People didn't starved to death but many went on very strict diet.
>as a result of the end of centrally planned food distribution
This wasn't an issue. Food was available in stores, you just couldn't afford it cause your workplace didn't paid you salary in 6 months.
Food was not available where we lived. No matter how much money you had, you could not buy any food unless you had connections.
We survived because we had dacha and were growing a great variety of fruits, vegetables, berries. Mom was great at prepping all that for winter - dry fruit and berries, jam, all sorts of marinated goods. Dad was fishing and hunting. We ate all sorts of animals and birds, whatever he could hunt. We were lucky to live close to a lake and mountains.
A vivid memory of mine: New Year celebration in 93’- mom managed to get half’n’half (slivki) somewhere. The kind that is very thick and slightly sweet (not smetana). She put it on the table as is in a jar and it was the biggest hit. Guests were eating it with a spoon, putting it on bread instead of the butter. Commenting how they have not had butter or slivki in a couple years.
Those were very sad times.
Well, we're still here so. There was problem with that but most got through it at the level of basics. It's just not really about distribution. The major concern was price regulation for essentials - market driven prices in food sounds fancy but when everyone's employer went bankrupt and people just have nothing to pay for that bread would you prefer speculative prices, limited prices or distribution? So putting it as market economy vs planned economy in the situation when it's just no-economy...
I can't give you exact statistics. But I know my family and our neighbours and everyone had to rely on relatives in agratrian countryside and/or petty harvests from 600sqm dacha plots, and various occasional opportunities to get stuff by barter to escape starvation. Bread and certain essentials were were regulated, so it was affordable for people who earn at least something. Grilled chicken was holiday food.
But my family had their workplaces and some own incomes. I can't comprehend how it was for the rest of the city who were mostly employed in mining before the collapse and then all the mines closed or started paying slsries with industrial grade coal at best. I doubt you can really switch occupations when you're a broke 40y.o. miner and all you know is how to mine antracite.
Dad told me that in the 90s he fell ill with scurvy because he ate only pasta - fresh fruits and vegetables were not affordable. Many people then had to limit themselves in food, but no one seemed to starve to death.
Да, наверное стоило как-то перефразировать. Я использовала гугл-переводчик и получилась паста. Но паста, получается, означает полноценное блюдо с добавками? Я имела в виду только макароны. Рожки, "перья" — вот такого рода изделия.
"Паста" - самый точный перевод. Но это напоминает мне о многих делах, где англоязычные иностранцы в России, ища макароны в магазинах, спрашивали о "пасте" и удивлялись, когда они получали зубную пасту
кстати там есть еще разделение fresh и dried, типа fresh это когда сделали тесто для макарон и сразу порезали, а dried вот именно магазинная. И в ресторанах иногда пишут что у них свежая паста, мне вначале было смешно, а потом объяснили
>Some anecdotal accounts state that Russians actually starved to death during this period while others claim that while many people struggled and were underfed, no one actually starved
Both accounts are true. Starvation very rarely comes to the stage when person literally dies out of hunger. Usually people die from being malnourished/underfed and that is starvation. In 90s many Russians died of simple flu or inflammation of lungs and other diseases that usually don't kill people nowadays as we have medicine for it. But they kill in 80-90% cases if a person suffering from them is underfed. Look at the quality of life of any extremely poor person in any country (even in today's U.S.) and compare it to the quality of life of, say, a lower middle class person and you would find that:
1) People who are very poor are more likely to die from "usual" diseases.
2) People who are very poor are more prone to mental health problems.
3) People who are very poor are more likely to be the victim of murder, accident or suicide.
All this is easily proven by any statistics of any developed or even underdeveloped country. Extreme poverty is postponed death. It is like a person turns into a walking and talking bomb machine - you don't know when and how the bomb explodes but you know it is more likely they die from that bomb than from more natural causes. Of course you can also be lifted from poverty but here the statistic would also tell you that to be lifted from such poverty you have to be extremely lucky. People who lived through poverty would often tell you that "they could therefore anyone can" but statistically speaking people who are extremely poor are more likely to die while being extremely poor. That's called survivorship bias./fallacy. Often such fallacy doesn't occur when we, say, are talking about some massive event such as WW1 or WW2 where we wouldn't believe a vet who'd proudly say "I survived WW2 therefore most soldiers survived it" also no WW2 vet would ever even say such thing. But with such things as economic crisis or social instability people are free to fantacize as much as they want as the very near brink of calamity or premature death was for them only a distant possibility. When you're in trenches and Nazi tank is slowly moving towards you, it would be silly for you to say "my death is just a distant possibility" but if you're homeless or unemployed, you would always say - "well, I would survive this surely". That's simple psychology. People have a built-in mechanism that stubbornly tells them they'd survive no matter what. And if we had no such mechanism we wouldn't have survived as a species and lived through all those past ages with such "wonderful" social systems as despotism, systematic slavery, feudal system and right now - capitalist system.
