next supply was coming in, you made **damned** sure to get in line and get some whenever the opportunity presented itself. This shopping trend led to the wide proliferation of an essential Soviet shopping accessory – the *avoska*. This was a simple string bag that you **kept about your person at all times**, ensuring that should a passing store suddenly get a delivery of new stock, you were in position to pounce on it and be at the front of the queue – lest you return home to grab your bag, only to return minutes later and find the store already sold out.\n\nIt wasn't all haggling and queues however, if you had connections, you were a king amongst men. All it took was a friend or family member to be working at a store, and you could skip the serpentine lines and just buy (or be given) your goods through the backdoor on demand. So prolific was this, that often a stores staff would put large amounts of their shipments aside for this explicit purpose – it not being rare at all for an entire stores staff to be in cahoots.\n\nTheft was also prolific from stores, but not by customers as you might imagine, but by the staff. Often times, items weren't even stolen for personal consumption, but for bartering, with it being simpler to just trade goods stolen from work rather than trying to procure things from official channels – have a chicken coop that needs painting? Well just go and see your uncle Yuri who works at the Antonov factory with a nice leg of five finger discounted lamb in hand, and he'll slip you some aircraft paint in return.\n\nIndeed, in the Soviet Union, it was often a jobs ability to open up alternative means of generating income and procuring goods that determined its desirability… and that segways nicely into our final chapter!\n\n## 5. The Most Prestigious Job in the Union\n\nIf we were to ask you to think of the most prestigious job one could aspire to in the Soviet Union, what would come to mind? Perhaps a cosmonaut, dangerously pushing the bounds of science while having the media treat you like a rock star? Or maybe an atomic scientist, using your elbow grease to single handedly protect your nations superpower status? Whatever you thought of, we are willing to bet it wasn't taxi driver.\n\nThis may sound crazy, but in the Soviet era, driving a taxi was one of the most lucrative, and therefore one of the most prestigious jobs one could hope to land. At face value this proposition sounds absurd, as they only had a salary of around 150-200 rubles per month in the 1980s, pretty much dead-on average for the time, but you see, the great winnings afforded by this profession didn't come from the salary, but rather all the other things they could do off the books when they got their hands on a taxi.\n\nOne common trick involved exploiting a loophole in the way that Soviet taxi companies were run. The way it worked was taxi drivers were given a quota of miles they had to cover and customers they had to pick up on any given day, when these quotas (which were often set by Taxi rank managers who were just as much on the fiddle as their drivers were) were met, the metre was turned off and all subsequent takings went straight into the drivers' pocket.\n\nSome drivers, those who rank managers were sticklers for the rules, achieved the same effect by manipulating their taxi meters with makeshift tools, reducing the kilometres driven to conveniently just around the minimum quota each day. The managers were no fools of course, they knew full well that every single taxi under them conveniently coming in at almost exactly the minimum mileage every day was a clear sign the driver was on the fiddle – but they could never prove anything concretely, and so it continued.\n\nMany drivers also made sure to hang around airports, train stations and hotels. The advantage here was twofold, firstly it provided a steady stream of long-distance fares that quickly ate up that minimum mileage, and secondly, it provided them with plenty of clueless foreigners who would be unaware of local taxi rates, and thus were prime for fleecing.\n\nSome savvy drivers also profited from Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign. As part of this campaign, the hours during which alcohol could be purchased were restricted, with most stores being forbidden to sell alcohol late at night. So, what did the taxi drivers do? They purchased vodka during the day and resold it at premium prices at night, exploiting a ready market of desperate consumers. Everyone knew this too, so the Taxi drivers didn't even have to patrol for customers… the customers came to them.\n\nThere was also another, seedier 'extra' activity that some Soviet taxi drivers partook in under the cover of darkness – they worked as pimps, developing illicit partnerships with prostitutes, and leveraging their taxis as pimpmobiles. The setup was simple yet effective - the drivers would ferry prostitutes to and from their clients, providing a degree of safety and mobility that was otherwise hard to come by. In exchange, the drivers took a sizable cut from their earnings. This shadowy, nocturnal ecosystem thrived in the underbelly of the Soviet cities, facilitated by the ubiquitous yellow cabs that could discreetly blend into the urban landscape. It was a risky and morally dubious enterprise, but for these drivers, the allure of quick, substantial cash outweighed the legal and ethical considerations.