She visited Soviet Union around 1985. She was surprised with a level of development and what she saw there, an ice-cream machine for example. The ice-cream machine wasn’t available at that time in the Czechoslovakia. She had the same experience at least from 3 cities, even smaller. She had an opportunity to move freely in the Soviet Union. She was treated very hospitably at an event. She had a chat with students (perhaps students of hospitality schools) at the event. They told her the hospitable welcome had just been a veneer for tourists. When Russians lived in a village and they didn’t grow their own crops, they starved to death. She had information from a someone else’s story that when tourists were going to visit a poor village, officials began equipping each house with furniture and shops with food. They did it in order to show tourists that the Soviet Union government took care of their own people. When she was on a Trans-Siberian railway train, there were children standing along the train. A train driver slowed down so passengers could throw chewing gums to the children.
It was also a taboo to talk about Khrushchev, former Soviet Union leader, who denounced Stalin and his actions. When she wanted to open a conversation about it, people advised her not to talk about it due to a possibility of causing troubles to them.
She frequently went shopping to East Germany. Crossing the border line was always exciting. They transported goods which weren’t available in Czechoslovakia. Taking all goods successfully back was dependent on who they met at the border. Some of custom officers turned a blind eye to it, others confiscated everything. After a while they found out that a member of her acquaintance’s family was a custom officer. Since that moment the custom official took all their goods in bags and smuggled it through the border and returned it back to them. He didn’t want any money for the good deed.
Her husband worked in Soviet Union on a construction of Oreburg (Sojuz) oil pipeline. He spent 2 years with pauses there. Salary and travel allowance which he received were so high that it was financially beneficial for them.
She recollects the old regime in a good way.
Two sides of socialistic coin.
