One of the important social tasks in raising the standard of living of the population was improving their living conditions, which was facilitated by the expansion of housing construction, including through the construction of cooperative and individual housing.
Housing and construction cooperation (HCC) began to emerge in mid-1924. In 1925, there were 1,065 housing cooperatives, and in the same year the Central Bank of Communal Services and Housing Construction was established, which provided loans to cooperatives and individual developers.
In order to attract funds from the developers themselves and further develop housing construction, in July 1925 the resolution “On Housing and Construction Cooperation” was adopted. Housing-construction cooperatives received loans through the system of communal banks for a period of up to 60 years in amounts of up to 90% of the estimated cost of the house. Since 1937, the construction of cooperative houses was allowed only at the expense of the cooperatives’ own funds and without bank loans.
Housing cooperatives developed especially widely after the adoption of the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1962 “On individual and cooperative housing construction” and in 1964, lending to housing cooperatives was resumed. Stroybank of the USSR provided loans to housing cooperatives in the amount of up to 60% of the estimated cost of construction for a period of 10-15 years with repayment annually in equal shares. A 0.5% fee was charged for using the loan.
In 1965-1973 cooperative housing construction was at a relatively high level. In 1982, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution “On Housing and Construction Cooperation,” which allowed the bank to provide housing cooperatives with a loan in the amount of up to 70% of the construction cost. For housing cooperatives in the Far North, Far East of Siberia and in mining villages, the loan amount increased to 80% of the estimated construction cost. The down payment for those joining the cooperative was 20-30% of the cost of the apartment. The loan received was repaid over 25 years. The practice provided for the use of funds from economic incentive funds for enterprises and organizations to cover part of the down payment to members of the housing cooperative. Enterprises could provide these funds to their employees as gratuitous assistance, for example, to employees who have worked for at least 5 years, and to young families for at least 2 years.
It should be noted that enterprises, building houses using bank loans, then transferred them to their employees with payment on an installment plan. And after the transfer of the built house into the ownership of the employee, the loan acquired the nature of a consumer loan in commodity form.
Loans were provided in monetary form, for example, for major repairs and construction of individual dwellings and houses. A loan for the construction of individual residential buildings with outbuildings was provided to developers in the amount of up to 3,000 rubles. The loan was repaid over a period of 10 years, starting from the fifth year after the completion of construction of the house. And for certain categories of citizens (collective farmers, residents of the Far North) loans were provided up to 6,000 rubles. for 15 years with repayment starting from the third year after receiving the loan.
After the adoption of the resolution “On additional measures to increase the production of agricultural products in personal subsidiary plots of citizens” of 1981, the State Bank of the USSR began to provide loans to members of gardening partnerships for the purchase or construction of garden houses and improvement of garden plots. The loan was up to 3,000 rubles. repayable over 10 years, starting from the third year after receiving the loan.
At the beginning of 1985, loans for individual and cooperative construction accounted for approximately 55% of loan debt for the main types of consumer credit.
If you talk about housing with people now, over the age of 50 you will often hear the phrase “I got an apartment this year.” For a modern young man to hear “got it” in relation to housing is at least surprising, but it’s true. However, everyone forgets that in the USSR, citizens for the most part lived IN RENTED from the owner of the apartments. The owner was the state or the enterprise. Not very widespread exceptions were housing cooperatives and the private sector. However, there were many restrictions there too.
Basically, there were four possibilities for acquiring housing - getting a state apartment, building a house, buying a cooperative apartment and getting housing from your parents at your place of registration.With regard to cooperatives, everything is almost simple - a housing cooperative was created in an organization, at an enterprise, or in a city or district. This cooperative received a loan from the state or the enterprise for which it built the house. Those wishing to purchase housing (members of this organization, enterprise) joined this cooperative, paying an introductory share and monthly contributions. A queue of members of the cooperative was created to receive housing. Upon completion of the construction of the house, the apartments were distributed among those on the waiting list, who continued to pay contributions until the Lender was reimbursed for the costs of constructing the apartment. In some ways, it was similar to a modern mortgage, but with an important difference - there was no extortionate interest rate.
But even after paying the fees, the apartment did not become the property of the tenant, it remained the collective property of the housing cooperative, it could only be sold to a member of this cooperative, and only by decision of the general meeting. As a rule, an internal queue was formed in the cooperative to improve living conditions, and the queue in this queue was more important than your mutual desire. Therefore, it was only possible to return the entry fee, and even then with deduction of wear and tear.
However, cooperative construction was only 7-10% of what was required in the USSR, and naturally, everyone who wanted to purchase housing through cooperatives could not; there were huge queues to join them. In the early 80s, they tried to improve the situation - within the framework of the state program “Every family has a separate apartment,” about 100,000 housing cooperatives were organized, but due to subsequent restructuring and other changes in the country, many of them were completed only by the end of the 90s, so people had to wait more than 10 years to receive their housing and often pay significantly extra.
In addition to cooperatives, housing was built by the residents themselves. Individual construction was especially developed in the early 50s. After the war, the country experienced a very difficult housing situation, especially in cities that were bombed or were part of the war zone. It was considered lucky to get a room in a dorm, and even more so in a communal apartment. The housing construction complex was not initially designed for mass housing construction; for this reason, especially in small towns, all families who wanted it were given plots for RENT for the construction of individual houses. It was not difficult to obtain such a plot back then, and it was encouraged. It was enough to provide information about the family composition, place of residence and work of the applicant, and write an application, and the issue was resolved in a matter of days. The size of the plot varied depending on the specific conditions - in more or less large cities - 4-6 acres, in regional centers and small towns and villages it could be 10-15 acres.
