communist life

Recently we were sitting at the dinner table with my parents and somehow memories of old socialist products came up. We began thinking about what products we used to have…

In our neighborhood, as in any other community, tragedies existed. They were an inseparable part of our lives, however as children we did not always understand the degree of tragedies.…

Not everybody in the neighborhood was tolerant with our constant yelling and playing all day long. As a grownup I can very much understand that now, but as a child…

Being a school pupil in my communist country was almost the equivalent of building a career in our days’ modern society. We had a very busy calendar and schedules that…

Even if going to church and religious practices, in general, were forbidden in our country, we still went to church every Sunday. My mother is a very religious person, and…

Growing up in a communist country meant constantly being an integrated part of all sorts of communities. Among other things, there were different organizations that you were automatically merged into…

Winters were always very cold and full of fresh snow when I was a kid. The very first thing I and my friends did after breakfast was get dressed and…

Weekends on the vikkend complex were very loud and busy in summer. It was a very popular place; in fact, it was the place to be if you were an…

Ten minutes’ walk away from our neighborhood there was a fun resort place called vikkend complex. The name comes obviously from the English “weekend” and had been transcribed to this…

The sense of adventure and of experiencing something new has always been my life companion. This is nothing particular to me, I am sure: all of us humans are curious…

The lives of the residents of the neighborhood always evolved in parallel. Since it was a new neighborhood, most of the families were young people with small children. We always…

I recently went back to the neighborhood. It has been over ten years since my parents left it and never looked back. It had been even much longer since I…

Summers were endless during my childhood. The days were always very warm and busy with us inventing adventurous plays, fantasizing, being outside all day long, and not wanting to leave…

I was so excited! My cousin Mira´s* parents allowed her to come and visit for a few days. We had made meticulous plans in our weekly letters written to each…

One hot and sunny morning in June a piece of strange but interesting news began to spread in the neighborhood: there were live chickens sold at the gostat*. There was…