An excellent article. Thank you very much! As someone who's listened to the tales of life in the CCCP from various old Russians and Ukrainians over the years, your account seems far more accurate than the delusional babble of lefty-trendy types who are so desperate to cling to propaganda that, like so many simple-minded people, they simply dismiss all evidence to the contrary (including eyewitness accounts) in order to remain true to their illusions. One wonders how such silly people explain the enthusiasm with which ordinary Russians and Ukrainians greeted the collapse of the CCCP as they were supposedly living in such a "workers' paradise"......