However, it was impossible to build just anything on this site: it was necessary to obtain from the city executive committee, from the architect, a design for the house (usually several standard options were offered to choose from), or submit for approval the design of the house to be built. After approval of the construction project, it was possible to obtain an interest-free loan for construction, which could amount to up to 70% of the required amount and was repayable within 10-15 years. But there was one problem: if you suddenly decided to change your job, the loan had to be repaid within 6 months.
The spending of the loan was controlled, and it was also controlled where materials for construction were taken from - documents for all building materials and products (invoices, paid bills, etc.) were checked twice a year. The documents were to be kept by the owner of the house until the loan was repaid. The built house (but not the land under it) was the individual property of the owner and could be sold by him to anyone at an agreed price, or left as an inheritance or gift at his discretion. Unless, of course, our lucky heir had a desire to register there. It was impossible to own a home but not register in it.
But already in the 60s, due to the development of state housing construction, it became difficult to obtain land for individual construction; they were given to large families, distinguished people, and, through great connections, to their own people. It was almost impossible even for workers of the party-Soviet bodies to obtain such a plot in more or less large cities.
After the death of Brezhnev, under Andropov, an attempt was also made to expand individual construction, but by the beginning of the 90s it also failed - plots began to be sold rather than issued, and they became even less accessible to ordinary people.
And now we come to the main method of acquiring housing in the USSR - receiving housing for rent from the state or enterprise on a first-come, first-served basis.
Public housing was departmental and executive committee, that is, it could be obtained at work (through the department, from its housing stock) or at the place of residence - in turn in the district and city executive committee. Departmental housing was received by employees of fairly large enterprises and organizations, at the place of residence - employees of small city or regional organizations that do not have their own housing stock, as well as some categories of people who were given housing according to separate laws (Heroes of the USSR and those equivalent to them, women awarded medal “Mother Heroine, Honored Workers of the Arts, and so on).The procedure for registering, in principle, was almost the same - it was necessary to collect certificates about the composition of the family, available housing, a description of the applicant’s place of work, and submit all this along with an application to the housing commission of the executive committee or enterprise. The commission reviewed the documents of the applicant for housing, and made a decision on whether to register him or not. They could refuse if there was an area per one family member in the existing housing that was larger than the norm when placing on the waiting list - in the 70s the norm was 7 square meters. meters per person, and in the 80s - 9 square meters. meters. Some categories of citizens were entitled to additional space, such as teachers with an academic title, architects, but not all, but only members of the union.
It should be borne in mind that the norm was determined from the so-called living area - the area of living premises, without taking into account utility rooms - that is, the area of the kitchen, bathroom, hallway, and so on were not taken into account. That is why in Soviet plans they tried to reduce them as much as possible.
After the decision on registration was made, if it was departmental housing, the person was informed about the decision made and under what number he was placed in the queue, but if he joined the city queue, the documents were sent to the executive committee.
Not everyone was registered, but only those who proved that they had the right to do so: the person had to be registered, and he had to have housing no more than 6 sq.m. per person (varies in different cities, but approximately from 3 to 8 sq.m.). That is, if in one room measuring 25 sq.m. There were 4 people living there - they weren’t even registered. If they (it is not clear how they managed to conceive him under such conditions) had a fifth child there, only then could they register.
Do not get an apartment, but only REGISTER. And stay on the register for 10 years, if you’re lucky, and if not very lucky, then 15-20. During these 10-15 years, one of the family members could die, and then this family was immediately thrown out of the housing queue, because each of the survivors already had more living space.
In this regard, there were incredibly many absolutely fantastic ways to get registered: fictitious marriages, registering rural relatives with them, etc., to the point where there were cases when people did not register the death of a family member, but for a bribe for years ( !) kept it in the morgue refrigerator. It is clear that only a completely wild lack of living space, living in inhumanly crowded conditions and the impossibility of obtaining housing in any other normal way could have brought normal people to such horror.
What did the enterprise's housing stock consist of? All large enterprises were allowed to build housing for their employees at their own expense. At the same time, many factors were taken into account - the importance of the enterprise, the availability of housing stock, the prospects for the development of enterprises, the need to attract additional workers, and so on. The possible time frame for obtaining housing also depended on many factors - at some enterprises it was necessary to wait several years to receive housing, at others it was possible to obtain an apartment within a year or two, or even several months. For example, in Moscow or another large city it was very difficult to get an apartment - you had to wait for decades, but in the periphery, especially during the construction of new enterprises, it was possible to get housing very quickly, up to several days after getting a job.
In addition to the regular queue, at enterprises and executive committees there were so-called preferential queues - so-called benefit recipients were placed in them. Those in these queues received housing much faster than regular queues.
The executive committee's housing stock consisted of houses that were on the balance sheet of the executive committee and were being built for it, and also for the city, each enterprise (including housing cooperatives) had to give 10% of the housing it built. The procedure and standards for obtaining housing from the city were almost the same as at the enterprise, but the queues there were usually much longer.
Two questions usually raised when discussing housing problems in the former USSR.
The first concerns the very possibility of obtaining housing, and has two opposing opinions: some say that it was almost impossible to get housing in the USSR, others say that it was quite possible, housing was provided quite quickly. Paradoxically, both of these statements are true. It was very difficult, and sometimes almost impossible, to obtain housing or expand living space for employees of small organizations that do not have their own housing stock, located in large cities - various research institutes, design institutes, and so on. At the same time, during the construction of new factories, power plants, and in new cities on the periphery, it was not difficult to get an apartment. But changing jobs in these cities was also difficult. The USSR thus tied workers to enterprises not only with registration, but also with housing.The second question concerns abuses in the distribution of housing. Of course, there were abuses, and in the late 80s there were already numerous cases of illegal allocation of apartments for money. It should be taken into account that separate houses were usually built for party functionaries. These were more comfortable than housing for ordinary people, and even for this reason, functionaries did not really ask for housing in ordinary houses.