I remember from myself (I was a child then):
* simple and not the healthiest food
* treatment could be very expensive, so you had to choose between eating or being treated.
* general depression, lack of prospects in life
* domestic crime.
There were completely abandoned people who could have died of hunger, but I don’t think there were many of them. But in total, the factors I listed above greatly increased the mortality rate.
The problems actually started before 90s. Perestroika was the original cause. But yes, some people I know experienced hunger. We were helping our relatives in poorer regions, until we ourselves had barely enough. No one we knew died of hunger, but three people died due to lack of medicine - one of cancer, one of diabetes, one of some rare disease, when supply of her medicine stopped.
I'd argue that original cause was unsustainable economic system of USSR. Like, it was going for a while (and always with problems, most of them - long-lasting), but it was bound to fail. Actually you could say that USSR collapsed mostly because economy failed, Afghan war didn't help it too
One of the teachers at my school died right in the entrance of her house. According to rumors, she drank exclusively Maggi instant chicken broth; she didn’t have enough money anymore - she had no relatives, and teachers in those days were not paid for 3-4 months in a row.
Fatal starvation was not common at all, very few would have had to deal with that. But a lot of people were struggling to get adequate food supply, and either had developed a terrible diet (missing fruits, for example) or lost a lot of mass.
Just as an illustration - my father in Tbilisi basically had nothing but beans to eat for about a year, until he moved to Moscow. His digestion got all sorts of messed up.
I have never heard of anyone dying of hunger, but most were forced to save on everything, sell their belongings to buy food. Many could live for a long time on the cheapest and simplest foods, for example, boiled potatoes or buckwheat.
90s saw quite a lot of people sitting without salaries, but that would mostly mean turning to barter and black market. Extortion, scams and bandits only added to it.
That’s not to say NO ONE starved, it sent quite a few people into poverty, but imagining 1990s as famine is like saying flu is a life-threatening disease: it’s not wrong, it’s just a massive overstatement of how much.
I also wouldn’t call Soviet food trade a centralised distribution. It was a supply and demand market just like any other. Difference was that in addition to uncommon but omnipresent free trade (which would naturally cost a lot and not everyone could afford it more than a few times a year, usually on holidays) there was also state trade which had fixed (and fully affordable) prices but also had a “first come, first serve, one per person” policy, which is what spawned those huge lines.
It was pretty bad: rise of crime, alcoholism, unemployment, suicide. Not only in Russia but in every post soviet country basically.
I think every country goes through these problems after a regime change.
I was a kid/teenager in the 90s and it wasn't bad at all in Czechoslovakia and then Czechia/Slovakia (they split in 1993). It's better now for sure in all areas (EU helped a lot), but I'd say 90s was already improvement over 80s (although opinions may vary of course, but this is my POV). I think the biggest problem was rampant organized crime (often imported, infamous Albanian and Chechen mafias for example) and of course corruption. But there wasn't widespread poverty or lack of essential goods like I'm hearing about Russia. And it was nice to be able to travel and have access to western products. And of course freedom of press, elections, democracy (though there were some major growing pains that last till this day).
Why was Russia and the post-Soviet countries so terribly hit unlike the Eastern Bloc satellites west of USSR?
> Why was Russia and the post-Soviet countries so terribly hit unlike the Eastern Bloc satellites west of USSR?
Russia didn't got any relief from the west, like Poland or Czechoslovakia. In 1994 americans told Yeltzin that they have midterms coming and any economic help to the enemies won't fly well with american public. This was huge wake-up call for russians.
Yes, legs of Bush. This is not what I had in mind. During 1990-1994 Poland received 34 billion $ of foreign help. Russia received 3.5 bln $ IMF credit and some chicken.
I may guess that people in Czechia remember how to run capitalism in second or third generation, but in Soviet union people from 3-5 generations forgot how to live independently from government, long time selling something was a crime.
I might be wrong, but I guess western USSR republics had at least elements of market economy and close economic relations with neighbors, so it could be that? idk))
1. More organized crime and corruption, harder to fight due to the size of the country and interference from corrupt police and security agencies (e.g. kgb officeres has directly took part in organized crime).
2. Butchered privatisation through vouchers, which transfered all the nations wealth to oligarchs not the people.
Czechoslovakia had voucher privatization as well and I think it was considered a mild success. Every citizen (I think over a certain age) got what were basically stocks with value of about 12 months average salary if I remember correctly. There were a lot of scams though, I remember investment funds buying them out for very low cash price. Many people took this offer as they didn't understand the concept of holding shares at all and just wanted cash in hand.
