I remember one of my law professors telling us that when the first crisis hit, just after USSR has collapsed and hyperinflation ensued, he worked at a prison colony; they didn't know if they could feed the prisoners next day. Once in a while they'd get a small truck full of moldy bread. That was it. - ThreadSky

glassbeads.dev • 9 days ago

I remember one of my law professors telling us that when the first crisis hit, just after USSR has collapsed and hyperinflation ensued, he worked at a prison colony; they didn't know if they could feed the prisoners next day. Once in a while they'd get a small truck full of moldy bread. That was it.

Reposted from Ian Coldwater 📦💥

if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in a collapsed state, here’s a little mini thread for you

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glassbeads.dev•9 days ago

90s were strange times. Kind of full of hope, but full of disarray too. Currency didn't really mean much, many things were traded and marketed in "conditional units", which basically meant US dollar. I remember my father getting his salary paid in holy books, and then in plushies, for a few months.

glassbeads.dev•9 days ago

We were lucky. We lived up in the North, in a small local capital a long distance away from centers of economy and power. My grandma was a respected musician and music teacher, she had a position, she had connections, so. We were relatively buffered.

glassbeads.dev•9 days ago

Others, not so much. The things people around me tell me about their childhoods, it's just brutal. Not in terms of violence or crime, even though there was a lot of that too. But just abject poverty. Parents struggled to find jobs. Most got through many months at a time without any money earned.

glassbeads.dev•9 days ago

Horizontal networks, and having their own plots of land to plant vegetables - partly Soviet's legacy, partly a widely adopted tradition - for many were the only things that got them through these years. It took decades for many, like us, to stop clinging to their dachas after that. Others never did.

glassbeads.dev•9 days ago

Crime, yes. Criminals were the real power. Essentially the whole country got divided between gangs. I remember my father got heavily beaten up where he refused to pay for his kiosk he just opened. I remember other guys bullying my grandma into giving them a cut when she just started her business.

glassbeads.dev•9 days ago

Law enforcement was largely useless. Just like everyone else, they were underfunded and understaffed, they could not keep up with anything, not even close. And they couldn't cross many many lines too. But we had lots of cheap books and TV shows about brave detectives, so there was that.

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