Random Things You Didn't Know About Daily Life In Soviet Union (13 items)

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  (#3) Pepsi Came To The USSR Before Coke Or McDonald's

  McDonald's and Coca-Cola are often cited as being the two American companies with the most worldwide influence and reach, but did you know that Pepsi-Cola made it into the USSR first? It's true: Pepsi was available in the Soviet Union 21 years before McDonald's and 16 years before Coca-Cola.

  It had a lot to do with Pepsi's appearance at an exhibit at Moscow's Sokolniki Park in 1959, where the soda was given out for free in disposable paper cups. The Soviets struck a deal with Pepsi a decade later that also included the distribution rights for Stoli vodka.
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  (#6) Stalin Wanted Everyone To Eat In Communal Cafeterias

  Soviet authorities in Stalin's time considered private kitchens, dining rooms, and even apartments to be dangerous to the regime, so an idea was tossed around in the early days to force people to eat in communal cafeterias. So-called "kitchen politics," as a fascinating NPR feature explains, were such a threat that Soviet leaders wanted houses without kitchens at all. It wasn't just about preventing people from having privacy: the idea was also meant to "relieve a housewife from her daily chores so that she could develop as a personality" and "free the country from the czarism" and "bring happiness to poorer classes." 

  The idea didn't pan out, and soon, widespread industrialization led to "120 different ethnic groups" being served "exactly the same stuff" such as canned soup, meat, and fish.
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  (#2) There Were Soviet Hipsters Making Bootleg Records

  From the late '40s to the early '60s, the Soviet Union had a counterculture group that aped Western beatnik and hipster culture and even made bootlegs LPs. This being the USSR, the so-called stilyagi ("style hunters") were forced to make the bootlegs out of recycled x-ray films, so the records had ghostly "bones" all over them. 

  The stilyagi were, in the words of one style blogger, "a group of dandy youngsters dressed up in colorful American-inspired get-ups" that were "unafraid to make a bold fashion statement." Those critical of the stilyagi claimed, "Today he dances jazz, but tomorrow he will sell his homeland." 
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  (#12) Jews Were Forced To Hide Matzah In Suitcases

  Jewish people living in the Soviet Union after WWII were forced to hide matzah in pillowcases inside suitcases and transport it when visiting relatives because baking it inside synagogues was explicitly forbidden. Matzah, if you don't know, are the flat crackers Jews eat to commemorate Passover. Soviet secret police would patrol synagogues to enforce the rule, so Jewish families in the USSR had to get secretive themselves.

  A man named Slava Frumkin who lived through it all says it was a point of pride: “It was, like, a sense of secrecy around this, and it was filling to some degree with some pride, your heart. You’re doing something secretly what the government doesn’t want.”
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  (#1) Beer Wasn't Considered Alcohol

  It sounds wild, but it took until 2011 for beer to be defined as an alcoholic beverage in Russia. Prior to that, legislation classified it as a "foodstuff," meaning it could be sold like a soft drink. This meant it could be sold in street kiosks and could be imbibed openly in just about any public place in the country.

  During the Soviet era, Mikhail Gorbachev learned the hard way not to mess with alcohol sales: historians think his attempt to ban liquor "hastened his downfall."
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  (#4) Cars Were Meant To Last A Lifetime

  According to Russian author Alexander Kabakov, from the 1930s to the 1950s especially, car owners in the Soviet Union took great pride in making their vehicles last as long as possible - and in some cases, they lasted a lifetime.

  Quality control was a huge part of it, and so was build quality. Kabakov says the metal frames were so thick coming off the line, they were basically "resistant to corrosion." 

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