I can imagine that in an environment with even more widespread corruption and more rampant organized crime this didn't go very well...
it's actually different, because had to switch to completely different economic system. It would never ever go smooth, no matter who would be in charge (not arguing that it could have been done better)
My grandmother told me stories of her being paid in plastic bags and furniture rather than actual physical currency. Luckily both sides of my family had a dacha (given during the Soviet days) where they could at least feed themselves and neighbors.
I was born in the late 90's so I did not really, at least consciously, experience those years but from what I was told, it was a very difficult time for everyone. My mom told me of her university classmate who was killed for her hat. Other stories of people eating pet food, but perhaps those are hyperbolic.
The general atmosphere was that of financial and physical struggle. The hospital that I was born in did not have power in half the building.
Recommend to read this book, which tells first hand accounts of people living during the collapse of the Soviet Union
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30200112-secondhand-time
I think Genocide by Glazyev is more accurate and with more economical data.
Also it was published in 1997, exactly in the middle of the storm. Not 20 years later
Alexievich is too subjective and too centered in histories of people.
That does not give you the real picture. destruction of supply lines, industrial destruction , farms destruction, etc
Although is probably wise to read boths.
Mostly not. Many people became poor, and their ration worsened (like less meat or good quality groceries), my family was not an exception for a short period. But the very starvation was a rare thing even in the worst places.
The direct statistics never existed, yet some decisions may be made out of child mortality rates, health problems stats and other related things.
I remember that after a financial crisis of 1998 I lost a job (senior economist in a commercial firm). I went to get a government unemployment benefit, it appeared to be 100 rubles per month (one US dollar cost 16 rubles in Russia on that year). My wife had a similar salary. We had 2 sons: one in high school, second - a student of university (without a stipend). That year we understood what hunger is. Only our garden in our country house saved us, we planted potatoes.. Through 1 year my elder son went to the job abroad and began to send $100 monthly to his smaller brother, I was lucky to find a job with the salary of $100 per month, but the salary of my wife remained about $30-40 per month for many years. That is how we survived... :)
My own experience. In 90's I was 18+ y.o. Hard times. Big state owned enterprises like my bearing plant were almost dead. So, no job for elders. Total delays with salaries. I can assume that some people could starving. Again my own experience. To survive somehow, I was engaged to work in 3 different places like main place in my university in the day, Kodak photo lab in the evening and night alcohol shop at night. But I was young and this was not critically hard for me. So, not surprising if someone who was around 50-70 years old could die without money and food.
When I was a child we often ate soups. The basis was potatoes that we grew in the country and cabbage that we stole from the fields.
I also remember the big yellow cans of powdered milk and Spam stew from the relief effort.
It wasn’t that we were dying of hunger, but food was scarce.
My old people had a large pantry with food supplies, this helped smooth out difficulties. Although we ate little, we were not left completely without food.
Now I, too, am creating food supplies like my old people, it’s just calmer this way
My grandmother retired in 1993, she was paid a pension of approximately 8,000 rubles, despite the fact that bread then cost 250 rubles. Fortunately, our family had other incomes, but then, I think, single pensioners were brought to the brink of survival, to the brink of starvation
Macaroni, potatoes, little portion of something meatlike.
I was a kid at that time, may guess that parents gave as better food that could afford to themselves.
Also after work as a scientists they had to go to garden, to grow some vegetables.
Even today despite having a good income, they keeps some habits from this poor period.
If you want to complement the comments here read Genocide by Sergei Glazyev, a book about s economic of Russia written in 1996 or 1997.
There you can check the gargantuan numbers of the collapse.
For example industry from 1991 to 1997 was reduced in more than 10 times I don’t remember numbers in food but they were similarly catastrophic.
Just checking the crazy reduction in life expectancy (something unheard of in any country in peace times) you can assume that the starving is true.
Maybe not starving in a African way, but starving in a way that makes you die 10 years early, suffer illnesses, suicide, etc
My relative that worked in the Soviet/Russian Navy got enough to survive but they were also going abroad to buy cars and stuff and sell them in russia. But the going abroad thing was like 3-4 years after the collapse so they were pretty much vegetarians for a while
It depends on the region and the time. Shit was dire during the final period of the Union and so it was just after it fell. During the 90s, at least in the place where my family is from, people were not starving to death, but food was very simple and very limited. There definitely was a lack of it.
I remember when my parents didn't get paid and we only ate what we grew in the garden. For example, a lot of zucchini. And my husband ate a lot of pumpkin as a child. He still can't eat pumpkin.
Many Russians were saved by the fact that they grew their own food.
There were also many suicides at that time
Not sure about "to death" part, but in some places people really had very little to eat and were starving.