Housing could be inherited from your parents only if you were registered in it. In all other cases, you could not inherit housing or received it with the encumbrance of the obligatory surrender of your current home. There were loopholes here. For example, you could get a divorce and register with elderly relatives under this scheme - after their death, you became the owner of their home.
In the USSR, residential real estate was built at a rate of 0.4 sq.m. per citizen per year, according to Soviet official statistics. Which was by no means inclined to belittle the achievements of Soviet power.
But in the end, many, of course, after long ordeals and decades of standing in line, received housing. Especially during the period of intensive construction since the mid-50s. As a rule, these were miserable small-sized apartments of disgusting quality, usually on the outskirts, and after receiving the happy new residents (really happy after many years of communal hell or living in terrible cramped conditions with their parents) still had to bring this housing to a livable condition. Formally, since the apartments were state-owned, the state should have repaired them, but in practice it was impossible to achieve normal repairs. Therefore, people did any repairs at their own expense and on their own, whoever had them.
In the USSR, there was also official (temporary) housing, in which, for example, military personnel or housing office workers lived. The company gave an apartment to its employee for the time he worked there. If you quit, let go. It is clear that this is just thinly veiled slavery, because the person was forced to endure this work, no matter how bad it was for him. The housing was also lousy. It was necessary to get a job either in the construction department, which allocated housing to its workers faster than in the general queue, or as a janitor (janitors were given a closet), or to work for several years as a garbage collector (otherwise no one would take the dirty work with a small salary and the city would suffocate from garbage). Also, these methods are not suitable for everyone, since they actually had to ruin their plans for life and their favorite job for this housing. It was possible to go to the Far North, where housing was provided faster, but not everyone could do this either due to health reasons or family circumstances. It was service apartments in non-residential buildings that attracted janitors to Moscow. After 10 years of service, the apartment without acceptance became a permanent living space, so the housing office tried to relocate the janitors more often.
The “right to housing” was written into the USSR Constitution of 1977, so formally they could not be evicted to anywhere in the USSR, and forced relocation was also prohibited in the period from September 15 to April 15, but no one stopped anyone from evicting them to a dilapidated place. Which is what was practiced...
Conclusion
The beautiful legend about how everyone in the USSR was given free housing has crumbled to dust.Housing WAS NOT FREE - citizens of the USSR paid for it all their lives with THEIR LABOR for the state.
And the apartments were NOT given, but were provided for use, and of disgusting quality, at the rate of no more than 18 m2 per person (and practically it was much less, and the number of rooms was equal to the number of family members MINUS ONE, that is, for two a one-room apartment, for three a two-room apartment, and etc.).
And when this situation is compared with how expensive it is now to buy real housing of modern quality and good space in a decent house, this is either a cynical fraud or a sincere misunderstanding of the situation. Therefore, there is no need for this Khitrovan fraud - to compare modern OWN spacious housing - with the official 6 square meters in a communal apartment or with terrible small apartments in which 2 families were crammed together, and which, moreover, did NOT OWN them even once.
Because the kind of housing that was “gave to everyone” in the USSR - to use a miserable room in a communal apartment or a tiny apartment in a five-story building on the outskirts of an industrial zone - can now be rented by almost any working person. The kind of housing that was “given” to someone on the waiting list after many years of waiting. To rent, or even buy, such slum rooms and apartments do not cost millions. No way.
Therefore, all these sincere and not so groans about “they gave everything to everyone for free, but now they don’t give it to you, scoundrels” is another myth of the post-Soviet consciousness, a fairy tale about a lost dependent paradise implanted in the brains of poorly informed people, nothing more.
We dedicate the second article in the series “Russian World: retail prices and salaries of different eras” to the era of “developed socialism”, or more precisely to the period from 1965 to 1987. One of the reasons why we decided to abandon a strictly chronological sequence was that at the initial stage of collecting materials on the NEP era and the 70-80s, we came across a wonderful book by O.V. Kuratova “Chronicles of Russian life (1950-1990)”, which largely resolved the issue of collecting factual material. The vast majority of information in this article is taken from the book mentioned.
It must be said that, in addition to the information meticulously collected by the author about the cost of goods and services, as well as salaries during the period of “developed socialism,” the book also contains many informative essays about the life and psychology of various categories of Soviet (and not only) citizens of the 40-80s. s, from German prisoners of war officers and homeless people of the sixties to ministers, prominent Soviet writers and members of the leadership of the Communist Party of Chile in exile. Oleg Valeryevich Kuratov himself went through a successful and, as he himself admits, quite typical life path for his time: secondary school in Shuya (Ivanovo region), Polytechnic Institute in Leningrad, then about twenty years at the Ministry of Medium Machine Building Enterprise in Novosibirsk, where the author rose through the ranks career ladder from an ordinary engineer to the chief engineer of a plant, then advanced training at the Academy of National Economy and managerial work in the central office of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building in Moscow. It is not surprising, therefore, that a significant part of the essays in “Chronicles of Russian Life” is devoted to the life of the Soviet technical intelligentsia. In general, the book creates a very complete picture of domestic life in past years and will certainly be of interest to anyone interested in the “unofficial” history of their country. The only drawback of the book, in our opinion, is its extremely small circulation.
Income of certain categories of employees and workers
Let's turn now to the factual information. Table 1 shows the salaries of some categories of workers.