\n\nThese strategies may have been morally dubious, but they worked, and as a result taxi drivers were easily among the wealthiest citizens in the Soviet Union, a far cry from their western counterparts.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Car ownership in the Soviet Union was rare and required navigating bureaucratic hurdles.\n- Air travel in the Soviet Union was expensive and limited to one state-owned airline.\n- Soviet education included mandatory military training for teenagers to prepare for service.\n- Grocery shopping in the Soviet Union involved long queues and specialized stores.\n- Taxi driving was one of the most lucrative jobs in the Soviet Union due to off-the-books earnings.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### How common was car ownership in the Soviet Union?\n\nCar ownership was a privilege enjoyed by only a select few in the Soviet Union. The average Soviet citizen in the 1980s earned around 2,000 rubles a year, which was not enough to afford even the most basic car, the VAZ-2101, which cost 6,000 rubles.\n\n### What was the process of buying a car in the Soviet Union?\n\nThe process involved asking your employer for permission, undergoing a government background check, and then waiting on a list for up to ten years due to the low number of cars produced.\n\n### How expensive was air travel in the Soviet Union?\n\nAir travel was extremely expensive. For example, a one-way ticket from Moscow to Vladivostok cost 240 rubles in the 1980s, which was more than the average monthly salary.\n\n### What was the food like on Aeroflot flights?\n\nThe food on Aeroflot flights was notoriously bland, consisting mainly of chicken and rice. This became a running joke among frequent flyers.\n\n### What was the Soviet education system like?\n\nThe Soviet education system was known for its high standards, particularly in STEM subjects, and was free at all levels. However, it was also highly militarized, with initial military training introduced in the teenage years.\n\n### What was grocery shopping like in the Soviet Union?\n\nGrocery shopping was characterized by limited food supplies and endless queuing. Specialized stores sold single types of products, and having connections could help skip the lines.\n\n### What was the most prestigious job in the Soviet Union?\n\nSurprisingly, driving a taxi was one of the most lucrative and prestigious jobs due to the various off-the-books activities taxi drivers could engage in.\n\n### How did taxi drivers in the Soviet Union make extra money?\n\nTaxi drivers exploited loopholes in the system, manipulated taxi meters, fleeced foreigners, resold vodka at premium prices, and even worked as pimps.\n\n### What was the 'sausage train' phenomenon in the Soviet Union?\n\nThe 'sausage train' phenomenon referred to mass influxes of shoppers from surrounding towns and cities to Moscow and other priority cities for grocery shopping due to the relative abundance of goods.\n\n### What was the 'avoska' and why was it important?\n\nThe 'avoska' was a simple string bag that Soviet citizens kept with them at all times to be ready to queue for goods when they became available.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: 5 Weird Things About Everyday Life in the Soviet Union](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh6goO0EomU)\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/5-weird-things-everyday-life-soviet-union.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/5-weird-things-everyday-life-soviet-union datePublished: 2026-06-25 dateModified: 2026-06-25 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/Hh6goO0EomU/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 9314ea5c1371502801a36b1b1c8d5a8dc9a5d6a000226799258e064b1c6096c2 tokens: 5742 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/5-weird-things-everyday-life-soviet-union.md.summary.md --- The Soviet Union, an empire that once covered vast parts of Eurasia, has long captivated our imagination. Yet, most of our understanding is confined to Cold War rhetoric and iconic symbols such as Sputnik, nuclear weapons, and the Berlin Wall. While fascinating, this perspective only scratches the surface, and neglects the quirky and frankly… **WEIRD** aspects that characterized daily life in this complex nation that was oh so different from our own. So, today, let's put aside the political chest-beating and grandiose military icons, and instead zoom in on those bizarre and weird details… this is 5 unusual things about life in the Soviet Union. ## 1. Car Ownership Car ownership is something we all take for granted in the western world. For us, it is all but a given that basically anyone can afford a car one way or the other. Sure, it may not be a Rolls Royce or a Lamborghini, but still, the possibility of *A* car is open to basically all of us. This was not the case in the Soviet Union, where car ownership was a privilege enjoyed by only a select few. Worse still, for the lucky few who did manage to get their hands on a car, the process of **ACTUALLY acquiring** it was a bureaucratic hellscape that required the jumping of many hurdles, and often, the crossing of several palms with roubles. To explain this further, let us begin with that most basic of obstacles to car ownership: the cost. For the average