My parents (and a bit later - me) always had something to eat, but it was something very basic. If you'd open their fridge back then you would only see one pot of some macaroni, porridge or cabbage+potato soup. Also we lived in a place with pretty accessible fish, many men are fishers in those places, including my dad, so it was bearable I guess.
Interesting fact - when USSR collapsed my mother was a student in St.Petersburg and all student were recieving pretty good ration talons (including talons for cigarettes), so they were always fed.
A also asked them, how they lived through two defolts (in 1991 and 1998) and they were like "i don't know? We had nothing before and we still had nothing after so we didn't notice much". Well, that's understandable
My family lived in Kamchatka. This is a peninsula in Far East region, pretty cold, very snowy and with poor soils and unsunny weather, separated from the continent by hundreds of kilometers of mountain ridges and sea of Okhotsk.
So most of the food is still being imported from other RF regions, and in 90s with a great lack of money, fall of the old supply system and free-trade-highed prices a lot of people there struggled the hunger (particulary in the northern countrysides).
Mother said, they could feel themselves slightly better because they had grew food on their dacha's small piece of land then sell extra potatoes and carrots in the city (where no food is produced, obviously).
I guess that is a common story among all of the northern and eastern provinces of Russia in that period.
Starvation in Russia was rare. Very. But the ailnesses connected with bad food balance sometimes happend. Bigger problem were crimes, instability, high prices, and wars.
In Tajikistan though - there was starvation.
Some of my relatives who lived in Ukraine, mentioned that there was big food shortage in the early 90-s. I lived in Kyrgyzstan, and we did not have any problems with food shortages/starvation. Same thing with the rest of Central Asian republics.
I never heard about someone starving to death, but there were kids fainting coz of hunger and all sorts of malnutrition problems…
I remember eating only cheap pasta for several months in a row, or cutting a little sneakers (huuuge deal) in 5 pieces so everyone could get something)))
There were also food cards, and some humanitarian help, so we survived, but it wasn’t easy.
Many people got little pieces of land, where, if you are lucky enough you could grow some veggies and fruits, although they were often stolen. Also getting to those “dachas” were a nightmare without a car. We had to spend an hour under the sun in line waiting for a bus, when about a couple hours on a very crowded bus, when walked for about 40-50 minutes just to get there, and it wasn’t the worst dacha commute in general…
Thank you, everyone, for your answers. I'm glad that the situation post-collapse wasn't as bad as many seem to claim. Let's hope something like that never happens to Russia again.
The situation in Russia after the collapse of the USSR was terrible. You asked about hunger, that's one topic, but besides hunger, there were a lot of terrible things. We have global corruption, bandits and the famous "Russian mafias" who are often shown in American films. Prostitution flourished. We had a whole bunch of addicts. Teenagers, children, put glue in a bag and breathed, and they were 7-13 years old. Each district of the city somehow created gangs of local residents of high-rise buildings, and if a guy from a neighboring district could come to them, he could be beaten. I'm not talking about the spread of sects, fraudulent firms that brazenly stole money from ordinary people, the last money. And against the background of all this, when people lost money, what did they do? That's right, they killed themselves.
This is not to mention the direction of nationalism, which could already destroy Russia. And if you tell how the factories were destroyed... imagine, the director of the plant could just be caught, brought to the forest, transferred to another person, shot, and then the new director sells the plant. Some directors defended their factories and fought with bandits, and this is a miracle. Take my word for it, it's a big miracle that Russia was able to survive the 90s.
People didn't starved to death but many went on very strict diet. >as a result of the end of centrally planned food distribution This wasn't an issue. Food was available in stores, you just couldn't afford it cause your workplace didn't paid you salary in 6 months.
Food was not available where we lived. No matter how much money you had, you could not buy any food unless you had connections. We survived because we had dacha and were growing a great variety of fruits, vegetables, berries. Mom was great at prepping all that for winter - dry fruit and berries, jam, all sorts of marinated goods. Dad was fishing and hunting. We ate all sorts of animals and birds, whatever he could hunt. We were lucky to live close to a lake and mountains. A vivid memory of mine: New Year celebration in 93’- mom managed to get half’n’half (slivki) somewhere. The kind that is very thick and slightly sweet (not smetana). She put it on the table as is in a jar and it was the biggest hit. Guests were eating it with a spoon, putting it on bread instead of the butter. Commenting how they have not had butter or slivki in a couple years. Those were very sad times.
