Vinegar was the only product available in most butcher/meat shops. Food, goods and petrol were rationed. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=https:/... You needed special cards to be allowed to buy, not that shops actually had anything to sell.
There were very few options:
-Pewex/Baltona, special shops accepting western currency only. Meant for elites and select few allowed to travel abroad (musicians, sailors, pilots, stewards), and to drain currency from black market (prostitution, smuggling).
-black market and connections. Empty shop shelves, but there was always something under the counter for the right people.
-barter, inflation made native currency meaningless, but you could exchange your petrol cards for some meat etc.
-farming family. Every holiday ended with cars full of eggs, meat, milk, honey and spirits travelling back home.
Do you have family in rural parts of the country? This is the cheapest option for surviving such nightmare :(
We didnt need twitter, mainstream TV series (subs, alternatywy 4) and movies (mis, co mi zrobisz jak mnie zlapiesz) pretty much celebrated Polish ingenuity in the face of economic reality :/ examples:
Thanks, those videos are really bewildering. Were they commonly watched by Poles back then? Weren't such direct depiction of how things were opposed by the establishment?
There was extreme media censorship (GUKPPiW 1946-1990), but directed almost exclusively towards dissident political statements and praise of western prosperity. You were still allowed to show foreign wealth as long as you showed for example how easily Polish creativity fleeced westerners out of it. Labelling everything as a comedy also helped, still for example 'Alternatywy 4'(same director as the clips below) spend 3 years being edited/censored. Those were prime time TV shows broadcast couple of years before fall of the Iron Curtain, maybe even slightly contributing to the growing unrest and eventual Polish exit from the Eastern Bloc.
TV was not allowed to show anything celebrating western lifestyle. We didnt get Miami Vice, Wonder Years, MacGyver, A Team or Dynasty until ~5 years after kicking Russians out of our country. Instead foreign tv shows we had were 'Escrava Isaura' and some old chestnuts from the fifties like Zorro. Cinema was a lot better, scifi movies had little trouble with censorship, we got 'New Hope' in 1979, 'Empire Strikes Back' in 1982, 'Terminator' in 1985. Toho Kaiju movies came out same year as in the west. Of course you could get censored for something entirely not in the movie. 1984 'NeverEnding Story' was delayed into 1987 because of directors earlier work 'Das Boot'.
http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/3/5275/z5275403Q,Puste-polki-w-sklepi...
http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/e6/f6/f2/z15922918Q,Tak-wygladaly-skl...
http://i.iplsc.com/puste-polki-w-sklepie-miesnym-typowy-wido...
http://chrisniedenthal.com/public/upload/works/big/54bd379cc...
http://d.polskatimes.pl/k/r/11/a2/d3/4dca472ebf5c0_p.jpg
http://i.wp.pl/a/f/jpeg/26325/kolejka.jpeg
http://i.wp.pl/a/f/png/26326/kolejka_przed_sklepe_73024g_126...
http://static.prsa.pl/images/e1379cd8-917c-44e5-acea-6898b64...
toilet paper queue http://kk24.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/foto-Bogusław-Rogo...
Vinegar was the only product available in most butcher/meat shops. Food, goods and petrol were rationed. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=https:/... You needed special cards to be allowed to buy, not that shops actually had anything to sell.
There were very few options:
-Pewex/Baltona, special shops accepting western currency only. Meant for elites and select few allowed to travel abroad (musicians, sailors, pilots, stewards), and to drain currency from black market (prostitution, smuggling).
-black market and connections. Empty shop shelves, but there was always something under the counter for the right people.
-barter, inflation made native currency meaningless, but you could exchange your petrol cards for some meat etc.
-farming family. Every holiday ended with cars full of eggs, meat, milk, honey and spirits travelling back home.
Do you have family in rural parts of the country? This is the cheapest option for surviving such nightmare :(