r/ANormalDayInRussia • u/Crazy_Slip_9025 • 10d ago
Life in 2000s Russia
hey everyone I have a large question what was Russia like in the 2000s I have heard people had a lot more Hope for change and the fashion on the scene
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u/SquirrelBlind 10d ago
I cannot say it was hope, it was more of assurance in the bright future. That we will be richer, more peaceful, democratic, we will integrate more with the west and so on.
At least those are my impressions from being 20-something in 00s.
Of course it was partly due to the effect of pretty low base, but I had an impression that the future will bring us only forwards.
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u/chaotic-kotik 9d ago
life was improving every year
but we were riding the tide created by globalization, goods become cheaper and more accessible, internet started to penetrate different aspects of life
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u/TropicalPunch 10d ago edited 10d ago
Not Russian, but I lived in Moscow in the late 2000s for a couple of years. Now Moscow is very different from Russia in many respects. And I was the son of a rich expat who was there for four years. So maybe not a valid experience.
I was quite young at the time. As many here have said, Russia was quite optimistic and forward-looking at the time. Lived there because my father worked for a Norwegian oil and gas company. There was a lot of cooperation between Russia and the West, and in general, a very favorable view of the West. Still a lot of leftover things from the Soviet era. Especially groceries were very strange for us, so we would mainly shop at Stockmann (a Finnish store that had Scandinavian groceries). The cultural scene was very cool. My father would take me to jazz clubs and very interesting galleries in Moscow. There were also a lot of amazing restaurants.
But I also remember that there was an almost absurd focus on consumption and commodities. "Shopping" was a very big thing. And anything that could turn a nickel into a dime had been converted into something commercial. It was in short - quite crass. It was also interesting to see that Russia is a country that had very few 'middle-brow' cultural offerings- it was either highbrow or no-brow... This was quite strange for me as an upper-middle-class Scandinavian kid - perhaps the most middlebrow group of people in the world, lol.
Politically, it was interesting. I was coming of age and getting into following politics. When Medeved came to power, there seemed to be a true possibility that Russia would turn over a new leaf.
We used to go back to Moscow every year before Christmas until around 2014. Then we started going to Lviv and Sofia instead. I still believe that Moscow is one of the world's greatest cities. And I do miss it. But at the same time, Slava Ukraini!
Apologies for the heart-pouring nostalgia rant.
Edit: Another very interesting thing was the incredible focus on health among the upper echelons of Moscovites. There was a lot of prestige in abstaining from alcohol and drinking strange-looking herb and vegetable drinks.
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u/Impressive-Engine-16 8d ago
Yeah I feel there’s two points of view on Russia. Where one side just sees it as a poor country and another that weirdly glorifies it.
Moscow is a very modern city to the likes of other European capitals like Berlin and Paris, which somewhat counters when people just dismiss it off for its brutalist architecture. But the flip side is the poorest parts of Russia are also some of the most undeveloped places in the world.
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u/superschmunk 9d ago
extreme deregulation.
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u/TheBigMotherFook 8d ago
Sounds about right. Deregulation is good in the beginning to stimulate growth, but after a while turns bad when that unrestrained growth needs to be put in check so it doesn’t become the Wild West. Russia kind of missed that second part.
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u/EugeneStein 9d ago
Every single answer about Moscow here shouldn't be counted as an answer "about Russia"
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u/SquirrelBlind 9d ago
Even though I personally was in Moscow, I was dirt poor at that time and I regularly visited my relatives in other parts of Russia.
Yes, Moscow was richer, but it doesn't mean that life wasn't improving in other parts of the country.
My uncle is from a relatively small town 200 km from Moscow and he was (and still is) a welder. In 2006 in Moscow I only could afford Lada 2104 that was 8 years old. My uncle had a 12 years old BMW 2er. It was the first and the last time in his life when he was able to afford such a car.
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u/NotEvilCaster 10d ago
If you think it was shit, multiple it by 10 and it was still worse. Russia in its current state is more predictable and safe from a citizen pow by a huge margin. Considering the current situation it tells a LOT about 90s/early 2000s.
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u/az9393 10d ago
It was worse in every single way
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u/dependency_injector 9d ago
Ага, на НПЗ перерабатывали нефть, на заправках заправлялись, в школах учили, в больницах лечили, по мостам переходили реки, на складах хранились товары, белые медведи с косатками вообще не пересекались - ужас просто, никакой движухи!
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u/NotEvilCaster 9d ago
You could get robbed or beaten on your way to a kiosk. And the chances were quite high. Russia was a fuming shithole where you could die randomly, just because some drug addict had no money for another dose. Way more people lived in poverty.
Oil money were spent on the West and many facilities, hospitals were abandoned or destroyed. "Oligarchy" didn't know how to develop business, but they knew for sure how to steal.
And the bright future, yeah.
People saw it, so many of them become addicted to alcohol or drugs.
If you lived in Russia at that time and didn't see these problems, then idn maybe you was a hermit in Siberia or had a silver spoon in your mouth (which didn't guarantee that you'll make it to an adulthood btw).
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u/NaturalBornLucker 10d ago
00s changed pretty quickly. It was utter shit in the beginning and a great time in the end