Table 1. Salaries of some categories of workers and employees
|
Employee/Worker |
Average monthly income, rub. |
|
|
Safety and rationalization engineer at the Shuya Harmony Factory |
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Mechanical shop worker there |
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|
Lieutenant Colonel, employee of the Central Office of the USSR Ministry of Defense |
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Head of the design department of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR in Moscow |
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Chief engineer of the plant of the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building in Novosibirsk |
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Nurse without work experience |
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High school teacher |
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|
5th category milling operator at a woodworking plant |
* - According to Mikhail Dymshits, in practice, medical personnel, as a rule, worked at one and a half times the rate, combining them in time. Thus, in fact, a nurse in the first three years of work, working at one and a half times the rate, could receive 120 rubles per month.
** - Like medical workers, teachers, with a low base rate, sought means of increasing their incomes with the help of various bonuses for “hours”, class management, etc.
(Again, we remind our readers that the purpose of the publication is not to provide an overview of the entire range of existing wages and prices, but to create a sense of the scale of monetary equivalents characteristic of the era).
Food
Table 2 shows the prices of some food products. It should be noted (we make this note mainly for young and young readers) that many of these goods in state stores were in constant shortage and their acquisition was a matter of chance (“thrown away,” often to fulfill a monthly or quarterly plan) or long standing in queues. Moscow's supply was significantly better than that of the regions. A common occurrence were “sausage” trains from nearby regions and buses with “pilgrims”, centrally organized by enterprises for the purchase of products in Moscow. Every winter, the family of the compiler of this review bought 5-8 kilograms of butter and sent it with opportunity to relatives in the city of Syzran (Kuibyshev region), since this product was completely absent from state trade there.
An alternative to state trade was the “collective farm” market, where many scarce products were available for sale. However, the vast majority of the population could afford to purchase products on the market extremely rarely, since their prices could be two or more times higher than state prices.
You need to understand that for individual products the price indicated in Table 2 is a special case of the price typical for a particular year, a particular area, the nature of the outlet, etc., and may differ slightly from the price in another area in two ways: three years earlier or later.
Table 2. State retail prices for some food products
|
Product |
Unit change |
Price: rub., kopecks. |
|
|
Wheat flour, premium |
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|
Granulated sugar |
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|
Sawed sugar |
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|
First ground rock salt |
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Instant coffee |
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Indian tea |
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|
Confectionery |
Cookies “Strawberry”, “Jubilee” |
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|
Confectionery |
Candies "Squirrel" |
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|
Confectionery |
Candy in boxes |
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|
Dairy |
Milk on tap |
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|
Dairy |
Milk in Tetrapack packaging |
||
|
Dairy |
Bottle 0.5 l |
0.30 (including 15 kopecks deposit cost of the bottle) |
|
|
Dairy |
Condensed milk with sugar |
Can 400 g. |
|
|
Dairy |
Butter |
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|
Beef |
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|
Mutton |
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Beef legs |
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Pork feet |
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Beef tenderloin |
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Potato |
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Bulb onions |
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Fresh carp |
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Fresh frozen sturgeon |
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Hot pink salmon |
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Salted herring, weighed |
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Tangerines |
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Grapefruits |
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|
White bread |
Loaf/roll 400-500 g. |
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|
Black bread |
Loaf 1 kg |
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|
Gastronomy |
Red caviar |
Can 140 g |
|
|
Gastronomy |
Black caviar |
Can 112 g |
|
|
Gastronomy |
Boiled sausage |
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|
Gastronomy |
Raw smoked sausage |
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|
Gastronomy |
Salted pink salmon |
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|
Gastronomy |
Halibut deli |
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|
Gastronomy |
Ham (boiled pork) |
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|
Gastronomy |
Can 0.2 l |
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|
Gastronomy |
|||
|
Gastronomy |
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|
Canned food |
Green peas |
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|
Canned food |
Squash Cavier |
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|
Canned food |
Peach compote |
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|
Canned food |
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|
Canned food |
Salmon in its own juice |
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Canned food |
Canned cucumbers |
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|
Canned food |
Canned tomatoes |
Separately, it is necessary to say a few words about the prices for drinks presented in Table 3. Despite the general stability, prices for some categories of goods increased from time to time in the 60-80s. Alcoholic drinks were no exception. Thus, a half-liter bottle of “regular” vodka, which cost 3.62 (including 12 kopecks deposit cost of the container) in the 70s, in the first half of the 80s already cost 5.20 (including 20 kopecks bottle). The appearance of vodka in the fall of 1983, which cost 4.70 (that is, fifty dollars cheaper) was greeted with enthusiasm; this vodka received the popular name “Andropovka” and its existence is still sometimes cited as evidence of the humane reform intentions of Yu.V. Andropova.
Table 3. State prices for alcoholic beverages
|
Drink |
Bottle volume, l. |
Price: rub., kopecks. no cost of dishes |
|
Cognac “Three Stars” |
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|
Fortified fruit and berry wines |
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|
Fortified grape wines |
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|
Vintage fortified wines |
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|
Dry Georgian wines |
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|
Dry Moldovan wines |
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|
Dry Bulgarian wines |
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Durable goods
Table 4. State retail prices for some manufactured goods
|
Name of product |
Price: rub., kopecks. |
|
|
Motorcycle with sidecar “Ural M-62” |
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|
Car VAZ-2101 |
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|
Car VAZ-21013 |
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|
Car VAZ-2108 |
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|
Furniture set “Living room” (GDR): two wardrobes, a bookcase, a sideboard with a bar, a secretary, a dressing table, a table, a sofa bed, a single bed with a mattress, two armchairs, six chairs. |
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|
Furniture set “Christina” (Bulgaria): two wardrobes, two bookcases, a secretary, a sofa bed, a table, six chairs, a coffee table, a TV stand |
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|
Electric sewing machine |
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|
Washing machine |
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|
TV "Rubin" |
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|
Refrigerator ZIL |
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|
Electric kettle |
||
|
Men's sheepskin coat |
||
|
Men's suit (Finland) |
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|
Women's autumn coat (France) |
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|
Men's autumn coat |
||
|
Women's tiger fur coat |
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|
Women's winter boots (GDR) |
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|
Imported men's shoes |
Urban transport
Until May 1985, the cost of travel on public transport in Moscow was
By tram - 3 kopecks.
