gnomish cleaver

[Janne]

Recycling was big by the reds.
I remember that we had weekly tasks to get a certain amounts of specific materials.
Our ex estate was a good source of most materials.

 

[hellize]

Recycling was big by the reds.
I remember that we had weekly tasks to get a certain amounts of specific materials.
Our ex estate was a good source of most materials.

Recycling wasn't a serious thing. It was just for show as it is now here. The accent was on making some extra money. And since they didn't had any money (the salary was a joke) everyone tried to support itself from their work, and here I mean steal as much as they could!
For example my other grandpa' was a miller. He received a ridiculous salary which would have been enough for 2-3 days of food normally. BUT he had unlimited access to grain and all kinds of grist. So he carried a 40 kg sack of whatever home every single day, so his family didn't starve to death, but on the contrary, he could even raise 3-4 pigs, 30-40 chickens and a butt load of pigeons and rabbits, and sell those to "fill out" the gap in his paycheck. No one cared, no one bated an eye, it was normal in those days, everyone did the same on their own workplace.
To give it a perspective, my grandma' (not the terrible one ) once said:

" he was a real decent man! Stole as much as he could."

-and there and then he really was! Because stealing from the state wasn't considered a crime, but a way to keep your head above the water. He didn't get rich, that was never the goal, but managed to raise his two daughters, educate them and save them from poverty.

I am sure, this is hard, maybe even impossible to understand, from England, but this was the reality in the eastern block.

 

[Robson Valley]

Thank you, Hellize. Not at all restricted to the "eastern block" but many places in this day and time.

 

[Janne]

The reusing of materials was quite serious in Czechoslovakia. Specially Iron/steel.

Stealing? Never happened in those countries!!!


A relative built a 3 story villa with 'found' materials.
My dad and his army buddies built a garage each. Again, materials that were just found, lying and taking up valuable space.....

Yes, life was different in the Eastern Block. Unimaginable for people in the West, or todays young.

The total lack of some goods. The paranoia, if you were not careful what you said.
I could write a book about what I experienced as a child, and what happened to our family.

I still keep the first prize I got, a book, as a 6 year old in school.
It is a collection of children's tales about Uncle Lenin.

 

[hellize]

Thank you, Hellize. Not at all restricted to the "eastern block" but many places in this day and time.

Maybe it is. And that is a real shame, if you ask me, when someone can't earn enough to have 1-2 kids with a decent real job.

 

[Janne]

It should be mentioned that some countries were poorer than other.
We travelled extensively all through the block, and in Rumania, Bulgaria and Soviet Union we ( dad) used cigarettes as payment for food, petrol and lodging.

Still remember the brand! Petra.

 

[hellize]

The reusing of materials was quite serious in Czechoslovakia. Specially Iron/steel.

Stealing? Never happened in those countries!!!


A relative built a 3 story villa with 'found' materials.
My dad and his army buddies built a garage each. Again, materials that were just found, lying and taking up valuable space.....

Yes, life was different in the Eastern Block. Unimaginable for people in the West, or todays young.

The total lack of some goods. The paranoia, if you were not careful what you said.
I could write a book about what I experienced as a child, and what happened to our family.

I still keep the first prize I got, a book, as a 6 year old in school.
It is a collection of children's tales about Uncle Lenin.

Well, I only experienced the romanian dictatorial regime, the borders were closed and guarded, the soldiers shot without warning, we couldn't travel. Have no idea what happened elsewhere. I heard that in Hungary it was a lot less strict, and Yugoslavia was also a better place.
According to my parents the sixties and seventies were really good. The salary was huge, there was a lot to buy in the stores and you could also travel to "friendly" communist countries.
At the end of the seventies our "beloved" leader, Ceusescu had this idea that he will pay back all the international loans which he previously took, to develop the country, asap, at all costs. So the wages was drastically cut and redirected, the stores emptied, and he sold everything he could, iron, copper, gas, oil, grain even electricity. People received these food thickets instead of money, like in times of war. If you had no ticket you couldn't get food, milk, petrol, anything and even than you stood in line for 1-2 days and at the end got 8 liters of petrol for a month for example. Even electricity was limited to 6 hours a day, the rest was blackout. I remember me and my sister learning next to a small cast iron coal stove at the light of a petroleum lamp. We had an apartment at the third floor with 3 rooms, but we all slept in the kitchen, being the smallest place and easiest to warm out. A bit funny thinking about it now. To tell the truth it had its charm back then, but I was only a kid, what did I know how my parents struggled?!
Anyway, at the end of the eighties, people fed up with this nonsense, we had a mild revolution. Ceusescu got executed and of course the core power restorated itself and life went on. Things got better, it's true, but don't be fooled, Romania is still governed by the once proud communist elite and their ideological successors, only the name changed. Now they call themselves Social Democrats, but the oldest, dirtiest foxes are the same hard core corrupt communist criminals (and I am not exaggerating even a bit), that's why things are how they are around here

 

[Robson Valley]

That is a fact. Trying to earn enough on minimum wage makes for long days and harsh conditions.

