“They said defectors, including high ranking military, are in shock when they see the outside. They spend their whole lives only hearing that their quality of life is the best in the world.”
That reminds me of “Moscow on the Hudson “.
A Soviet performer, played by Robin Williams, defects while his group is in NYC.
When he goes into a grocery store alone he has a panic attack because everything is so strange.
There aren’t just cans of beans or corn but DIFFERENT BRANDS of everything.
When I was driving long haul I occasionally ran with a guy who used the cb handle “Mad Hungarian” who grew up under Soviet rule.
He got out as soon as the border guard started looking the other way and ended up in southern Illinois.
He said he had much the same reaction as the Williams character, that going from a system where everything was rationed to a system where there was such an abundance that stores received daily deliveries was mind boggling.
His biggest adjustment was getting used to CHOICES about everything.
Oh yes, America, the land of the Big PX!
Went to Yugoslavia to visit relatives not long after Tito died. What a shocker!
Hotel we checked into held our passports. The main department store in Zagreb had just one rack of dresses and they were next to the toilet plungers! Policemen on every corner. City covered in grit. Could kick myself for not checking out grocery stores.
My cousin was the VP of a bank, his wife a teacher and their apartment was smaller than mine as a college student! His parents only had 2 rooms and the phone and bathroom down the hall. There was no middle class.
Russians I’ve met since then say Yugoslavia was picnic compared to the USSR!