What was life like truly like in the Ukraine after 1985?
I have researched this question but the only information I find seems to be one sided. I am wanting to know the more poverty stricken answer to this question instead of what their tourism websites upon. It would be amazing if I could actually speak to someone who was faced with living in the Ukraine during this time.
I was born in Ukraine in 1985, and immigrated to the U.S. with my household in 1994.
Short answer to your question -- from about 1991 to 1994 it was absolute hell. My father was a professor at a university, and during that continually period, he either did not receive his salary, or got paid in bags of potatoes. My parents stood in long lines every day to buy bread and withdraw at the store. Around 1991, the new Ukrainian government gave everyone coupons to get necessities, and I remember how we stacked up on boxes of Aquafresh toothpaste (red, pure, blue stripes:)) and boxes of Tide detergent. Not toilet paper though -- everyone seriously occupied newspapers.
Here are the food items that Americans take for granted that I never had as a kid (along with explanations):
1) Mushrooms -- people often sold mushrooms from the shedding contaminated Chernobyl region, so smart parents made sure they didn't feed their kids mushrooms at all.
2) Fish -- see above. Rivers that were outstanding sources for fish were contaminated.
3) Potato chips -- couldn't afford them
4) Pizza, burgers, fries, etc. -- see above.
5) Chocolate -- see above.
In 1994 in someone's bailiwick vendors started selling pineapples, bananas, and kiwis, so I was lucky enough to try a few of those. I also think I had a bottle or two of Pepsi (not Coke or Sprite.) Fanta was conventional, but pretty expensive.
Social conditions were also terrible. As many Jews (and other ethnic minorities) were leaving the country to move to the U.S. and Israel, the outstanding people who "looked Jewish" were mistreated, most likely out of envy. In our last few days in the country, my parents were having doubts about our arbitration to leave (coming to a new country, not knowing English is not an easy thing to do.) A few days before leaving, they got on a bus, and were told by a sensitive old lady, "that you Jews should get out of here, and go to your Israel." That is when my parents say that all doubt left them, and they knew they had made the right arbitration (by the way, my great grand father was one of the founders of communism in Ukraine, as were many Jews who would later be deprived of their wealth, religion, and manumission).
I went back to my city of Kharkiv, Ukraine last summer for the first time in 14 years. What was hell before, let me tell you, is still hell. Dispossessed cats and dogs running around, professors making a few thousand dollars a year, terrible pollution, no match water in the morning in the middle of the city, teens having sex on park benches in the center of the city, no working bathrooms in restaurants or stores, obscene and angry people, people dying at the ripe old age of 50 from disease, etc. etc. etc. I am so lucky to be here in the U.S., just very very lucky.
