Secondhand Time, by Svetlana Aleksievich, is a provocative, poignant, and evocative account of the fall of the Soviet Union and its consequences for the people it left behind. Through interviews, Aleksievich captures the stories of desolation, confusion, and betrayal that marked the country’s tumultuous transition from communism to freedom.
Key Learnings:
- Understand the diverse experiences of people living during the fall of the Soviet Union
- Reflect on what happens when political and social structures suddenly change
- Examine the complexity of emotion and identity during tumultuous periods of time.
As a UX designer, this book gives insight into how people experience drastic changes in their lives and highlights how their emotions, identities, and beliefs are affected by the political and social instability of the time. Additionally, other books like When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and 2020: Our Common Destiny by Lawrence Lessig, would be interesting to explore in the context of understanding how people are affected by changes in society.
🎀 Highlights
Understand what it means to lose your country and beliefs.
Imagine if everything you believed was true was thrown into question and the world as you knew it turned upside down overnight. How would you feel?
Soviet Union. They were born into a society governed by a Communist regime that upheld state ideology as though it were religious doctrine and suppressed other views.
the people of the Soviet Union. They were born into a society governed by a Communist regime that upheld state ideology as though it were religious doctrine and suppressed other views.
why victims of the Soviet gulags continued to support Communism; why people chose suicide at the fall of the Soviet Union; and how one man continued to drink vodka with the colleague who had made his life hell.
perestroika, a period of unprecedented reform in Russia.
Perestroika had begun around 1985. Gorbachev had triggered reforms, releasing political prisoners as well as loosening restrictions on freedom of the press and speech.
Elena is proud of some Soviet accomplishments. After all, the Russians defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad, built the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and, of course, put the first man into space. But it’s a different world for her now, one dominated by the cult of money.
Instead of evolving into a humane socialism, the country veered headfirst and unprepared into a quite different world: capitalism.
She sees businessmen flashing their diamond-studded phones or boasting about golden toilets. She’s upset people value them instead of writers, poets or actors.
Unlike capitalism, the state ideology was almost religious in quality. Its citizens felt they had meaning and purpose. They were happy to tolerate awful conditions because they believed they were creating a utopia based on equality.
He'd saved up five thousand rubles. In the old days, this would have been enough for a Volga, the snazziest car on the market. But with the advent of capitalism, you couldn’t even get a pair of boots for that! What’s more, his pension was devalued
He'd saved up five thousand rubles. In the old days, this would have been enough for a Volga, the snazziest car on the market. But with the advent of capitalism, you couldn’t even get a pair of boots for that! What’s more, his pension was devalued as the economy changed.
Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeyev. He was one of the most decorated soldiers in the Soviet Union.
Let’s consider Elena Vurievna’s father. He was a veteran of the Russo-Finnish War which lasted between 1939 and 1940. However, he was considered a traitor because he "allowed" himself to be rescued from a frozen lake and become a prisoner of war rather than dying for Mother Russia.
Consequently, he was forced by the Russians to build the railway in Vorkuta. When he returned home, he was unrecognizably thin.
Now, under capitalism, he sells vodka, clothing and plumbing fixtures. And which of the jobs is Anna ashamed of? That’s right. His tradesman hustling.
Now, under capitalism, he sells vodka, clothing and plumbing fixtures. And which of the jobs is Anna ashamed of? That’s right. His tradesman hustling. She is still unaware that he had daily killing quotas and became deaf in his right ear from shooting so many people, or that he used to drown people by tying them up in stone-filled containers and dropping them in the ocean.
Let’s return to Elena’s friend, Anna. She had a son. To her pride and joy, he got a government job. Unbeknownst to her, he was an executioner. Now, under capitalism, he sells vodka, clothing and plumbing fixtures. And which of the jobs is Anna ashamed of? That’s right. His tradesman hustling. She is still unaware that he had daily killing quotas and became deaf in his right ear from shooting so many people, or that he used to drown people by tying them up in stone-filled containers and dropping them in the ocean.