By trolleybus - 4 kopecks.
By bus and metro - 5 kopecks.
In May 1985, a single fare for travel on public transport was introduced - 5 kopecks.
A “single” ticket, which gave the right to unlimited use of city public transport for a month, cost 6 rubles.
The cost of a taxi fare “according to the meter” was 20 kopecks per kilometer, with another 20 kopecks charged “for landing”.
Long-distance passenger transportation
Table 5. Cost of travel on some routes by rail
Table 6. Cost of air travel on some routes
Public utilities
A two-room apartment in Moscow, in a “Stalinist” five-story brick building. Central heating, hot water, gas stove. Total area 51 sq. m., residential 32 sq. m. Three people live. Cost of utility bills for November 1987:
Living area 4.29
Heating 2.04
Water and sewerage 1.28
Hot water 2.10
TV antenna 0.15
Gas (42 kopecks per person) 1.26
Electricity (4 kopecks per 1 kWh) 4.00
TOTAL 15.62
A two-room cooperative apartment in Leningrad, in a 9-story panel building, commissioned in 1984. Total area 48 sq. m., residential 29 sq. m. Central heating, hot water, gas stove. One person lives. Cost of utility bills per month in 1984:
Savings for major repairs 8.00
Home and grounds maintenance 4.34
Heating 2.89
Hot water 1.00
Water and sewerage 0.54
TV antenna 0.15
Housing cooperative fund 0.60
Savings bank services 0.07
Gas (15 kopecks per person) 0.15
Electricity (4 kopecks per 1 kWh) 2.40
TOTAL 22.69
Conclusion. Why is it impossible to compare the standard of living “under Brezhnev” with the modern one?
Of course, many remember the prices of the 70-80s (“loaf for 13 kopecks, Druzhba cheese for 9 kopecks, sausage for 2.90, vodka for 4.70”), know about them from their parents or from countless collections “You were born in 70s if.” In online disputes about increased or, on the contrary, decreased living standards, there are often attempts to compare current incomes with those that took place 25-30 years ago. To do this, the disputants most often calculate how many kilograms of meat, bottles of vodka or loaves of bread could be bought with the comparable income.
We want to warn our readers against taking this fascinating activity seriously. The fact is that the prices of the Brezhnev period for many goods included a confiscation component, which was a socialist analogue of a luxury tax. Such goods include, first of all, vodka, delicacies, household appliances, furniture, means of transport, carpets, crystal, and jewelry. It was for these goods that regular price increases were made, which was reflected in folklore (Members of the Politburo decide which goods to raise prices for and draw children's lotto cards with letters; Kosygin gets the letter “z” and he says “gold”; Gromyko gets the letter “k”, and he says “carpets”, Brezhnev gets the letter “f”, he thinks for a long time and says “fso”). The “luxury tax” and “vodka capital” obtained through trade were channeled through various schemes to subsidize agriculture, housing and communal services, transport, medicine, and education. Therefore, the structure of expenditures in the late Soviet period was quite skewed and can hardly be adequately compared with today.
Literature
Kuratov O.V. Chronicles of Russian life (1950-1990)-M.: DeLi print, 2004.
First half of the 1980s Moscow
A glass of sweet soda in the machine - 3 kopecks.
A glass of regular soda - 1 kopeck.
Ice cream in a waffle cup - 20 kopecks.
Large pack of ice cream - 48 kopecks.
Crispy potatoes (the head of a girl is depicted on the package) - 10 kopecks.
A loaf of white bread - 13 kopecks.
Bagel - 6 kopecks.
Small bun - 3 kopecks.
The pension of a retired major general in 1986 was 312 rubles.
1985 - music school (piano, solfeggio) monthly payment - 17 rubles.
1988 - picket fence 0.5 cubic meters. m. - 30 rub. 60 kopecks
1965-1970 A glass of tomato juice in a store on tap - 5 kopecks
1965-1970 A glass of apple juice in a store on tap - 10 kopecks
1965-1970 A glass of grape juice (vintage) in a store on tap - 20 kopecks
1980, Tomatoes in wooden boxes, Rostov-on-Don, July (season), state. - 5 kopecks/kg
1980, Watermelons, Rostov-on-Don, August (season) - 5 kopecks/kg.
1985, Golden Delicious apples, Rostov region, collective farm. market - 25 kopecks/kg
1970-1985 - boiled sausage, Rostov-on-Don, state. - 2.00-2.40/kg
1970-1985 - servelat sausage, Rostov-on-Don, co-op. - 4.00-5.00/kg
1970-1985 - hard smoked sausage, Rostov-on-Don, co-op. ,state - 8.70-10.00/kg
1970-1976 Student trolleybus ticket - 1.00
1970-1976 Student tram ticket - 0.90
1970-1976 Student tram-trolleybus ticket - 1.10
1970-1985 Housing and communal services tariff for electricity - 4 kopecks. /kWh (for gas stoves), 2 kop./kWh (for electric stoves)
1980-1988 Full payment for housing and communal services for a one-room apartment (40/18/7.5) without electricity, Rostov n/a, departmental house - 5 rubles. /month
1980-1988 GTS services (telephone) monthly fee - 1.50 / month
1980-1988 Russian cheese, Moscow, state. - 2.70 /kg
1980-1988 Roquefort cheese, Moscow, state - 3.00/kg
1965-1985 Condensed milk, state. - 0.55 /can
1970-1980 Student notebook 12 sheets. - 2 kopecks.
