Growing Up During Socialism

"Kids, I already told you that you should no longer call me comrade, you should use 'miss' instead."

"But why, comrade, I mean miss?"

"Well, something happened and our lives from no on will be much more different from what they used to be."

This is the manner in which my 6-year old brain understood the change from socialism to democracy. I was still in kindergarten and I knew nothing of the political regime that my country suffered through for so many years.

I have few memories of life under the socialist regime in Bulgaria. But even these childish recollections reveal the complete absurdity that was controlling a society of eight million people.

Commodities and goods were missing. I remember that we used to get bananas only during the Christmas holidays. Long queues would form in front of the shop. People would wait in the cold weather to get a grasp of several of these precious and exotic fruits.

There was one type of sunflower oil, one brand of sugar and a single brand of rice. Period. No vast selection of brands and food types.

My mum still remembers the time when listening to The Beatles was a crime. People who had the luck to travel abroad (believe me, this was very difficult to achieve under the regime) would smuggle records back in the country. The Beatles were banned since their music was part of the capitalist propaganda.

The same ban applied for jeans - the favorite clothing item of the corrupt and morally degraded Western society. I was one of the lucky kids to have a pair of jeans. I wore them until the fabric became so old that it started tearing apart. I cried and did not want to let go of them even after that.

And we had all these socialist slogans. Utterly meaningless examples of socialist marketing attempts among which:

Each piece of finalized production is a nail in the coffin of imperialism!

Each egg is a bomb and each hen is a flying fortress against the capitalist aggressors!

Reagan - number one enemy of Toutrakan municipality (Toutrakan is a small Bulgarian town. I have whatsoever no idea what the connection between Toutrakan and Reagan was).

Each meatball is a bullet against capitalism! (do not ask me about the idea behind this one)

Long live USSR - the eternal communism creator!

Though I was still too young to rationalize, this atmosphere left its print on me. It sounds amazing, its sounds insane but so many people have lived through this madness... and have managed to survive.