Bartering is alive and well. It's a huge underground economy.
I barter bison for other meats. I barter my entire grape crop for boxes of vegetables.

More than 50 years ago, I would barter cigarettes and bullets with native indians for moose meat.
40 miles of river away from the nearest road, what's money for?

 

[hellize]

It should be mentioned that some countries were poorer than other.
We travelled extensively all through the block, and in Rumania, Bulgaria and Soviet Union we ( dad) used cigarettes as payment for food, petrol and lodging.

Still remember the brand! Petra.

We had Carpati and Snagov, they were stinking as hell

 

[hellize]

This is the guy! He called himself the "genius of the Carpathians", although he was a cobbler with only 6 classes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceaușescu

And again, next to your queen

 

[Janne]

Czechoslovakia was not too bad. Meat and quality meat products were impossible to get outside Prague, but we had my grand mother with the remaining tiny pieces of the estate. She managed to have a couple of pigs, chicken, geese, rabbits. fruit trees, potatoes We got the produce, and dad 'organized' her field to be plowed, fertilizer, vet bills, slaughtering, building repaired, free electricity and so on.

Most of that countrie's produce was 'gifted' to the brothers in SSSR. As a Thank You for the liberating in WW2 ( the US liberated western half of Bohemia in fact, general Patton's army) and to keep us safe from the ruthless, nasty Western Capitalists......

Once the 'gifting' stopped Czech Republic had a such excess in food they started exporting straight away to the rest of Europe.

A lot of Cheese, meat, grains in UK and Sweden are Czech and Polish.
You need to read that small oval/EU mark. Top two letters.


As milk is a large export, lot of the "UK made" butter and 'UK made' cheese is made from this milk..

I like how you 'rewarded' Ceucescu and his "professor x 10" wife.

What happened during my early life , during our 2 years in an exWW1 POW camp outside Napoli and coming to Sweden will never leave me.
I wish it did.

 

[snappingturtle]

Thank you, Hellize. Not at all restricted to the "eastern block" but many places in this day and time.

Rob is right, I grew up mainly in the UK I can recall years in swats, without electricity we collected scrap to weight in and wood for fire scavenged for extra food etc, are whole street was full of very poor people, I guess in the UK sometime people fall through the cracks but for you it was the whole country!

 

[hellize]

Rob is right, I grew up mainly in the UK I can recall years in swats, without electricity we collected scrap to weight in and wood for fire scavenged for extra food etc, are whole street was full of very poor people, I guess in the UK sometime people fall through the cracks but for you it was the whole country!

Yeah, I know that many places around the world aren't funny at all. They try hard to deflect our attention of these places to keep us happy and satisfied so we could remain good consumers, I guess. Only difference is that back than the borders were closed. The wretchedness and misery remained mostly local and isolated in its birthplace. But now the genie has been unleashed, all this horror comes to us. Unfortunately we will soon wave to it, from our porches.

Well, I can only compare the communist Romania to present day North Korea. Same poverty, same hopelessness, same fancy military parades all the time, masquerading the deplorable reality, the living tragedy of a nation.

 

[snappingturtle]

Well, I can only compare the communist Romania to present day North Korea. Same poverty, same hopelessness, same fancy military parades all the time, masquerading the deplorable reality, the living tragedy of a nation.[/QUOTE]

I think all nations hide such things, putting on a big show that all is good, but behind the make-up is rot and ugliness, I guess there is one thing that is good here and that is by your own will you can change your life, I did!
I just thought of some thing funny, when you were a kid did your place get so cold you had to break the ice in the toilet bowl!? and then sit on a seat so cold you thought it might stick to you!

 

[hellize]

Nah, but something similar happened at my grandmother's place. One morning the door had a 1 cm thick ice sheet in the inside. It was damn cold!