70s. Bottle of vodka 3r.62k. Bottle of table white -1 rub. 02k. With a bottle. Gray bread - 16 kopecks, white bread - 20 kopecks. In a store, Krasnodar region. A glass of sunflower seeds at the market - 10 kopecks.
Moscow
Post-war period (1940s):
Car "Pobeda" with a canvas top - 16.t.rub.
All-metal "Victory" - 20 thousand rubles.
Bottle of vodka - 21 rub. 20 kopecks (three men dropped 7 rubles each)
Can of crabs - 52 kopecks.
1950s - early 1980s
The salary of an associate professor at a Moscow university is approximately 300 rubles.
Salary for a professor at a Moscow university - 500 rubles.
Corresponding member Academy of Sciences - 250 rub.
Full member of the Academy of Sciences - 500 rubles.
1960s:
MSU student scholarship:
Regular - 40 rub.
Increased scholarship - 50 rubles.
Nekrasov scholarship - 70 rubles.
L. Tolstoy scholarship - 80 rubles.
Lenin scholarship - 100 rubles. (for excellent studies and active social work).
1st category apprentice in the home refrigerator workshop - 110 rubles.
Master 2nd category in the mechanical assembly shop - 120 rubles.
1964:
The cost of a cooperative one-room apartment in Izmailovo in installments for 15 years is 5,000 rubles.
1968:
Junior Research Associate Museum of the Revolution in Moscow - 105 rubles.
Work experience in a museum up to 5 years - 150 rubles.
Work experience up to 7 years - 170 rubles.
Work experience 10 years - 200 rubles.
For knowledge of the language, a salary increase of 10% + bonus from 20 to 50 rubles. (usually on November 7).
1987 - salary manager dept. Museum of the Revolution - 250 rubles.
Meat with bones in the store - 2 rubles.
Meat with bones at the market - from 3 to 5 rubles.
Chekushka - 1 rub. 45 kopecks
1960s - 1970s - 1980s
Moscow special vodka - 2 rubles. 87 k.
Stolichnaya vodka (white head) - 3 rubles. 7 kopecks
Zhigulevskoe beer (0.5 l.) - 37 kopecks. (bottle - 12 kopecks)
Moscow beer - 42 kop.(?)
Eskimo ice cream - 11 kopecks.
Ice cream Leningradskoe - 22 kopecks.
Taxi in Moscow - 20 kopecks. one-time "per landing", then 10 kopecks. per kilometer.
1960-1980s fruit ice cream in a cardboard cup 100 g - 5 kopecks
a glass of tea (with sugar) - 3 kopecks
cake "tongue" (puff pastry) - 5 kopecks
any full-size cake (except for “potatoes”), confectionery “Golden Ear”, Rostov, - 22 kopecks
full-size potato cake - 15-16 kopecks
reduced cake (assorted) - 11 kopecks,
reduced size potato cake - 8 kopecks
1986 - a full trip to the trade union (All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions) boarding house "Smena" near Dagomys for 18 days - 60 rubles per person (our trip for three - me, my wife and a three-year-old son - was fully paid for by the trade union, travel costs for the family there and back - 25 rubles: adult reserved seat - 5 rubles, children - 2 rubles. 50 kopecks)
mid-60s - full 24-day trip to the Artek pioneer camp - 150 rubles
full ticket for 24 days to the pioneer camp "Orlyonok" - 120 rubles
full 24-day trip to the excellent (3rd place in the ranking) pioneer camp "Kavakaz" of the USSR Ministry of Railways - 105 rubles
full ticket for 24 days to the pioneer camp "Ogonyok" North Caucasus KZD - 70 rubles
full ticket for 24 days to the pioneer camp "Chaika" (Sochi, accommodation in tents with wooden floors and walls) - 60 rubles
(usually all children’s vouchers were fully or partially paid for by the trade union at the place of work of one of the parents)
1971 - trade union tour to Romania-Yugoslavia (7 days each) - 380-400 rubles
1976 - tour package to Bulgaria (7 days around the country + 7 days at sea) through the Sputnik BMT - 250 rubles
1979 - tour package to France (Paris + Normandy = 10 days) through the Sputnik BMT - 350 rubles.
1972 - voucher to the camp site of the Rostov Institute of National Economy in Arkhyz for 18 days - 60 rubles.
1975 - accommodation as a savage in the private sector of the village. Dzhubga (Black Sea coast) at the end of May - 3 rubles per day, or 10 rubles per room for 4 people
60th - shot at a shooting range from an air gun - 2-3 kopecks.
60th Music school at the Rostov House of Officers of the North Caucasian Military District or at the Palace of Pioneers - 8 rubles per month
Regular Rostov city music school named after Tchaikovsky (piano class) - 11-12 rubles per month
Piano "Rostov-Don" - 200 rubles.
Children's subscription to swimming lessons in the pool of the Spartak Children's Sports Center (2 lessons per week, 1.5 hours each) - 3 rubles. / month
Circles and clubs of the Palace of Pioneers, the station of young technicians, the House of Children's Artistic Creativity, departmental Palaces of Culture -
for free.