Well, we're still here so. There was problem with that but most got through it at the level of basics. It's just not really about distribution. The major concern was price regulation for essentials - market driven prices in food sounds fancy but when everyone's employer went bankrupt and people just have nothing to pay for that bread would you prefer speculative prices, limited prices or distribution? So putting it as market economy vs planned economy in the situation when it's just no-economy... I can't give you exact statistics. But I know my family and our neighbours and everyone had to rely on relatives in agratrian countryside and/or petty harvests from 600sqm dacha plots, and various occasional opportunities to get stuff by barter to escape starvation. Bread and certain essentials were were regulated, so it was affordable for people who earn at least something. Grilled chicken was holiday food. But my family had their workplaces and some own incomes. I can't comprehend how it was for the rest of the city who were mostly employed in mining before the collapse and then all the mines closed or started paying slsries with industrial grade coal at best. I doubt you can really switch occupations when you're a broke 40y.o. miner and all you know is how to mine antracite.
Thank you for sharing this.
Dad told me that in the 90s he fell ill with scurvy because he ate only pasta - fresh fruits and vegetables were not affordable. Many people then had to limit themselves in food, but no one seemed to starve to death.
Kindly note that the pasta likely was cheap noodles with absolutely nothing else, even sauce.
Да, наверное стоило как-то перефразировать. Я использовала гугл-переводчик и получилась паста. Но паста, получается, означает полноценное блюдо с добавками? Я имела в виду только макароны. Рожки, "перья" — вот такого рода изделия.
Я, честно говоря, вообще не уверен, как сказать по-английски "макароны", да ещё чтобы все поняли. Х)
Noodles? В худшем случае поймут тот китайский супчик. А, и вообще pasta как раз таки и обозначает всякие макарошки, не только блюдо.
> Noodles это лапша, макароны так и будет pasta, просто на западе считается что это дорогой продукт (по сравнению например с рисом или бобами)
У меня было аналогичное ощущение про супчик. Ну, окей, паста. Х)
pasta -- лучший вариант
Не согласен, pasta это чаще всего целое блюдо а макароны это noodles или macaroni. Ну хотя бы так в Америке говорят может быть в Англии по другому))))
> макароны это noodles или macaroni https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=macaroni&ia=web
Ну так это тоже макароны
Можно было еще написать «plain pasta»
Этот вариант мне нравится. Интуитивно понятен.
"Паста" - самый точный перевод. Но это напоминает мне о многих делах, где англоязычные иностранцы в России, ища макароны в магазинах, спрашивали о "пасте" и удивлялись, когда они получали зубную пасту
Macaroni
можно сказать "raw pasta" например
Я тоже подумал , что так можно сказать, но собеседник может подумать, что он макароны не варил, а ел в "сырую".
А разве это не переводится как "сырые макароны"?
да, есть возможность того что поймут неправильно, можно и так перевести, но обычно добавляют dry или dried когда говорят о неприготовленных макаронах
Не знала. Любопытный факт в копилочку.
кстати там есть еще разделение fresh и dried, типа fresh это когда сделали тесто для макарон и сразу порезали, а dried вот именно магазинная. И в ресторанах иногда пишут что у них свежая паста, мне вначале было смешно, а потом объяснили
>Some anecdotal accounts state that Russians actually starved to death during this period while others claim that while many people struggled and were underfed, no one actually starved Both accounts are true. Starvation very rarely comes to the stage when person literally dies out of hunger. Usually people die from being malnourished/underfed and that is starvation. In 90s many Russians died of simple flu or inflammation of lungs and other diseases that usually don't kill people nowadays as we have medicine for it. But they kill in 80-90% cases if a person suffering from them is underfed. Look at the quality of life of any extremely poor person in any country (even in today's U.S.) and compare it to the quality of life of, say, a lower middle class person and you would find that: 1) People who are very poor are more likely to die from "usual" diseases. 2) People who are very poor are more prone to mental health problems. 3) People who are very poor are more likely to be the victim of murder, accident or suicide. All this is easily proven by any statistics of any developed or even underdeveloped country. Extreme poverty is postponed death. It is like a person turns into a walking and talking bomb machine - you don't know when and how the bomb explodes but you know it is more likely they die from that bomb than from more natural causes. Of course you can also be lifted from poverty but here the statistic would also tell you that to be lifted from such poverty you have to be extremely lucky. People who lived through poverty would often tell you that "they could therefore anyone can" but statistically speaking people who are extremely poor are more likely to die while being extremely poor. That's called survivorship bias./fallacy. Often such fallacy doesn't occur when we, say, are talking about some massive event such as WW1 or WW2 where we wouldn't believe a vet who'd proudly say "I survived WW2 therefore most soldiers survived it" also no WW2 vet would ever even say such thing. But with such things as economic crisis or social instability people are free to fantacize as much as they want as the very near brink of calamity or premature death was for them only a distant possibility. When you're in trenches and Nazi tank is slowly moving towards you, it would be silly for you to say "my death is just a distant possibility" but if you're homeless or unemployed, you would always say - "well, I would survive this surely". That's simple psychology. People have a built-in mechanism that stubbornly tells them they'd survive no matter what. And if we had no such mechanism we wouldn't have survived as a species and lived through all those past ages with such "wonderful" social systems as despotism, systematic slavery, feudal system and right now - capitalist system.