Vanya only did so when he saw another prisoner drowned in a bucket of feces. Eventually, he was released and returned to his old job. There, sitting across from him, was the man he knew had informed on him.
Vanya only did so when he saw another prisoner drowned in a bucket of feces. Eventually, he was released and returned to his old job. There, sitting across from him, was the man he knew had informed on him. But you know what? On holidays the pair would sit together and share vodka.
Some executioners killed themselves. Others, like Anna’s son, were imprisoned even though the violence had been state sanctioned.
Whether you perpetrated the violence or suffered from it, it's clear that everyone was in his own way a victim.
Before 1992, residents of Abkhazia just saw themselves as part of the Soviet Union. It made no difference whether you were Armenian or Georgian. But when Communism fell that all changed. The Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991. Within a month, Abkhazians set about killing Georgians and anyone they perceived to be a Georgian ally. Men, some of them just boys, broke into houses and fired off machine
Before 1992, residents of Abkhazia just saw themselves as part of the Soviet Union. It made no difference whether you were Armenian or Georgian. But when Communism fell that all changed. The Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991. Within a month, Abkhazians set about killing Georgians and anyone they perceived to be a Georgian ally. Men, some of them just boys, broke into houses and fired off machine guns.
She's a forty-one-year-old Armenian. She had to escape the seaside town of Baku when civil war broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Margarita was in a tricky situation.
She's a forty-one-year-old Armenian. She had to escape the seaside town of Baku when civil war broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Margarita was in a tricky situation. Just before the violence erupted, she had married Abulfaz, an Azerbaijani. Before 1992, no one would have cared, but when Armenian homes were being raided, and people were raped and killed, both families were against the match.
Let’s look at Aleksander Laskovich. He came from a military family, but he still found the military environment dehumanizing. He remembers one man killed himself on the way to military training. Aleksander considered suicide multiple times. For him, the training seemed designed to turn soldiers into violent savages.
Other times they were given stray animals to kill to acclimate them to blood.
Chechens are pretty distinctive in Moscow. They have dark hair and eyes. They have to bribe the police so they are not beaten up, killed or robbed.
Even today people are arrested without due process. Protestors are told to inform on their friends. And the police are still using the same Stalinist interrogation techniques. In some respects, nothing has changed.
for some, still living in tiny and remote Russian villages, nothing seems to have changed at all.
Understand what it means to lose your country and beliefs.
Imagine if everything you believed was true was thrown into question and the world as you knew it turned upside down overnight. How would you feel?
Soviet Union. They were born into a society governed by a Communist regime that upheld state ideology as though it were religious doctrine and suppressed other views.
the people of the Soviet Union. They were born into a society governed by a Communist regime that upheld state ideology as though it were religious doctrine and suppressed other views.
why victims of the Soviet gulags continued to support Communism; why people chose suicide at the fall of the Soviet Union; and how one man continued to drink vodka with the colleague who had made his life hell.
perestroika, a period of unprecedented reform in Russia.
Perestroika had begun around 1985. Gorbachev had triggered reforms, releasing political prisoners as well as loosening restrictions on freedom of the press and speech.
Elena is proud of some Soviet accomplishments. After all, the Russians defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad, built the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and, of course, put the first man into space. But it’s a different world for her now, one dominated by the cult of money.
Instead of evolving into a humane socialism, the country veered headfirst and unprepared into a quite different world: capitalism.
She sees businessmen flashing their diamond-studded phones or boasting about golden toilets. She’s upset people value them instead of writers, poets or actors.
Unlike capitalism, the state ideology was almost religious in quality. Its citizens felt they had meaning and purpose. They were happy to tolerate awful conditions because they believed they were creating a utopia based on equality.
