Not only that it did not cost us
anything, but the Soviet education
was of very high quality and
standards. I can compare
because I studied in a Western
university after that. In Northern
Ireland, for example, it is a
common thing that even people
with university degree cannot
show and name all European
countries on a map. I had a
colleague with two degrees who
could not do that and was amazed
that I easily can. We in the Soviet
Union could not imagine any
different. For us, education was
not just a source of getting money.
Knowledge was a matter of pride,
regardless of how much you earn.
That’s why most of us read so
many books in our free time as
well—and of course, also because
books were very affordable!
Practicing sports or having
access to culture in the broadest
possible sense also was a very
normal thing in our daily lives.
Sometimes I hear from people in
the West how they think that we
allegedly lived “behind an iron
curtain” and because of that we
supposedly did not know any
Western books, films or pop
songs. But that wasn’t true either.
In fact, we knew much more than
most people in English-speaking
capitalist countries know, because
we also had access to a huge
amount of the best films, books
and songs from France, Italy,
Spain, Greece, Eastern European
countries and even African, Asian
(India, Japan etc.) and Latin
American countries. For example,
Argentinean actress Lolita Torres
was at some stage so popular that
many girls were named after her.
People in the USSR were singing
some songs of the Japanese
twins duo “Peanuts” (their songs
were even translated into
Russian) and were enjoying
French films with Alain Delon,
Louis de Funès, etc. Most people
14
in the UK, US or Ireland have not
even heard of any of them.
But of course, most
importantly we had our own huge
and very popular film industry
(each republic had its own film
studio!), great theatres (most of us
knew many popular opera or
operetta areas by heart) and great