Soviet citizen in the 1980s, their yearly salary was roughly 2,000 rubles a year including all bonuses and incentives. This, frankly, was nowhere near enough to even begin to cover the cost of buying a car. Take for instance the most prestigious car a Soviet citizen could aspire to own – the mighty GAZ-24 Volga, the cost of this bucket of magnificence was a staggering 16,480 rubles in 1984… just over eight times that average salary of 2,000 rubles a year… so clearly, the average Soviet citizen wasn't affording a Volga. But surely, we hear you cry! This was communism, the state must have provided a cheap and cheerful car to the *masses*? Well, they did… kind of, in the form of the venerable VAZ-2101. This reliable and utilitarian workhorse could be yours for the low low price of only 6,000 rubles in 1984… a mere three times the average salary – what a bargain, what a steal, how can you argue with such value! To really put this AMAZING value into perspective, the equivalent cost of the Volga and VAZ in the United States would have been around $280,000 and $105,000 respectively in 1984. For comparison, a Lamborghini Countach and a Ferrari Testarossa cost $100,000 and $94,000 respectively in that same year. But let's say someone *actually managed* to save up the mega bucks needed to buy a car in the Soviet Union, after all, people did own these cars, so evidently it was viable on some level… what then was the process of actually getting your hands on one? Well, there were no car dealers in the Soviet Union, so rather than the time-honoured western tradition of verbally jousting with a silver-tongued con man eager to empty your wallet, you instead had to go to your employer, and while putting on your best Oliver Twist impression ask if: "Please sir, may I have a car?" You see, in the Soviet Union the allocation of cars was controlled by the trade unions, with each union being given a quota of cars to distribute to the companies under its purview each year. Then, it was the responsibility of the companies to decide which of its workers deserved to be allowed to buy the cars they had been assigned. But the bureaucracy didn't stop there folks, oh no no, because if you were lucky enough to be selected to buy a car, your application then had to go back to the government, who would then run a background check to make sure you hadn't had any naughty opinions that would make you unworthy of owning a car – this background check alone could easily take over a year. Then, after waiting just to find out if you were allowed to buy a car, you then had to go on a waiting list. For you see, if a company had more wannabe motorists than cars (which they always did, all of the time) names were added to a list, with the companies incoming allocation of cars being distributed to the people at the top of the list, and given the low number of cars produced by the Soviet Union, it could easily take up to ten years for your name to reach the top of the list. It wasn't all bad however, at least car insurance was cheap in the Soviet Union, and better still, if you didn't hit anyone all year you got your premium refunded… so that's something! ## 2. Air Travel Air travel, to most of us in the western world, is mundane to the point of being a chore; an unenjoyable but necessary exercise we all endure to jet off to exotic locales around the world. But really, when you think about it, we actually have it pretty good: basically everyone can afford to do it, the government doesn't restrict how and why we can travel, and we have a smorgasbord of airlines to choose from, each competing to offer us the most convenient schedules, the best prices, and the finest in-flight services. This… was not the case in the Soviet Union. Let's start with the choice (or rather lack thereof) of airlines available to the Soviet jetsetter. They had just one: Aeroflot. But while Aeroflot (state owned of course) may have been the only game in town, they were a behemoth of a company, with a fleet of over 10,000 aircraft, and over 600,000 people on its payroll. This however shouldn't be taken to assume that the Soviet Union had surprisingly advanced infrastructure, quite the opposite, airports and planes simply proved cheaper to build than modern rail and road infrastructure. Then there was the cost, which was simply astronomical. Consider this: a one-way ticket from Moscow to Khabarovsk, a city in the country's far east, would cost about 180 rubles in the 1980s, just over the nation's whole average monthly salary. More staggering was the cost of a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok, which would set one back an exorbitant 240 rubles. Contrast this to the present day, where a Muscovite earning an average monthly salary of 51,000 rubles can secure a one-way ticket to Vladivostok for approximately a tenth of their monthly salary, and the inaccessibility of air travel in the Soviet era truly becomes apparent. But the weirdness doesn't stop there, as for some reason, Aeroflot, the only airline in the whole country, advertised. The adverts were suitably odd too. Some, such as the typical glamour shots of picture perfect air stewardesses who looked mysteriously just like the picture perfect girls in all the other adverts were understandable enough, but where it got really weird was when it got… well, for want of a better description, SOVIET, such