# When was a good time to live in Russia? Was there one? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2023, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061 "2023-06-24T20:20:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/21 "2023-07-08T03:14:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Arguably the early thirties were the best time to live in Russia Like during the famine??? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/22 "2023-07-08T04:05:18Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Like during the famine??? As I noted, it depends on whether or not you were a Russian. Stalin decided to take food from Ukraine and Kazakhstan in order to ship it to Russia. The result was that the famine approached the level of genocide in Ukraine and Kazakhstan but was comparatively light in Russia. That’s not to say it was good times in Russia. But good is a relative term when you’re discussing Russian living conditions. It was bad to be a Russian in 1932 - but probably not as bad as it had been in 1922 and would be in 1942. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/23 "2023-07-08T04:43:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > would be in 1942. Agreed. The actual numbers are estimates, but by those estimates, a quarter of the population of the USSR was killed or wounded in the Great Patriotic War, 1941 to 1945. That’s a staggering amount. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/24 "2023-07-08T13:25:06Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/987306/10): > > As a note while I understand for Westerners he is an easy access to the subject, the Bald and Bankrupt guy is not someone you should follow Now I’m curious. Who is this a reference to? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/25 "2023-07-08T14:25:56Z")
I wondered the same thing for awhile. I suspect he means Putin, but that’s a soft suspicion. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/26 "2023-07-08T14:40:11Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Who is this a reference to? > [@LSLGuy](#): > > . I suspect he means Putin, but that’s a soft suspicion. the Bald and Bankrupt guy is a journalist with a youtube channel which is linked to in Machine\_Elf’s post #14 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/28 "2023-07-09T20:11:57Z")
I asked Inna this question given she was born in the USSR in the 1970s (Ukraine SSR), and her first question was “what do you mean by ‘good time’? Economically, politically, other?” We talked and she said that the period between Communism and Putin was pretty good. Western products started appearing, Russians opened businesses, there was a sense of optimism. In her personal experience, she got married in Ukraine and she and her husband moved to Kyrgyzstan (the “Mexico of Asia” as she called it) before the fall. When the USSR collapsed, there was a period where the Russians (including her, though she now identifies as Ukrainian) didn’t really comprehend the changes… but the non-Russians, the more subjugated peoples in the USSR, had a firmer grasp of it. This dislocation lasted about 6 months for her (years for others), ending when she had to deal with Kyrgyzstanian bureaucracy and not Russian bureaucracy, finding out that she was, yes, now a citizen of Kyrgyzstan… which had neither experience nor respect on the world stage. Therefore she lived there, a stranger in a strange land, long after her divorce, until 2007 when she emigrated to the US. So, to the thread’s topic, the mid 90s weren’t too bad. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/29 "2023-07-09T20:41:42Z")
I have spent a couple of months living in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2000 and in 2001, traveling the countryside and riding the transsiberian up to Irkutsk, back then when I wanted to learn Russian. I ended up believing there was nothing good in Russia’s history and Russians were largely to be commiserated or deplored, depending on how much they were personally responsible for the situation, i.e. to what degree they were only victims or profiteers too. There was never a really good time to be a Russian, not even if you were the Zar, Stalin or Putin. The best you could hope was for the less bad times to last a bit longer. I gave up trying to learn Russian and have not visited for 20 years. I found it to be a depressing country. > [@JohnT](#): > > So, to the thread’s topic, the mid 90s weren’t too bad. I deduce that you have never tried to find _and use_ a public toilet in Russia. And I am male, it was even worse for my wife. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/30 "2023-07-09T20:48:55Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I deduce that you have never tried to find _and use_ a public toilet in Russia. And I am male, it was ever worse for my wife. Lol, no. I’ll ask Inna about this tonight, see if it was a thing she even noticed. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/31 "2023-07-09T20:58:53Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I gave up trying to learn Russian and have not visited for 20 years. I found it to be a depressing country. I’ve never been there, but back when I was doing my undergrad in a history/polisci combo, I looked into taking a Russian history class. My God, the readings were so depressing! I bailed. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/32 "2023-07-09T21:01:36Z")
Please do so and report back. Perhaps there was a trick. My solution was to go a to five star hotel and pretend to be a guest, those were clean. And as I was obviously a Westener, they let me use the premisses every time. McDonalds toilets were also OK, I wonder whether the new McDonalds have kept up the decent decadent western standards (that is: cleanliness). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/33 "2023-07-09T21:06:47Z")
[![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Iv%C3%A1n_el_Terrible_y_su_hijo%2C_por_Ili%C3%A1_Repin.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Iv%C3%A1n_el_Terrible_y_su_hijo%2C_por_Ili%C3%A1_Repin.jpg) This painting summarises what I know of medieval Russian history: Ivan the Terrible has just killed his son, the Tsarevich, who is dying in Ivan’s arms. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/34 "2023-07-09T21:14:22Z")
Ivan was a special case. He might have had syphilis. His doctors were certainly treating him with mercury. His brain cells were screwed. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/35 "2023-07-09T21:14:29Z")
Ah, yes. Those were the good times. \s That is what I meant when I wrote that it never was good, not even for the Zar, Stalin (his ~~daughter~~ wife commited suicide) or Putin (see how paranoid he has become? That is because they really are out to get him, if they can. I know who I am rooting for!). ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/36 "2023-07-09T21:16:44Z")
“Heaven is high above, and the Tsar is far away.” Russians have been deeply cynical, and depressingly fatalistic, about their government, for many centuries. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/37 "2023-07-09T21:18:37Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Ivan was a special case. He might have had syphilis. His doctors were certainly treating him with mercury. His brain cells were screwed. Yes, but, I don’t remember hearing about a similar murder in western European royal lines, nor an argument that the king was a murderous filicide because he was syphilitic, nor that a terribly impressive painting was made of the murder and hung in the most important art museum in the country. (I’m open to correction, of course, if there are such examples that I’m missing). Overall, what does that say about Russian history and experiences? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/38 "2023-07-09T21:26:49Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Overall, what does that say about Russian history and experiences? The Russians have always mistaken brutality for competence. There’s a direct line from that painting to Prigozhin’s sledgehammer. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2023, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/39 "2023-07-10T13:05:30Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Please do so and report back. Perhaps there was a trick. Inna mentioned that yes, they were dirty as hell but she never had a lack of bathroom access whenever she visited Kiev - restaurants were a possibility, as were the public baths. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/40 "2023-07-10T14:50:49Z")
I was in Moscow and Minsk in 1989 when Glasnost and Perestroika were in full flow. There was a cautious sense of hope in the air, helped by small businesses being allowed and free elections. Young people were very excited but the older generations were quite cynical. The cynics turned out to be right unfortunately. I only tried to use a public toilet once and that was at the main train station in Moscow. I threw up from the smell as soon as I entered! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2023, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061/41 "2023-07-10T14:56:36Z")
Yes, I forgot, thanks for the reminder: Inna mentioned the availability of subway bathrooms as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-a-good-time-to-live-in-russia-was-there-one/986061.md?page=3)