What the Ukraine Really Thinks about the Soviet Union.
During my recent adventure through the Black Sea I had the great experience of being able to talk with people who lived in the Soviet Union about what life in the USSR was like compared to life now in the Ukraine. The country’s politics are fascinating. Basically, the country is split into East and West camps: the East favoring Russia speaking mostly Russian and having strong pro USSR and Russian leanings. The West, by comparison, favors independence for Ukraine and most people’s first language is Ukrainian. This struggle is the key political devision in the country, which prompts the question: What do people really think of the former Soviet Union.
To be fair, the two Ukrainians I spent the most time with were both from the South of Ukraine, an area with a pro-Russian leaning, however, I was assured that especially among the older generation these views hold consistent throughout the country. I was surprised to hear some of what I heard about the perception of the Soviet government, especially growing up learning how horrible it was supposed to be. Of course, I was only five when the Soviet Union fell, so I never really had the whole Red Scare thing going on.
There are still monuments to Lenin in several cities in the Ukraine, as they are seen as important history landmarks. But that’s not all. When the Ukraine became a capitalistic state very few people had enough capital to really invest in anything which created a huge level of poverty that the people had never faced. Because of this, many older people felt that life had been better under the communists, a belief that is still widespread among the older generations of Ukranians.
One younger person, however, put it into a different context. She said
When we were the Soviet Union we were part of one of the most powerful contries on Earth. We were respected, feared, in some ways admired. Who is saying that about the Ukraine now?
Of course, she also said that she was very young when the Soviets were in power and can’t remember that much of it. She’s gone on to become involved in the tourism industry which really didn’t exist until the demise of the USSR. She said that her parents are both happy with the Soviet Union’s demise, but that her grandparents miss the Soviet days. Of course, it’s what they grew up with so they will have a natural bias, however, I see it slightly differently. For me, this is similar to the stance that so many Americans take today. The whole idea that we are the “best country in the world” just seems naive and childish. According to what? We spend the most money and make the most trash, but we’re the fattest country and we don’t have the best health care… Of course there are many wonderful things about our country, one of them being that I can write all this and put it on the internet without fearing that the government will put me in prison for holding these beliefs.
That said, there’s no reason to even call ourselves the greatest nation; so I’m proposing we stop today and get over ourselves. If we can do that maybe we can actually learn from other countries whose currency is on the rise unlike ours or who have better healthcare systems. I digress, back to the Ukraine:
So much of the time in America we write off the Soviet Union without really talking to the people that lived there. Anti-Soviet sentiment dominated our culture for years and now it seems hard for many people to get past that. I think that that is part of the cause for all the recent issues with Russia. The Ukraine today is very large country with a functioning democracy that the population is directly involved in. Perhaps that’s the biggest thing we can learn from them, they value their new given rights enough to vote.
Posts about my trip to come: Turkey: Asian or European, and Seniors and what they spend their money on.