Reaction of a Soviet Communist apparatchik visiting an American grocery supermarket for the very first time. September of 1989, Randall's in Clear Lake, TX. More details in the comment section : ussr

hahahah holy shit they are so upset over this

I know this is but it's always fun to read about the absolute shock of soviets visiting a US supermarket and realizing that it's not even some kind of special location or anything, it's just a normal supermarket, one of thousands upon thousands, open to regular people every day. Such a store would be a national treasure in the USSR but it's just some random suburb in the US lol.

When we were already returning to the airport, the devil pulled us to look into a typical American supermarket. Due to how busy we were, we hadn't had a chance to visit any of them before. It was called Randall's Supermarket. From our group, only Boris Nikolaevich and I had never been to this kind of trading establishment. Moreover, this was not a metropolitan, much less a New York store and, according to our standards, a very "ordinary" provincial one. If, of course, Houston can be considered a province.

Getting off the bus, I began to look for a crowd of people and something similar to our line. However, there was no queue - neither around nor in the store itself. This is a one-story building made of light metal structures. Naturally, none of the service personnel knew about our arrival and therefore there could be no talk of any "showing off". An ordinary day, an "ordinary" assortment, "ordinary" visitors...

The abundance of light immediately struck me. And in general, the color scheme of everything was so bright and impressive that it felt like we were descending into the very depths of a kaleidoscope. I was also fascinated by the abundance of flowers - juicy, and vibrant, as if they had just been cut from a flower bed. Moreover, the flowers are not for sale, but as a decorative element.

As soon as we entered the supermarket, they immediately invited someone from the administration. From somewhere in the belly of the utility rooms appeared a very handsome young man in a snow-white shirt, neatly combed and, of course, smiling. It was the chief administrator. We introduced ourselves and said that we would like to get acquainted with the work of the store.

No problem: the administrator gave us a young saleswoman as an assistant, and she led us through the aisles. Naturally, the main thing that interested us was the assortment. And in this regard, Yeltsin asked questions to the store employees. The figure they named literally shocked us, and Boris Nikolaevich even asked again: did he understand the translator correctly? And the administrator repeated once again that the range of food products at that time actually amounted to approximately 30 thousand items. When we walked along the rows, our eyes didn't know where to stop. I assumed different things, but what I saw in this supermarket was no less amazing than America itself.

Some of us started counting the types of sausages. Lost count. I remembered our sausage shop on Krasnaya Presnya, where back in 1963 you could buy "Brunswick", "Stolichnaya", "Tambov", "Uglich", "Krakov" and as many other types of sausages. Then it seemed to me that this was the limit of human dreams and that it was in that store that the first signs of communism hatched. True, over the years, the store's shelves began to empty and now only memories of its bright past remain. I remembered that store and compared it with this one in Houston, and I realized that the abundance to which Khrushchev was leading us had passed us by. At that moment (in Houston), all three hundred research institutes, departments, and laboratories that were engaged in researching the advantages of socialism over capitalism could convince me, but they would also be powerless. American practice, using the particular example of a supermarket, looked a hundred times more convincing than any domestic theory. Yes, not by bread alone... Not by sausage alone, not by cheese alone... By the way, have you seen red cheese, brown, lemon-orange? How many types of cheese do you think we've seen in Houston? What about ham? All this unimaginable delicacy that everyone can try right in the store and decide whether it's worth spending dollars on it? You can't count the names of sweets and cakes, you can't digest their variety of colors and their appetizing attractiveness with your eyes. And although I am trying to convey my impressions, I understand that this is only a pathetic attempt, because the word is powerless before the reality of the American proposal.

Occasionally I glanced at Yeltsin and noticed that this was a difficult test for him. And when a woman with a stroller caught up with him, in front of which there was a little boy, Boris Nikolaevich, apologizing, began to question her. Does she often go to this store? It turns out that only on Saturdays. Is your family big? Three of us: she, husband and child. What is your family income? The woman explained that she is temporarily not working and lives on her husband's salary, that is, three thousand 600 dollars a month. Yeltsin asked how much she usually stocks up on food? It turned out that this family spends about $170 on food for a week. From Saturday to Saturday. She still pays rent, insurance...

In the vegetable section we were literally shocked by the quality of the goods. A radish the size of a large potato is illuminated with bright light, and water is scattered onto it from small "spirits." The radish is literally playing, and next to it are onions, garlic, eggplants, cauliflower, tomatoes, and cucumbers. You want smoked eel - please... Would you like Lamprey? Or is your liver accustomed to sturgeon and oysters? Pineapples, bananas..

The confectionery section can stand for hours; it probably surpasses Hollywood in terms of entertainment. A huge cake representing a hockey arena awaited the customer on a stand. The player figures are made of chocolate. A real work of art, and most importantly - accessible, quite accessible.

In general, this is a hypertensive topic. For Boris Nikolaevich and me, visiting the supermarket was a real shock. My wife today (September 1991) at seven in the morning went to the store to buy milk, but there were lines, lines everywhere, you had to stand for two days for sugar. And this is here - in Moscow, in the second half of the 20th century, 73 years after the Great Revolution and just at the time when, according to Khrushchev's calculations, we should all already be living under communism. Or maybe what we have built in our country is true communism?