He'd saved up five thousand rubles. In the old days, this would have been enough for a Volga, the snazziest car on the market. But with the advent of capitalism, you couldn’t even get a pair of boots for that! What’s more, his pension was devalued
He'd saved up five thousand rubles. In the old days, this would have been enough for a Volga, the snazziest car on the market. But with the advent of capitalism, you couldn’t even get a pair of boots for that! What’s more, his pension was devalued as the economy changed.
Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeyev. He was one of the most decorated soldiers in the Soviet Union.
Let’s consider Elena Vurievna’s father. He was a veteran of the Russo-Finnish War which lasted between 1939 and 1940. However, he was considered a traitor because he "allowed" himself to be rescued from a frozen lake and become a prisoner of war rather than dying for Mother Russia.
Consequently, he was forced by the Russians to build the railway in Vorkuta. When he returned home, he was unrecognizably thin.
Now, under capitalism, he sells vodka, clothing and plumbing fixtures. And which of the jobs is Anna ashamed of? That’s right. His tradesman hustling.
Now, under capitalism, he sells vodka, clothing and plumbing fixtures. And which of the jobs is Anna ashamed of? That’s right. His tradesman hustling. She is still unaware that he had daily killing quotas and became deaf in his right ear from shooting so many people, or that he used to drown people by tying them up in stone-filled containers and dropping them in the ocean.
Let’s return to Elena’s friend, Anna. She had a son. To her pride and joy, he got a government job. Unbeknownst to her, he was an executioner. Now, under capitalism, he sells vodka, clothing and plumbing fixtures. And which of the jobs is Anna ashamed of? That’s right. His tradesman hustling. She is still unaware that he had daily killing quotas and became deaf in his right ear from shooting so many people, or that he used to drown people by tying them up in stone-filled containers and dropping them in the ocean.
Vanya only did so when he saw another prisoner drowned in a bucket of feces. Eventually, he was released and returned to his old job. There, sitting across from him, was the man he knew had informed on him.
Vanya only did so when he saw another prisoner drowned in a bucket of feces. Eventually, he was released and returned to his old job. There, sitting across from him, was the man he knew had informed on him. But you know what? On holidays the pair would sit together and share vodka.
Some executioners killed themselves. Others, like Anna’s son, were imprisoned even though the violence had been state sanctioned.
Whether you perpetrated the violence or suffered from it, it's clear that everyone was in his own way a victim.
Before 1992, residents of Abkhazia just saw themselves as part of the Soviet Union. It made no difference whether you were Armenian or Georgian. But when Communism fell that all changed. The Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991. Within a month, Abkhazians set about killing Georgians and anyone they perceived to be a Georgian ally. Men, some of them just boys, broke into houses and fired off machine
Before 1992, residents of Abkhazia just saw themselves as part of the Soviet Union. It made no difference whether you were Armenian or Georgian. But when Communism fell that all changed. The Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991. Within a month, Abkhazians set about killing Georgians and anyone they perceived to be a Georgian ally. Men, some of them just boys, broke into houses and fired off machine guns.
She's a forty-one-year-old Armenian. She had to escape the seaside town of Baku when civil war broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Margarita was in a tricky situation.
She's a forty-one-year-old Armenian. She had to escape the seaside town of Baku when civil war broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Margarita was in a tricky situation. Just before the violence erupted, she had married Abulfaz, an Azerbaijani. Before 1992, no one would have cared, but when Armenian homes were being raided, and people were raped and killed, both families were against the match.
Let’s look at Aleksander Laskovich. He came from a military family, but he still found the military environment dehumanizing. He remembers one man killed himself on the way to military training. Aleksander considered suicide multiple times. For him, the training seemed designed to turn soldiers into violent savages.
Other times they were given stray animals to kill to acclimate them to blood.
Chechens are pretty distinctive in Moscow. They have dark hair and eyes. They have to bribe the police so they are not beaten up, killed or robbed.
Even today people are arrested without due process. Protestors are told to inform on their friends. And the police are still using the same Stalinist interrogation techniques. In some respects, nothing has changed.
for some, still living in tiny and remote Russian villages, nothing seems to have changed at all.
