“[…] Under Soviet rule, these were still called ‘consumer goods’ [shyrpotreb]—not essential products, but made for the people. The factory produced items like razors, toy guns, and something known as a ‘snake’; it was similar to a Rubik’s Cube. It was long and could be folded up like a coiled snake. When Pshebilskyi arrived, they began manufacturing TV antennas here. Under Gorbachev, there was already talk about taking care of the people. After that, the factory started making compressors, wheels for cars, what else, whitening compressors, separators, and devices for churning oil. It felt like things were moving forward, at least a little […]”
(Employee of Lvivprylad, 1980–2003)
“[…] The factory was large at the time. I can’t say it was one of the largest, but it was certainly among the bigger ones in Lviv. It was the only shoe factory, and during Soviet times, nearly every oblast center—or another location in each oblast—had its own shoe factory. That was how production capacity was distributed back then: each oblast supplied shoes to its own residents. Fairs were held, and if a particular product stood out, another oblast could place an order, and the factories would manufacture and sell to that oblast. Overall, production focused on supplying footwear for residents of all ages—children’s, adult, fashion, women’s, men’s, and so on. The plans were based on state statistics: how many children, women, and men there were in each oblast. This had been refined over the years as they worked out how to calculate it all. Plans were set accordingly: for example, if a factory had a children’s line, a child would wear out a pair over the summer and need a new, larger pair the next year—that’s how it worked. There were plans for how many pairs—summer, fall, winter, and so on—the enterprise needed to produce. Other enterprises, such as the Lviv Leather Factory, were involved in these plans. We also had branches: the Kulykivka Factory, Lutsk Factory, Terebovlia Factory, and Boryslav Factory, each fulfilling a specific production quota. For example, the Stryi Factory mostly made indoor footwear—slippers at the time—while the Boryslav Factory mainly produced children’s shoes. And so on […]”
“[…] It was ’87–’88. “Progress” was so popular then that there were lines of people waiting to get a job with us because we offered good wages and bonuses. But the jobs were fixed, so if all positions were filled, no one else would be hired. That’s just how it was. “Progress,” after all, made a name for itself throughout the Soviet Union. People knew “Progress.” Until 1991, we worked two shifts, and sometimes even three, depending on the plans. Everything was organized—the enterprise didn’t operate in isolation; plans were adjusted as needed. That’s pretty much how we worked […]”
(Employee of the “Progress” Production Association since 1981)
“[…] My job later on was interesting; for example, the factory would get calls saying that stores in Lviv, Kyiv, and Minsk had sent us goods—we shipped them everywhere, even to Cuba and other countries in the socialist bloc. Yes, to Cuba. Then, calls would come from Baku or Tbilisi or Kyiv: ‘Dear sirs, you sent us TV sets, and 20 of them broke down just like that.’ They’d pull one out of the box for a customer, and it wouldn’t work—that was already written off. The tasks piled up to the point where our department… you’d ask, “What was our department even for?” So, they’d send us out—I was often on business trips, as were all of us who worked there: “Go, Vlodko, to Kyiv; there are five TVs sitting in that store.” I’d go, fix them so they could be sold, not sent back to the factory, because otherwise, they’d go back to the factory. The store would say, “What the hell is it doing here? We can’t sell it.” If something went wrong during loading or the picture tube cracked—making it impossible to sell—then we’d fill out the paperwork and send it to the factory in Lviv. For minor issues, like a burnt-out bulb, we’d fix it ourselves. The work was interesting; by the way, I liked that job because I got to travel—I definitely traveled around Ukraine […]”
“[…] I’ll tell you, back in Soviet times, the plan was everything; the plan was the main thing. At any cost. Very often, they didn’t use outright coercion, but money: they’d give a bonus or even pay us immediately. What did they ask for? We’d work until 11 p.m. on the second shift, and they’d say, “Let’s work until 1 a.m., just two more hours,” and for those two hours, they’d give us either cash or a higher bonus later. The plant didn’t operate three shifts for long […]”
(Elektron employee, 1959–1997)
“[…] There was a huge demand for yeast back then. I remember we had a little kiosk that sold yeast—people would go there so they wouldn’t have to go all the way to the market. Even we, on our way home from work, would stop by to buy some so we wouldn’t have to steal it. So, you needed to buy some, buy it cheaper—at retail price—but don’t steal, as they’d say! Stay away from that! The Gypsies had a camp in the park down below; they’d be lining up as soon as it started to get light. In summer, they’d be there, and even in winter those nomads liked to hang around. But in the summer, it was really something—there were kids, women, and men, probably about 30 people in that camp. They’d line up before sunrise, even though there wasn’t any yeast there yet. The truck would barely pull up to the factory to pick up the yeast for sale, and they were already standing in line. How they fought among themselves! Ordinary people couldn’t even get close to buy yeast, not even our grandmothers who sat there reselling goods at the market—blue dye, yeast, pepper, ammonia. They got those products from someone too, but still couldn’t get in there. The gypsies just pushed them aside; there wasn’t even a stone fence like there is now, just a regular mesh stretched out. I saw it with my own eyes—it’s still vivid in my mind. One time, one of them grabbed an old woman—she was huge, a real hulk—by the hair, which she had tied up in a scarf, a little handkerchief like old ladies wore back then. He grabbed her by the nape of the neck and smashed her face against the wire mesh. Blood from her nose dripped onto the net, smearing everything—it was so brutal they called the police, and there was a big fight. There were several cases like that—it was just brutal. Then one day, I don’t know if the police had already kicked the gypsies out, but they were gone. There was a proper line, and people would drive up in their cars. They set up a parking area so you could park normally […]”
(Employee of the Lviv Yeast Factory since 1984)
“[…] Well, I want to tell you that nowadays, if you go into town and walk into almost any hardware store, you can buy a single nut, a tiny screw, a washer, or whatever else you need. Before, you couldn’t find those things in stores. A nut, a screw, something for woodworking, or electrodes—these were usually only available if you worked at a factory or knew someone who did. You’d ask, ‘Bring me that particular nut.’ So, it wasn’t really a problem; people just found their own solutions. There was even a popular saying, often attributed to Vladimir Mayakovskii, that went: “Take every nail from the factory; you’re the master here, not a guest” (a poem by Igor Bogdanov) […]”
(Deputy Technical Director of LAZ, 1986–1997)
“[…] I.: Were there any thefts at Lvivprylad?
