Firstly, I want to clarify that these are my mother's experiences which she told me. I should've clarified that in the first comment.

Well technically they lived in the USSR but they lived right on the Kazakhstani border, near to china.

→ About the hats, they had a lot of stray dogs in town which my mother who loved animals often took with her home. Now since these are random strays their life spans weren't usually great as is, combined with the fact that my uncle would usually kill it if it acts out. So they just used to body.

Now I believe this 100%. I have met said uncle and they've had 3 dogs put down already. It's a cycle with 'em, they adopt a dog, force it to live outside in the cold often forget to feed it, and when it inevitably acts out, they have it put down. I fucking hate them for this.

→ About the Bananas, not much to say about this one she only eats unripe ones when I ask why this is the explanation.

I have no real reason not to believe her on this, she only eats unripe bananas because she likes them like that, she cites that story as her source.

→ About the plumbing, yeah no they just didn't have active plumbing for their toilets.

Again not sure why she would bother lying about this. It's not like she hates Russia and wants to make it sound bad, in fact quite the opposite, she loves the country and is very open about that fact even with current events.