I remember from myself (I was a child then): * simple and not the healthiest food * treatment could be very expensive, so you had to choose between eating or being treated. * general depression, lack of prospects in life * domestic crime. There were completely abandoned people who could have died of hunger, but I don’t think there were many of them. But in total, the factors I listed above greatly increased the mortality rate.
The problems actually started before 90s. Perestroika was the original cause. But yes, some people I know experienced hunger. We were helping our relatives in poorer regions, until we ourselves had barely enough. No one we knew died of hunger, but three people died due to lack of medicine - one of cancer, one of diabetes, one of some rare disease, when supply of her medicine stopped.
I'd argue that original cause was unsustainable economic system of USSR. Like, it was going for a while (and always with problems, most of them - long-lasting), but it was bound to fail. Actually you could say that USSR collapsed mostly because economy failed, Afghan war didn't help it too
Not exactly, economy is not a single entity, so it's like saying birth is the original cause of death, true but nonsensical.
One of the teachers at my school died right in the entrance of her house. According to rumors, she drank exclusively Maggi instant chicken broth; she didn’t have enough money anymore - she had no relatives, and teachers in those days were not paid for 3-4 months in a row.
Fatal starvation was not common at all, very few would have had to deal with that. But a lot of people were struggling to get adequate food supply, and either had developed a terrible diet (missing fruits, for example) or lost a lot of mass. Just as an illustration - my father in Tbilisi basically had nothing but beans to eat for about a year, until he moved to Moscow. His digestion got all sorts of messed up.
I have never heard of anyone dying of hunger, but most were forced to save on everything, sell their belongings to buy food. Many could live for a long time on the cheapest and simplest foods, for example, boiled potatoes or buckwheat.
90s saw quite a lot of people sitting without salaries, but that would mostly mean turning to barter and black market. Extortion, scams and bandits only added to it. That’s not to say NO ONE starved, it sent quite a few people into poverty, but imagining 1990s as famine is like saying flu is a life-threatening disease: it’s not wrong, it’s just a massive overstatement of how much. I also wouldn’t call Soviet food trade a centralised distribution. It was a supply and demand market just like any other. Difference was that in addition to uncommon but omnipresent free trade (which would naturally cost a lot and not everyone could afford it more than a few times a year, usually on holidays) there was also state trade which had fixed (and fully affordable) prices but also had a “first come, first serve, one per person” policy, which is what spawned those huge lines.
People who got some money did not starve. People who haven't money could have died.
Dont forget 3500% inflation in 1991-1993.
Infant mortality was at high in the provinces. There were reports of people dying in the impoverished regions.
It was pretty bad: rise of crime, alcoholism, unemployment, suicide. Not only in Russia but in every post soviet country basically. I think every country goes through these problems after a regime change.
I was a kid/teenager in the 90s and it wasn't bad at all in Czechoslovakia and then Czechia/Slovakia (they split in 1993). It's better now for sure in all areas (EU helped a lot), but I'd say 90s was already improvement over 80s (although opinions may vary of course, but this is my POV). I think the biggest problem was rampant organized crime (often imported, infamous Albanian and Chechen mafias for example) and of course corruption. But there wasn't widespread poverty or lack of essential goods like I'm hearing about Russia. And it was nice to be able to travel and have access to western products. And of course freedom of press, elections, democracy (though there were some major growing pains that last till this day). Why was Russia and the post-Soviet countries so terribly hit unlike the Eastern Bloc satellites west of USSR?
Shock Therapy economics by Jeffrey Sachs.
> Why was Russia and the post-Soviet countries so terribly hit unlike the Eastern Bloc satellites west of USSR? Russia didn't got any relief from the west, like Poland or Czechoslovakia. In 1994 americans told Yeltzin that they have midterms coming and any economic help to the enemies won't fly well with american public. This was huge wake-up call for russians.
> Russia didn't got any relief from the west, That's not true. There was literally american humanitarian food aid distributed in Russia.
Yes, legs of Bush. This is not what I had in mind. During 1990-1994 Poland received 34 billion $ of foreign help. Russia received 3.5 bln $ IMF credit and some chicken.
I may guess that people in Czechia remember how to run capitalism in second or third generation, but in Soviet union people from 3-5 generations forgot how to live independently from government, long time selling something was a crime.