as this 1962 poster which advertises Aeroflot with all the patriotic zeal you'd expect from a 1930s propaganda poster encouraging you to charge into Nazi machine gun fire for the Motherland. As for why a company with a state provided monopoly put so much effort into its advertising… your guess is as good as ours. Then there was the food on board. Considering this presents us with two possibilities: either Aeroflot was used exclusively by bodybuilders, or the service was just a bit crap, because you had one option – the ever tasty, the ever nutritious, and not at all bland: chicken and rice. The dish became so predictable in fact that it became a running joke amongst frequent flyers, not the funny kind of joke mind you, the 'laugh the pain away' kind of joke. There was one exception to this monotonous culinary litany however – international flights. Because you see, on international flights, there might be foreigners, and the foreigners might go back home and tell their foreigner friends about the chicken and rice, thus besmirching the glorious name of the Soviet Union and all of its efforts in illustrious socialist construction! Photography was also explicitly banned on flights. This seems to be rooted primarily in jingoistic ego, with the Soviet Government, for some reason, being **absolutely terrified** that the west would discover what the cabins of its airliners looked like… again, your guess is as good as ours! ## 3. Militarised Education The Soviet Education system is often touted as one of the regime's major successes, and frankly, it's hard to disagree with this. It was renowned for its high standards of teaching, particularly in the STEM subjects, it was free at all levels regardless of social status, and typically did a fantastic job sending talented young people off into suitable fields that would allow them to thrive in their future careers. But despite this overall quality, like everything in the Soviet Union, it also had its fair share of eyebrow raising weirdness, primarily its highly militarised nature. Under this system children were free to enjoy their innocence until their teenage years, at which point 'Initial Military Training' was introduced into their curriculum. This had two aims. Firstly, it was to prepare young men for their compulsory military service, ensuring that they were familiar with the rudiments of military life and basic operations before their formal induction, and secondly, it was to foster a sense of camaraderie and collectivist thinking within all members of the class – collectivism naturally being a bit of a big deal in the communist Soviet Union. As part of this program, twice a week, the students would swap their usual classrooms for makeshift military grounds, donning khaki uniforms and being led through their paces by retired military officers. These individuals, often battle-hardened veterans, saw their jobs as either a great honour, raising the next generation of New Soviet Men, *or*, an easy way of topping up their military pension – it depends who you ask! The training was immersive and comprehensive. Beyond mere marching drills, the students were taught tactical manoeuvring, how to respond to chemical and nuclear attacks, and even basic medical procedures like wound dressing and CPR. The realities of handling a weapon, from maintenance to accurate firing, were also part of this intense immersion. Anecdotal evidence suggests that for many students, the sheer thrill of holding an actual firearm, albeit in a controlled environment, was an experience unlike any other. The training was also not just confined to school boundaries. As sometimes, for a special treat, students would get to go to local military bases, where they would test their skills, and get to do the *really cool* stuff that was not safe to do on school grounds. One such example being hand grenade throwing, an activity that for many was the highlight of the course. But as fun as this all was, as the students progressed towards the end of their tenth grade, the reality of their training began to dawn upon them, as in an act that signified the transition from the controlled environment of school to the real world, the military instructors would ask each male student about their preferred direction when they were drafted into the military. This was nothing if not a reality check, reminding students that while ditching normal lessons to play with Kalashnikovs was certainly fun, there was ultimately a very serious, and quite morbid methodology behind it all. Yet, despite this distinctly macabre undernote, years later, many of the students look back on this time with a strange sense of nostalgia. They recall the excitement, the novelty, and the sense of belonging that this unique part of their education brought them. For them, it was an embodiment of the larger societal values prevalent in the Soviet Union and an ingenious mechanism to instil discipline, resilience, and unity amongst its young citizens, and in the process, it left an indelible mark on those who underwent it, creating generations of individuals who were as adept at navigating the challenges of life as they were the battleground. ## 4. Grocery Shopping In the Soviet Union, even the common ritual of grocery shopping, a typically mundane chore, was just a bit odd. For starters, the range of food stuffs was limited, and