A
Mothers Life- Anna Mithaleva
Now living with her youngest daughter in Los
Angeles, California, seventy-two year old Anna Mithaleva was an elementary
school teacher for forty -one years in Communist Russia.
Anna, a widow, has raised her three daughters and has not seen her two
older daughters for years because they live in Russia.
Anna now enjoys her life in America by tending her garden and playing
with her dog Danny. She sat
there patiently on her black leather couch waiting to be interviewed about her
life in the U.S.S.R.
I think that the Russians living in communism believed
education was very important for them. Education
was everything, although people who weren’t educated earned a greater salary.
For example lawyers, doctors and teachers did not earn a larger salary
than the blue-collar employees. During
the 1990’s in communist Russia education was free.
Government paid for all the schools supplies and tuition.
In the U.S.S.R propaganda was used a lot.
Many government people went from house to house to convince people to
say, “yes” for a government and a leader.
There were pictures of the government and the biography and pictures
would be everywhere.
In the U.S.S.R there was not a lot of discrimination.
If I am not mistaken there were ninety-three nationalities in Russia and
everybody was equal. Contrary to
popular beliefs that people could not elect whomever they wanted, men and women
were treated equally. All that
mattered to the people was if you were a good leader.
Voting for elections was easy. The
elections would start six in the morning and end at midnight.
It was quite tiring. People
would go to the government buildings and vote, but everybody had to vote.
The government also provided its citizens with houses.
For instance if a person graduated from collage, the company would give
that person a house. Everything belonged to the government so if
you had children the house would automatically be your child’s.
My house in Siberia, Russia now belongs to my oldest daughter.
People would inherit their houses from their family.
Usually the male in the family would inherit the house because the female
would move to her husband’s house. If a person were not educated they would
live with their parents or would build a house.
Housing, education, and even hospitalization were under the government it
was interesting. Churches were
closed and people were not allowed to practice their religion in the Soviet
Union. The older citizens, who were
born before the Revolution 1917, went to church.
However the younger citizens didn’t go to church or practice religion
because they were taught Atheism. It
wasn’t until 1980’s where everything changed.
Once they were allowed to practice religion people started to go to
Church. I went to an Orthodox
Church near my home.
I would say that my favorite aspect about socialism in Russia was that
everybody was free. There was no
discrimination and everybody was equal. Children
believed that education was needed. But
my least favorite aspect about socialism would be that the government creates
deficit. There is always deficit of
food and merchandise. There is no
class in U.S.S.R; well actually there are three classes.
There is the upper class, middle class, and lower class; most of the
people were in middle class.
If it was up to me I would prefer capitalism to socialism and many of the
younger citizens of Russia prefer capitalism.
People now have freedom of speech and there is never a deficit.
The only problem is that people don’t make enough money and there is a
huge gap between the upper and lower class.
Since the 1990’s everything changed.
Everything was shown on television and how there was violence, drugs, and
rapes everywhere. Russia is no
longer the same, but it will get better because people have more options now.
Interviewed by Suze Uzunyan