Sports schools and physical education sections for children - free
Ticket to the zoo: children - 5 kopecks, adults - 20 kopecks
70s The cost of a photocopy of one page of a library publication (Moscow - Leninka, GPNTB, State Center for Scientific and Medical Library, VINITI) on film is 2-3 kopecks. on photo paper - 3 kopecks, photocopy - 6-10 kopecks
Post-war period - car "Moskvich-400/401" - 800-900 rubles (then pre-reform 8000-9000, respectively)
60th Moskvich-403 - 3500 rub.
Zaporozhets-965 (humpbacked) - 1600 rub.
70s "Zaporozhets ZAZ-968" ("eared") - 3500
"Moskvich-412" - 4500
60s Tube tape recorder "Comet" - 200 rubles
Tape set-top box "Nota" - 80 rubles
70s Transistor cassette recorder "Spring-306" - 180 rubles
early 60s Six-string guitar "consumer goods" - 6-50
late 60s Seven-string guitar (Leningrad Musical Instruments Plant) - 17-50
late 60s Six-string guitar (Mushima, GDR or Czechoslovakia) - 65 rub.
late 60s Six-string electric guitar (Mushima, GDR) -180 rub.
late 60s Bass electric guitar (Mushima, East Germany) - 200 rub.
1971 Dry table wine "Hereti" 0.5 l - 62 kopecks. (50 +12 kopecks bottle)
Dry white table wine "Aligote", vintage 2 years, 0.75 l, Khosta, Black Sea coast - 1 rub. 27 kopecks. (17 kopecks - bottle)
Dry white table wine "Riesling Aksaisky", Rostov-on-Don, ordinary, 0.75 - 1 rub. 07 kopecks.
Red semi-sweet wine "Kinzmarauli" or "Khvanchkara", vintage, 0.75 - 1 rub. 87 kopecks. (shortage)
Cognac 3 years old (Georgian, Dagestan, Armenian) - 0.5 l, Rostov, 6 rubles
Cognac 5 years old (Georgian, Dagestan, Armenian) - 0.5 l, Rostov, 8 rubles
Aged cognac (-"-) 6-10 years - 10-12 rubles
Bulgarian cognac (“Pliska”, “Slanchev Bryag”) - 0.5 l, Rostov, 5 and 6 rubles
1973 French cognac "Camus" 3-5 years old (Novoarbatsky grocery store, Moscow) - 0.5 l - 40 rubles
Cigarettes with filter "Rostov" (DGTF), "Java" (Moscow factory "Java") in a hard pack - 40 kopecks
Cigarettes with filter "Our brand" (DGTF, Rostov), "Tu-134", "Opal" (Bulgaria) in a soft pack - 30 kopecks
Cigarettes "Prima" (DHTF) without filter - 8 kopecks
Cigarettes without filter Cuban (Partagas, etc.) - 8-10 kopecks
Call from a public telephone (without time limit) - 2 kopecks
1972-1974 Tickets to Moscow theaters (partially - acute shortage) - from 2 to 10 rubles. 10 rubles - state price of a ticket to the 10th row of the Bolshoi Theater stalls for the ballet "Swan Lake", 7 rubles. 50kop. - state price to the stalls, row 15 of the Taganka Theater - Hamlet with Vysotsky (two tickets purchased for 50 rubles).
Of course, many are familiar with this topic from practice, so to speak, but the younger generation may still learn from this article a little more than “in the USSR, everyone was given free housing.” The process was much more complicated and confusing.
So, basically there were four possibilities for acquiring housing - getting a state apartment, building a house, buying a cooperative apartment and getting housing from your parents at your place of registration.
Now about them in more detail...
With regard to cooperatives, everything is almost simple - a housing cooperative was created in an organization, at an enterprise, or in a city or district. This cooperative received a loan from the state or the enterprise for which it built the house.
Those wishing to purchase housing (members of this organization, enterprise) joined this cooperative, paying an introductory share and monthly contributions. A queue of members of the cooperative was created to receive housing.
Upon completion of the construction of the house, the apartments were distributed among those on the waiting list, who continued to pay contributions until the Lender was reimbursed for the costs of constructing the apartment. In some ways, it was similar to a modern mortgage, but with an important difference - there was no extortionate interest rate.
But even after paying the fees, the apartment did not become the property of the tenant, it remained the collective property of the housing cooperative, it could only be sold to a member of this cooperative, and only by decision of the general meeting.
As a rule, an internal queue was formed in the cooperative to improve living conditions, and the queue in this queue was more important than your mutual desire. Therefore, it was only possible to return the entry fee, and even then with deduction of wear and tear.
However, cooperative construction was only 7-10% of what was required in the USSR, and naturally, everyone who wanted to purchase housing through cooperatives could not; there were huge queues to join them.
In the early 80s, they tried to improve the situation - within the framework of the state program “Every family gets a separate apartment,” about 100,000 housing cooperatives were organized, but due to subsequent restructuring and other changes in the country, many of them were completed only by the end of the 90s, so people had to wait more than 10 years to receive their housing and often pay significantly extra.
In addition to cooperatives, housing was built by the residents themselves. Individual construction was especially developed in the early 50s. After the war, the country experienced a very difficult housing situation, especially in cities that were bombed or were part of the war zone. It was considered lucky to get a room in a hostel, and even more so in a communal apartment.
The housing construction complex was not initially designed for mass housing construction; for this reason, especially in small towns, all families who wanted it were given plots for RENT for the construction of individual houses. It was not difficult to obtain such a plot back then, and it was encouraged.
It was enough to provide information about the family composition, place of residence and work of the applicant, and write an application, and the issue was resolved in a matter of days. The size of the plot varied depending on the specific conditions - in more or less large cities - 4-6 acres, in regional centers and small towns and villages it could be 10-15 acres.
However, it was impossible to build just anything on this site: it was necessary to obtain from the city executive committee, from the architect, a design for the house (usually several standard options were offered to choose from), or submit for approval the design of the house to be built.