the few available were always in short supply, making the term "deficit" a customary part of the Soviet lexicon… except in Moscow that was, which, as the capital and most important city in the country, was always prioritised for grocery goods, becoming something of a commercial promised land – a utopia where all goods were available at all times… usually. This relative abundance triggered regular mass influxes of shoppers from surrounding towns and cities (and occasionally even other republics) on shopping expeditions colloquially referred to as "sausage trains". This phenomenon extended to other cities too. Moscow might have been the pièce de résistance of the Soviet Union, and therefore received the highest priority for supplying with grocery goods, but many other cities, such as republic capitals like Kyiv and Yerevan, and nuclear cities such as Pripyat, were also given a high priority for supplying with food, and so they received "sausage trains" of their own from their surrounding areas. But while the distribution of food in the Soviet Union might have been unusual, so too was its retailing. Far removed from the one-stop supermarkets of the West, the Soviet Union was characterised by highly specialized stores – bread stores, milk stores, fish stores, meat stores, and the like, each dedicated to a single type of product. But even these highly focused outlets had their idiosyncrasies; for instance, bread (when available) was highly subsidised by the state and therefore extremely cheap, which led to farmers buying it in excessive quantities to feed their livestock as it was cheaper than animal fodder (the difference of course going straight into their pockets). Similarly, milk products weren't typically pre-packaged, instead being cut or portioned out on the spot – leading to customers turning with all manner of bizarre household containers to fill up with milk. But perhaps the oddest, and certainly most famous aspect of Soviet grocery shopping was the endless queuing. This was a consequence of the sporadic supply of goods, as if you didn't know when the next supply was coming in, you made **damned** sure to get in line and get some whenever the opportunity presented itself. This shopping trend led to the wide proliferation of an essential Soviet shopping accessory – the *avoska*. This was a simple string bag that you **kept about your person at all times**, ensuring that should a passing store suddenly get a delivery of new stock, you were in position to pounce on it and be at the front of the queue – lest you return home to grab your bag, only to return minutes later and find the store already sold out. It wasn't all haggling and queues however, if you had connections, you were a king amongst men. All it took was a friend or family member to be working at a store, and you could skip the serpentine lines and just buy (or be given) your goods through the backdoor on demand. So prolific was this, that often a stores staff would put large amounts of their shipments aside for this explicit purpose – it not being rare at all for an entire stores staff to be in cahoots. Theft was also prolific from stores, but not by customers as you might imagine, but by the staff. Often times, items weren't even stolen for personal consumption, but for bartering, with it being simpler to just trade goods stolen from work rather than trying to procure things from official channels – have a chicken coop that needs painting? Well just go and see your uncle Yuri who works at the Antonov factory with a nice leg of five finger discounted lamb in hand, and he'll slip you some aircraft paint in return. Indeed, in the Soviet Union, it was often a jobs ability to open up alternative means of generating income and procuring goods that determined its desirability… and that segways nicely into our final chapter! ## 5. The Most Prestigious Job in the Union If we were to ask you to think of the most prestigious job one could aspire to in the Soviet Union, what would come to mind? Perhaps a cosmonaut, dangerously pushing the bounds of science while having the media treat you like a rock star? Or maybe an atomic scientist, using your elbow grease to single handedly protect your nations superpower status? Whatever you thought of, we are willing to bet it wasn't taxi driver. This may sound crazy, but in the Soviet era, driving a taxi was one of the most lucrative, and therefore one of the most prestigious jobs one could hope to land. At face value this proposition sounds absurd, as they only had a salary of around 150-200 rubles per month in the 1980s, pretty much dead-on average for the time, but you see, the great winnings afforded by this profession didn't come from the salary, but rather all the other things they could do off the books when they got their hands on a taxi. One common trick involved exploiting a loophole in the way that Soviet taxi companies were run. The way it worked was taxi drivers were given a quota of miles they had to cover and customers they had to pick up on any given day, when these quotas (which were often set by Taxi rank managers who were just as much on the fiddle as their drivers were) were met, the metre was turned off and all subsequent takings went straight into the drivers' pocket. Some drivers, those who rank managers were sticklers for the rules, achieved the same effect by manipulating