My life in the U.S.S.R in the 80's

The earliest memory I have (apart from peeing in the bath when Mum was bathing me as a 1-year-old), was in a Russian hotel room. It had strange architecture; unlike anything I had witnessed before, yet, after a good glance around I could tell that it had all the makings of a relaxing place to be.

Russians loved the colour Red. Bloody red everywhere I looked. Buildings, houses, structures, everywhere.

I remember waking up in my nice comfortable bed beside my Mum, and the Pyjama bottoms that I was wearing at the time were covered in sickness. I hadn’t been feeling well on the run up to our travel to Moscow, and this was me probably expunging the bugs that were inside me. I can remember feeling instantly better, and my Mum telling me that I had something called the 24-hour bug. 

Looking back at the memory, I feel bad for Mum because she had to go into the bathroom and wash my sickness away from my clothes, and, as we grew to know all too well, cockroaches were aplenty over there. Mum did well to remain calm. 

Russia was an experience to be had. Behind the veil of the Iron Curtain we lived a life that not many people living in openly democratic countries heard, or even knew about. 

If I told you that Russians weren’t much different from you or I back then, would that shock you? I remember laughing at the Dolph Lungren and Arnold Schwarzenegger stereotypes that were often shoved in our faces in the 80’s and early 90’s from Hollywood. The iron clad meat head that could bench press your dads truck and punch a hole in a Fort Knox vault door with his bare hands. 

Nah They were just like you and I, just trained to think a different way than we were. But I had many good times in Russia. The winter time being the best and the most fun. I had ski’s and plenty of people that would take me out and have fun with.

I remember with the local kids we would build towering snow forts to protect us from the onslaught of snowballs from the enemy team. Snow forts like you’ve never seen before. I remember waking up one day and the snow being at my bedroom window level, which was one story up!! I was sort of an anomaly and centre of intrigue and attention with the local kids. I was from the “west” and they were taught that the west was a bad thing, so they all crowded round me bewildered by the local Westonian as if I had only one eye and nose for a hand. It always amused them also, that I had a ton of toys to play with and they had virtually none. I loved sharing though. They could all play with my stuff. 

Summer was the best too. We lived on the outskirts of a city that bordered a mountain range. And we were often climbing half way up the range for barbeques in the hot summer sun. I strongly remember barbeque chicken from those days. It was my favourite food and served as a heaped mountain on a plate on those days. I always found it fascinating how the older men would hide their alcohol in the snow patches as a way to cool their beer. It had become a game for me to find the men’s beer in the cold white snow.

Yet the strangest thing about behind the iron curtain was the communism. Everybody had the same. If we holidayed to the other side of the world, our flat, would be like the one we lived in back over Europe-side. And the furniture and food? Exactly the same. That was a strange feeling. It was like moving our house to a different area! Weird.

Anyway. Thanks for reading :)