Lmao 2.5kg of meat? Forget it. If you got any, it was a day to celebrate. You couldn't get shit for stamps and you had to stand in long queues to get the scraps that you could get. You waited for hours for a delivery that immediately disappeared or didn't come at all. You literally bought what you could. People used to barter the stamps and a grey market to get what you needed popped up. The only way to get what you wanted was to pay with dollars.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 15 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You sound like you were actually there? If so, please continue.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 29 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

My wife was born in ( but too late to remember) a former Soviet state.

Talking with her grandma is pretty interesting. Recently with global inflation, some of the grandmas friends were speaking fondly about government controlled price of bread.

Then my grandma (in law) who still has more of her marbles than any 91 year old I've ever met said "lol, yeah that was the price on the sign, but there was no bread in the store!"

"Ooooohhhhh yyyeeaaaaahhhh....."

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 hours ago

"would you like your tea with no milk or no cream?"

[–] superkret@feddit.org 11 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

The Soviet Union was a fun place. People whose great grandparents happened to be German were put on a train to Kyrgistan and just dumped out onto the steppe.
The 50% who survived the first winter and actually managed to build up villages were later banned from buying or selling at the local market, forcing them into the black market to survive, which was obviously illegal as well.
But they weren't allowed to emigrate to Germany either.