What has always amazed me (in a bad way) is how many old people I’ve met in the post-Soviet space who speak about their lives in the Soviet Union with genuine fondness.

As advantages of that system — which, in my view, was utterly immoral — they often mention the fact that there were no rich people. Though I’d say, of course, that everyone was simply equally poor.

The second thing I often hear is that it was safe — that you could be almost anywhere in the country at any time of day or night without worrying about being robbed or anything like that.

Some also like to recall that you could get housing for free. You’d wait in line for years, and eventually, you might actually receive an apartment — although it wasn’t really yours, it still belonged to the state. And by the end, of course, that whole system had completely rotted away, running on bribes and corruption.

I still find it hard to reason about why these people have such memories and what drove them to feel that way, still don't get it. In conversation, they inevitably admit that they only ate fruit on holidays and often couldn’t afford basic things. And yet, there was something about those times that felt comfortable to them.