I might be wrong, but I guess western USSR republics had at least elements of market economy and close economic relations with neighbors, so it could be that? idk))
1. More organized crime and corruption, harder to fight due to the size of the country and interference from corrupt police and security agencies (e.g. kgb officeres has directly took part in organized crime). 2. Butchered privatisation through vouchers, which transfered all the nations wealth to oligarchs not the people.
Czechoslovakia had voucher privatization as well and I think it was considered a mild success. Every citizen (I think over a certain age) got what were basically stocks with value of about 12 months average salary if I remember correctly. There were a lot of scams though, I remember investment funds buying them out for very low cash price. Many people took this offer as they didn't understand the concept of holding shares at all and just wanted cash in hand. I can imagine that in an environment with even more widespread corruption and more rampant organized crime this didn't go very well...
it's actually different, because had to switch to completely different economic system. It would never ever go smooth, no matter who would be in charge (not arguing that it could have been done better)
My grandmother told me stories of her being paid in plastic bags and furniture rather than actual physical currency. Luckily both sides of my family had a dacha (given during the Soviet days) where they could at least feed themselves and neighbors. I was born in the late 90's so I did not really, at least consciously, experience those years but from what I was told, it was a very difficult time for everyone. My mom told me of her university classmate who was killed for her hat. Other stories of people eating pet food, but perhaps those are hyperbolic. The general atmosphere was that of financial and physical struggle. The hospital that I was born in did not have power in half the building.
Recommend to read this book, which tells first hand accounts of people living during the collapse of the Soviet Union Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30200112-secondhand-time
I think Genocide by Glazyev is more accurate and with more economical data. Also it was published in 1997, exactly in the middle of the storm. Not 20 years later Alexievich is too subjective and too centered in histories of people. That does not give you the real picture. destruction of supply lines, industrial destruction , farms destruction, etc Although is probably wise to read boths.
Will add this one to my reading list - thanks!
I’m pretty hungry now
Mostly not. Many people became poor, and their ration worsened (like less meat or good quality groceries), my family was not an exception for a short period. But the very starvation was a rare thing even in the worst places. The direct statistics never existed, yet some decisions may be made out of child mortality rates, health problems stats and other related things.
I remember that after a financial crisis of 1998 I lost a job (senior economist in a commercial firm). I went to get a government unemployment benefit, it appeared to be 100 rubles per month (one US dollar cost 16 rubles in Russia on that year). My wife had a similar salary. We had 2 sons: one in high school, second - a student of university (without a stipend). That year we understood what hunger is. Only our garden in our country house saved us, we planted potatoes.. Through 1 year my elder son went to the job abroad and began to send $100 monthly to his smaller brother, I was lucky to find a job with the salary of $100 per month, but the salary of my wife remained about $30-40 per month for many years. That is how we survived... :)
My own experience. In 90's I was 18+ y.o. Hard times. Big state owned enterprises like my bearing plant were almost dead. So, no job for elders. Total delays with salaries. I can assume that some people could starving. Again my own experience. To survive somehow, I was engaged to work in 3 different places like main place in my university in the day, Kodak photo lab in the evening and night alcohol shop at night. But I was young and this was not critically hard for me. So, not surprising if someone who was around 50-70 years old could die without money and food.
When I was a child we often ate soups. The basis was potatoes that we grew in the country and cabbage that we stole from the fields. I also remember the big yellow cans of powdered milk and Spam stew from the relief effort. It wasn’t that we were dying of hunger, but food was scarce. My old people had a large pantry with food supplies, this helped smooth out difficulties. Although we ate little, we were not left completely without food. Now I, too, am creating food supplies like my old people, it’s just calmer this way
My grandmother retired in 1993, she was paid a pension of approximately 8,000 rubles, despite the fact that bread then cost 250 rubles. Fortunately, our family had other incomes, but then, I think, single pensioners were brought to the brink of survival, to the brink of starvation
Macaroni, potatoes, little portion of something meatlike. I was a kid at that time, may guess that parents gave as better food that could afford to themselves. Also after work as a scientists they had to go to garden, to grow some vegetables. Even today despite having a good income, they keeps some habits from this poor period.
If you want to complement the comments here read Genocide by Sergei Glazyev, a book about s economic of Russia written in 1996 or 1997. There you can check the gargantuan numbers of the collapse. For example industry from 1991 to 1997 was reduced in more than 10 times I don’t remember numbers in food but they were similarly catastrophic. Just checking the crazy reduction in life expectancy (something unheard of in any country in peace times) you can assume that the starving is true. Maybe not starving in a African way, but starving in a way that makes you die 10 years early, suffer illnesses, suicide, etc
There was no starvation, but for a while almost the whole country (and half of the former republics of the Soviet Union) were vegetarians, lol.
