CIS: The Generation That Never Knew The Soviet Union

RFERL ^ | Dec 8, 2006 | RFERL

[sergey1973]

PRAGUE, December 8, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine gathered at a site in the Belarusian forest of Belavezhskaya Pushcha to declare that the Soviet Union was dead.

In its place, they announced the formation of a new alliance, the Commonwealth of Independent States. For those who lived through it, it was a heady but uncertain time. Hopes of social change and political freedom mixed with fears of economic freefall and the disintegration of state institutions. But what about those with no memory of that time?

RFE/RL spoke to young people born in December 1991 and living in the former USSR about their experiences as the first post-Soviet generation.

[sergey1973]

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"I know about communism through what I heard from my parents and grandparents," says 15-year-old Ayrat, who grew up in Tatarstan. "I heard that in the Brezhnev era, life was easier because it was a calm time. But if you consider the period before Brezhnev, for example the Stalin and Lenin eras, it was harder for people due to mass repression. So I'd choose the Brezhnev era to live in, because that was the calmest time."

I don't know how to respond to a statement like that.

[GSlob]

2200 years ago Confucian officials used to disparagingly [and reciprocally, so on the whole it was balanced] refer to one another as "monkeys in the [ceremonial] hats". Maybe one should pay less attention to the post-soviet fashion "hats" and more at the continuities in weltanschauung, value systems, sociology like the relation of people to their groups, and the like? These things are damnably stable on the 500 yrs time scale.

[G8 Diplomat]

On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine gathered at a site in the Belarusian forest of Belavezhskaya Pushcha to declare that the Soviet Union was dead.

I thought it was December 25

[G8 Diplomat]

Maybe he's choosing the lesser of two evils?

Though if I were him I'd just not live in the Soviet Union period. Assuming it were possible to leave the country without getting arrested by the KGB.

[Thunder90]

The next Russian president (Sergi Ivanov) is going to be a mold of Brezhnev or Andropov, more so than Vladimir Putin. And, they will rule over Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and a few other 'stan countries. The country will also reverse to a hybrid Soviet state.

[Thunder90]

Remember, Putin is leading Russia back to the Soviet times. The next Russian prez probably will complete this process.

[M. Espinola]

The way things are going in Putin's Russia anything can happen :)

[G8 Diplomat]

Yes, that's unfortunatley the truth.