their taxi meters with makeshift tools, reducing the kilometres driven to conveniently just around the minimum quota each day. The managers were no fools of course, they knew full well that every single taxi under them conveniently coming in at almost exactly the minimum mileage every day was a clear sign the driver was on the fiddle – but they could never prove anything concretely, and so it continued. Many drivers also made sure to hang around airports, train stations and hotels. The advantage here was twofold, firstly it provided a steady stream of long-distance fares that quickly ate up that minimum mileage, and secondly, it provided them with plenty of clueless foreigners who would be unaware of local taxi rates, and thus were prime for fleecing. Some savvy drivers also profited from Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign. As part of this campaign, the hours during which alcohol could be purchased were restricted, with most stores being forbidden to sell alcohol late at night. So, what did the taxi drivers do? They purchased vodka during the day and resold it at premium prices at night, exploiting a ready market of desperate consumers. Everyone knew this too, so the Taxi drivers didn't even have to patrol for customers… the customers came to them. There was also another, seedier 'extra' activity that some Soviet taxi drivers partook in under the cover of darkness – they worked as pimps, developing illicit partnerships with prostitutes, and leveraging their taxis as pimpmobiles. The setup was simple yet effective - the drivers would ferry prostitutes to and from their clients, providing a degree of safety and mobility that was otherwise hard to come by. In exchange, the drivers took a sizable cut from their earnings. This shadowy, nocturnal ecosystem thrived in the underbelly of the Soviet cities, facilitated by the ubiquitous yellow cabs that could discreetly blend into the urban landscape. It was a risky and morally dubious enterprise, but for these drivers, the allure of quick, substantial cash outweighed the legal and ethical considerations. These strategies may have been morally dubious, but they worked, and as a result taxi drivers were easily among the wealthiest citizens in the Soviet Union, a far cry from their western counterparts. ## Key Takeaways - Car ownership in the Soviet Union was rare and required navigating bureaucratic hurdles. - Air travel in the Soviet Union was expensive and limited to one state-owned airline. - Soviet education included mandatory military training for teenagers to prepare for service. - Grocery shopping in the Soviet Union involved long queues and specialized stores. - Taxi driving was one of the most lucrative jobs in the Soviet Union due to off-the-books earnings. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How common was car ownership in the Soviet Union? Car ownership was a privilege enjoyed by only a select few in the Soviet Union. The average Soviet citizen in the 1980s earned around 2,000 rubles a year, which was not enough to afford even the most basic car, the VAZ-2101, which cost 6,000 rubles. ### What was the process of buying a car in the Soviet Union? The process involved asking your employer for permission, undergoing a government background check, and then waiting on a list for up to ten years due to the low number of cars produced. ### How expensive was air travel in the Soviet Union? Air travel was extremely expensive. For example, a one-way ticket from Moscow to Vladivostok cost 240 rubles in the 1980s, which was more than the average monthly salary. ### What was the food like on Aeroflot flights? The food on Aeroflot flights was notoriously bland, consisting mainly of chicken and rice. This became a running joke among frequent flyers. ### What was the Soviet education system like? The Soviet education system was known for its high standards, particularly in STEM subjects, and was free at all levels. However, it was also highly militarized, with initial military training introduced in the teenage years. ### What was grocery shopping like in the Soviet Union? Grocery shopping was characterized by limited food supplies and endless queuing. Specialized stores sold single types of products, and having connections could help skip the lines. ### What was the most prestigious job in the Soviet Union? Surprisingly, driving a taxi was one of the most lucrative and prestigious jobs due to the various off-the-books activities taxi drivers could engage in. ### How did taxi drivers in the Soviet Union make extra money? Taxi drivers exploited loopholes in the system, manipulated taxi meters, fleeced foreigners, resold vodka at premium prices, and even worked as pimps. ### What was the 'sausage train' phenomenon in the Soviet Union? The 'sausage train' phenomenon referred to mass influxes of shoppers from surrounding towns and cities to Moscow and other priority cities for grocery shopping due to the relative abundance of goods. ### What was the 'avoska' and why was it important? The 'avoska' was a simple string bag that Soviet citizens kept with them at all times to be ready to queue for goods when they became available. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: 5 Weird Things About Everyday Life in the Soviet Union](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh6goO0EomU) ## Related Coverage