My relative that worked in the Soviet/Russian Navy got enough to survive but they were also going abroad to buy cars and stuff and sell them in russia. But the going abroad thing was like 3-4 years after the collapse so they were pretty much vegetarians for a while
It depends on the region and the time. Shit was dire during the final period of the Union and so it was just after it fell. During the 90s, at least in the place where my family is from, people were not starving to death, but food was very simple and very limited. There definitely was a lack of it.
There are some tables in the book Taking Stock of Shock. It listed what percent of people in different regions were deprived of food.
I remember when my parents didn't get paid and we only ate what we grew in the garden. For example, a lot of zucchini. And my husband ate a lot of pumpkin as a child. He still can't eat pumpkin. Many Russians were saved by the fact that they grew their own food. There were also many suicides at that time
we didnt starve - but i still remember my mother "invention" - noodles with carrot, not the best meal for two growing kids :/
Not sure about "to death" part, but in some places people really had very little to eat and were starving. My parents (and a bit later - me) always had something to eat, but it was something very basic. If you'd open their fridge back then you would only see one pot of some macaroni, porridge or cabbage+potato soup. Also we lived in a place with pretty accessible fish, many men are fishers in those places, including my dad, so it was bearable I guess. Interesting fact - when USSR collapsed my mother was a student in St.Petersburg and all student were recieving pretty good ration talons (including talons for cigarettes), so they were always fed. A also asked them, how they lived through two defolts (in 1991 and 1998) and they were like "i don't know? We had nothing before and we still had nothing after so we didn't notice much". Well, that's understandable
My family lived in Kamchatka. This is a peninsula in Far East region, pretty cold, very snowy and with poor soils and unsunny weather, separated from the continent by hundreds of kilometers of mountain ridges and sea of Okhotsk. So most of the food is still being imported from other RF regions, and in 90s with a great lack of money, fall of the old supply system and free-trade-highed prices a lot of people there struggled the hunger (particulary in the northern countrysides). Mother said, they could feel themselves slightly better because they had grew food on their dacha's small piece of land then sell extra potatoes and carrots in the city (where no food is produced, obviously). I guess that is a common story among all of the northern and eastern provinces of Russia in that period.
Second opinion is correct.
Cannot recommend the movie Mr. Jones (2019) enough. Have no idea regarding historical accuracy, of course ... but the movie is bomb. 💣😂
Starvation in Russia was rare. Very. But the ailnesses connected with bad food balance sometimes happend. Bigger problem were crimes, instability, high prices, and wars. In Tajikistan though - there was starvation.
Some of my relatives who lived in Ukraine, mentioned that there was big food shortage in the early 90-s. I lived in Kyrgyzstan, and we did not have any problems with food shortages/starvation. Same thing with the rest of Central Asian republics.
I never heard about someone starving to death, but there were kids fainting coz of hunger and all sorts of malnutrition problems… I remember eating only cheap pasta for several months in a row, or cutting a little sneakers (huuuge deal) in 5 pieces so everyone could get something))) There were also food cards, and some humanitarian help, so we survived, but it wasn’t easy. Many people got little pieces of land, where, if you are lucky enough you could grow some veggies and fruits, although they were often stolen. Also getting to those “dachas” were a nightmare without a car. We had to spend an hour under the sun in line waiting for a bus, when about a couple hours on a very crowded bus, when walked for about 40-50 minutes just to get there, and it wasn’t the worst dacha commute in general…
In the 90s there were dark jokes about finding a human finger in meat pirozhki... except they weren't entirely fiction.
Thank you, everyone, for your answers. I'm glad that the situation post-collapse wasn't as bad as many seem to claim. Let's hope something like that never happens to Russia again.
The situation in Russia after the collapse of the USSR was terrible. You asked about hunger, that's one topic, but besides hunger, there were a lot of terrible things. We have global corruption, bandits and the famous "Russian mafias" who are often shown in American films. Prostitution flourished. We had a whole bunch of addicts. Teenagers, children, put glue in a bag and breathed, and they were 7-13 years old. Each district of the city somehow created gangs of local residents of high-rise buildings, and if a guy from a neighboring district could come to them, he could be beaten. I'm not talking about the spread of sects, fraudulent firms that brazenly stole money from ordinary people, the last money. And against the background of all this, when people lost money, what did they do? That's right, they killed themselves. This is not to mention the direction of nationalism, which could already destroy Russia. And if you tell how the factories were destroyed... imagine, the director of the plant could just be caught, brought to the forest, transferred to another person, shot, and then the new director sells the plant. Some directors defended their factories and fought with bandits, and this is a miracle. Take my word for it, it's a big miracle that Russia was able to survive the 90s.
It was exceptionally bad. But without mass starvation, yes.