R.: Well, of course. For example, knives—we made knives, so I have a whole bunch of them. Then they started making antennas. There were a lot of aluminum parts, and they’d get these big sheets of aluminum—a meter and a half by three. They’d cut the parts from those sheets. The specialists—well, you couldn’t just hoist a sheet onto your shoulder, but since it was soft, they’d roll it up into a pipe. Then you could throw the pipe over the fence, and once it was there, I’d grab it and wrap it up. Oh, and look! I have a memento—a cabbage steamer. It was an agricultural device, a big setup—they sent it somewhere later for finishing, maybe to Georgia. It was called a kopla. It was for soil acidity, feed, and something else. In the West, they make all that out of plastic, but this one had holes for cups to pour the stuff out… it was really nice. It was also made of food-grade stainless steel. They used that food-grade stainless steel for pots. They’d make a pot, and it would go out just like military products do—it was about half a meter in diameter with a tube, so they’d roll out the pot and the lid would fit perfectly. I’ve got a pot like that on my balcony […]”
(Employee of Lvivprylad, 1980–2003)
The materials presented here are excerpts from interviews with workers in Lviv’s radio-electronic, machine-building, processing, light, and food industries. These interviews are part of the Un/Archiving Post/Industry project, carried out in 2020–2021, which aimed to collect surviving materials related to the industrial heritage of the Lviv and Donetsk regions and to foster dialogue between generations, regions, and institutions. The recorded bibliographic conversations have been incorporated into the Urban Media Archive’s oral history collection, “Industrial Biographies of the City.” This collection preserves respondents’ memories and reflections on their childhoods and families, the city, education, work, and society, dating back to the 1950s. The selection of quotes listed below spans the period of Perestroika, the 1990s, and the early 2000s, illustrating the state of production at enterprises in Lviv’s food, light, and radio-electronic industries during the implementation of market socialism.
Since 1986, the autonomy of enterprises in the USSR had gradually expanded, based on principles of self-sufficiency and self-financing. The rights of labor collectives increased, and a course was set for a radical overhaul of production through scientific and technological progress. Nonetheless, state procurement, dependence on sectoral ministries, and the tradition of socialist competitions persisted. The reforms failed to improve the functioning of the existing command economy, which continued to hinder the development of market relations. By 1989, the Soviet economy was in limbo: the command economy no longer functioned, and the market economy had not yet emerged. In research literature, this year is often considered a benchmark for studying later economic transitions.
The respondents’ accounts do not reveal employees’ awareness of issues within the country’s economic system; instead, they focus on planning activities, the enterprise’s daily operations, changes in product range, and the specifics of sales.
One notable account comes from an engineer at a yeast factory, who describes private initiative in the face of commodity shortages. Food shortages and rising prices worsened as a result of the anti-alcohol campaign of 1985–1987. The state budget lost revenue from alcohol sales and reduced subsidies for essential goods. This led to increased moonshining and, consequently, shortages of sugar, candy, and yeast in retail outlets. People obtained scarce goods through middlemen, later through individual entrepreneurs, or by stealing from production. An employee at the yeast factory briefly mentions this, while an administrator at the Lviv Bus Factory repeats a common narrative about workplace theft: a shortage of everyday consumer goods.
Theft and fraud in manufacturing, public catering, and trade in the USSR became part of a mass culture of survival and were not always regarded as crimes, but rather as phenomena explained by the ideology of collective socialist ownership. Specific terms emerged to describe offenders, such as “nesun” [the one who would carry the stolen things away—tr.note] or “prolaza” [the one who would get out sneakily with the stolen things—tr.note]. The issue of theft was covered in the magazine Krokodil and discussed at party meetings.