What is "Liquid Ruble" and how they were built on it in the era of the decline of the USSR

Money is different: paper, metal, plastic and even electronic. Digital currencies with the prefix "crypto" are in price and fashion now. But some "cryptocurrencies" have been around long before the internet went mainstream. One such unit of account from 1985 to 1991 was the usual half liter of vodka. How to buy building materials and services for a strong intoxicant - read on.

Grandma's strategic reserve

Andrey, FORUMHOUSE member:

“In the eighties I was still a schoolboy, but I remember all the events of that time well. We practically did not use alcoholic drinks at home - everything obtained and bought with coupons was stored in the basement.

I didn’t really understand in what case all this was stored, but my grandmother, and she was in charge of the “warehouse,” said that this is our strategic reserve. "Like this?" I thought. Really, when there is no food, we will drink it together? But later I found out what this supply of vodka and other alcohol-containing ones is for.

It all started with asphalting the road. Once, returning from school, I saw on my street a lot of construction equipment, workers, heaps of rubble and piles of curbs. Thus began the long-awaited ennobling of our private sector.

When the work was nearing completion, the asphalting process unexpectedly turned towards our courtyard. A new resin-smelling coating appeared in front of our house and in the yard. Were asphalted: the entrance to the house, a large area under a canopy and all the paths in the yard.

The workers rolled the asphalt with hand rollers until the evening. After the completion of the work, the settlement in "liquid currency" followed. I don't know exactly how many, but the boss took the full bag of jingling bottles. The workers got something in their hands. "Here's a liquid ruble for you!" - said the grandmother.

In 1987 we started building a house and a bathhouse, with the purchase of building materials preceding it. They were brought both during the day and in the evening, and some even at night. Now Gazonchiks, then Zilki, then RAFiki drove up. Something was unloaded manually, but something was dumped. As a result, the yard, all the sheds and the garage were gradually filled with building materials, and the "strategic reserve" decreased.

For several seasons, a new house has been raised. By today's standards - a nondescript house of 95 sq. meters of white brick. But then it was almost "a luxurious villa of under-cut capitalists" - as the quarrelsome neighbors once said about us.

The highlight of the house was the toilet and shower inside! This is an unprecedented thing - a toilet in a private house! The toilet bowl, shower tray and other plumbing were brought in at night, and they unloaded it all in such secrecy, as if it were a biological weapon. I was asked not to tell about everything I saw at school.

I am not saying that everything was brought exclusively for vodka. It was also paid with money. As a result, the construction site cost almost 8 thousand rubles. How many of them were paid in "Liquid Currency" and saved on this, I do not know. I remember well one moment when a friend came to my grandfather, brought lumber and asked for vodka for his daughter's wedding. Obviously, it was more difficult to get it than to write off a half-truck of the forest from the base ”.

Domestic corruption or a consequence of Prohibition?

And really, if you want a new faucet for the kitchen or a ceramic sink - give it to your paw. If you don't gild the handle, you won't get anything. This, of course, is a rough comparison, but everyday corruption in the conditions of a shortage of consumer goods was very developed.

In the Gorbachev era, when the anti-alcohol campaign started, alcohol became a welcome bribe. Then the "Liquid Ruble" became a hard convertible currency. And what happened at the construction site in those days? A mess where you can buy everything - from cement and fittings to scarce tiles. The blessing of good in the Land of the Soviets was immeasurable, but they only disposed of it negligently.

If construction began next to the private sector, then the flow of free building materials was partially distributed among individual houses. It was always possible to negotiate with builders, to barter or buy something.

As a result of such negotiations, equipment is carrying something somewhere past the construction site; tractors dig and level the ground on the side; brick garages and baths are growing in the courtyards of wooden houses; and an ordinary builder throws a roll of roofing material over the fence - for with his hands they will take it away. The name of all this is shabashka.

Here, apparently, one is superimposed on another. Giving small household bribes is a tradition that came from Asia - they did not approach the authorities there with requests without gifts. And vodka, when it became scarce, turned into a unified currency for settlements. But in any case, this currency is devilish and it did not bring anything good to the family.

Have you paid for anything in alcohol? Witnesses of those times, write in the comments!

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