After approval of the construction project, you could get an interest-free loan for construction, which could amount to up to 70% of the required amount and was repayable within 10-15 years. But there was one catch, if you suddenly decided to change your job, then the loan had to be repaid within 6 months.
The spending of the loan was controlled, and it was also controlled where the materials for construction were taken from - documents for all building materials and products (invoices, paid bills, etc.) were checked twice a year. The documents were to be kept by the owner of the house until the loan was repaid.
The built house (but not the land under it) was the individual property of the owner and could be sold by him to anyone at an agreed price, or left as an inheritance or gift at his discretion. Unless, of course, our lucky heir had a desire to register there. It was impossible to own a home but not register in it.
But already in the 60s, due to the development of state housing construction, it became difficult to obtain land for individual construction; they were given to large families, distinguished people, and, through great connections, to their own people. It was almost impossible even for workers of the party-Soviet bodies to obtain such a plot in more or less large cities.
After the death of Brezhnev, under Andropov, an attempt was also made to expand individual construction, but by the early 90s it also failed - plots were no longer given out, but sold, and they became even less accessible to ordinary people.
And now we come to the main method of acquiring housing in the USSR - receiving housing for rent from the state or enterprise on a first-come, first-served basis.
Public housing was departmental and executive committee, that is, it could be obtained at work (through the department, from its housing stock) or at the place of residence - in turn in the district and city executive committee.
Departmental housing was received by employees of fairly large enterprises and organizations, at the place of residence - employees of small city or regional organizations that do not have their own housing stock, as well as some categories of people who were given housing according to separate laws (Heroes of the USSR and those equivalent to them, women awarded medal “Mother Heroine, Honored Workers of the Arts, and so on).
The procedure for registering, in principle, was almost the same - it was necessary to collect information about the composition of the family, available housing, a description of the applicant’s place of work, and submit all this along with an application to the housing commission of the executive committee or enterprise. The commission reviewed the documents of the applicant for housing, and made a decision on whether to register him or not.
They could refuse if there was an area per family member in the available housing that was larger than the norm when placing on the waiting list - in the 70s the norm was 7 square meters per person, and in the 80s it was 9 square meters. Some categories of citizens were entitled to additional space, such as teachers with an academic title, architects, but not all, but only members of the union.
It should be borne in mind that the norm was determined from the so-called living area - the area of living premises, without taking into account utility rooms - that is, the area of the kitchen, bathroom, hallway, and so on were not taken into account. That is why in Soviet plans they tried to reduce them as much as possible.
After the decision on registration was made, if it was departmental housing, the person was informed about the decision made and under what number he was placed in the queue, but if he joined the city queue, the documents were sent to the executive committee.
What did the enterprise's housing stock consist of? All large enterprises were allowed to build housing for their employees at their own expense. At the same time, many factors were taken into account - the importance of the enterprise, the availability of housing stock, the prospects for the development of enterprises, the need to attract additional workers, and so on.
The possible time frame for obtaining housing also depended on many factors - at some enterprises it was necessary to wait several years to receive housing, at others it was possible to obtain an apartment within a year or two, or even in a few months.
For example, in Moscow or another large city it was very difficult to get an apartment - you had to wait for decades, but in the periphery, especially during the construction of new enterprises, it was possible to get housing very quickly, up to several days after getting a job.
In addition to the usual queue, at enterprises and executive committees there were so-called preferential queues - so-called benefit recipients were placed in them. Those in these queues received housing much faster than regular queues.
The executive committee's housing stock consisted of houses that were on the balance sheet of the executive committee and were being built for it, and also for the city, each enterprise (including housing cooperatives) had to give 10% of the housing it built.
The procedure and standards for obtaining housing from the city were almost the same as at the enterprise, but the lines there were usually much longer.
Here I would like to consider two questions that are usually raised when discussing housing problems in the former USSR.
The first concerns the very possibility of obtaining housing, and has two opposing opinions: some say that it was almost impossible to get housing in the USSR, others say that it was quite possible, housing was provided quite quickly. Paradoxically, both of these statements are true.
It was very difficult, and sometimes almost impossible, to obtain housing or expand living space for employees of small organizations that do not have their own housing stock, located in large cities - various research institutes, design institutes, and so on.
At the same time, during the construction of new factories, power plants, and in new cities on the periphery, it was not difficult to get an apartment. But changing jobs in these cities was also difficult. The USSR thus tied workers to enterprises not only with registration, but also with housing.
The second question concerns abuses in the distribution of housing. Of course, there were abuses, and in the late 80s there were already numerous cases of illegal allocation of apartments for money. It should be taken into account that separate houses were usually built for party functionaries.
Without going into discussions about how ethical this is, I will only say that these houses were more comfortable than housing for ordinary people, and even for this reason, functionaries did not really ask for housing in ordinary houses.
And lastly, housing could be inherited from your parents only if you were registered in it. In all other cases, you could not inherit housing or received it with the encumbrance of the obligatory surrender of your current home.
There were loopholes here. For example, you could get a divorce and register with elderly relatives under this scheme - after their death, you became the owner of their home.
In the USSR, there was also official (temporary) housing, in which, for example, military personnel or housing office workers lived. It was service apartments in non-residential buildings that attracted janitors to Moscow. After 10 years of service, the apartment immediately became permanent living space, so the housing office tried to relocate the janitors more often.
The “right to housing” was written into the USSR Constitution of 1977, so formally they could not be evicted anywhere in the USSR, and forced relocation was also prohibited in the period from September 15 to April 15, but no one stopped anyone from evicting them to a dilapidated building. Which is what was practiced.