Soviet Garage Video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nNmao6d1ma2wpnU.html Soviet Cars Playlist: kzfaq.info/sun/PLNq3y0OU1_BaHuNpVgwUbY-BKHZyqLc77 Thank you for watching the Ushanka Show! My name is Sergei Sputnikoff. I was born in the USSR in 1971. Since 1999 I have lived in the USA. The Ushanka Show was created to share stories as well as my own memories of everyday life in the USSR. My books about arriving in America are available at www.sputnikoff.com/shop (Russian or English versions) or on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNQR1FBC?binding=paperback&searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt_tpbk&qid=1688731325&sr=8-1 Please contact me at sergeisputnikoff@gmail.com if you would like to purchase a signed copy of “American Diaries” Fan Mail: Ushanka Show P.O. Box 96 Berrien Springs MI 49103, USA You can support this project with SuperThanks tips, or: Via Patreon here: www.patreon.com/sputnikoff Viia PAYPAL: paypal.me/ushankashow Ushanka Show merchandise: teespring.com/stores/ushanka-show-shop Instagram: instagram.com/ushanka_show

I did some research on gasoline in 1977. The median household income in the USA that year was $13,572 or $1,131 a month. The average cost of gasoline was $0.62 a gallon or $0.164 a liter. Therefore, the average Amercian household could purchase 6,896 liters of gas a month. This compares to 2,142 liters an average Soviet worker could purchase with a 150 ruble salary. If both members of a Soviet household made 150 rubles, then they could afford 4,284 liters.

I gotta be honest with ya, I have never thought about gas stations or the price of gas in the Soviet Union. Never even thought it would be interesting when I clicked on the video. But I watched every second and I subscribed afterwards. The way you presented everything was fantastic, keep up the good work.

My uncle was from Ukraine, and he had a Lada as as his first car here in Canada. He said he wrote all his friends back home and sent them a picture of him with his new car.

I am very confused, How the hell is this propaganda? If we are just talking about this video only, he has many times pointed out the inefficient and wasteful soviet system regarding the gas stations. And in the dozen or so videos I from this dude I have seen, he merely talks about his experience and his memories regarding growing up in Ukraine under Soviet occupation. I do not remember him glorifying modern Russia or the Soviet Union and praising their methods and their policies, in fact the opposite. Although 4 years old when I left Russia, I really like and appreciate these videos because they give me a glimpse into the life my parents led in the USSR, and what their day to day might have been like. Cпасибо Серге́й !!

[in a tone of puzzlement] Gee! What work did it take to get a replacement tire for a car in the USSR? As going back many years ago in the US, full service gas stations did carry replacement tires.

Those Japanese gas stations in Japan were for full service gas stations. They fill up your car and you pay while sitting in your car. Usually there is a place where you can see the prices and how many gallons they are pumping. Jomo gas stations still have this type but not the same design. Especially in the city where space in a premium you see these.

Very different from the situation in Romania at that period...we had plenty of car owners at that time, the problem was that gas was rationalized at 20 liters/month for every privately owned car. We also had restrictions during weekend so roads would not get congested; license plates at that time had the format 1-XX- 1234. One weekend the odd plates were allowed on the roads and the next weekend the even number plates. Also at the first snow all privately owned vehicles where banned from the roads until spring.

Those gas coupons look like they'd be easy to counterfeit - did people ever try to fake them? Or were they too afraid of the consequences of getting caught?

These are delightful and entertaining stories and so many nice photos too!

I am also from a former communist country, and we also had these talons, but you could also pay with money. Later when private gas stations appeared, you could steal use your talon, but only at the government owned gas stations. You would get your talon from an employer together with your salary. It was usually a choice, either a monthly public transport ticket, or these coupons for the fuel. People who drove for a living got like a little book of these coupons to use.

I watched the 1962 Soviet comedy film Koroleva Benzokolonki / Queen of the Gas station in English What a Charming and Delightful Film 🥰

I love that you included the negative comment in the very beginning of the video. So many people are missing out learning about the world due to their extreme political views. Thanks for your videos 😊

In 1989, I remember filling up the van we were driving for two Marlboro cigarettes and a package of Gummy Bears. No Soviet gas coupons needed!

One of the most interesting aspects of your show is explaining the underground culture and worker run underground economy.

I had a friend who in the early 80's ran out of gas with his moped, emptied his pockets and went to a gas station to put 7 cents of gas to race back to his home.

Great video! I really enjoy how you detail the intricacies of the reality of these systems, and I especially like the cost breakdowns in present terms. I can't tell you enough how much I like what you're doing.

Great topic I have always wondered how gas was purchased and pumped in the USSR Here in the USA my earliest memory was the late 70s during the so called "oil crisis" There were some gas stations that allowed owners to fill up their car only on even or odd days and usually you were limited to 2 gallons per customer this combined with most average cars getting 10 12 miles per gallon could cause agony. My dad often used siphon tubes to drain his unused gas from his van into our car whenever there were shortages. Despite the price increase at the time gas was way cheaper then than now! At that time there were a mix of full service and self service gas stations. Full service ones meant that a mechanic would rush out to your car when you ran over a tube that rang an air bell and the mechanic would ask how much gallons you wanted also to ask permission to check your tires and windshield wipers and if he could check under your hood ( to check oil and fan belts and radiator coolant and or battery ) The attendant would then pump your gas and look at the gas meter (before digital it resembled the odometer on your speedometer numbers on plastic rollers would click off the number of gallons vs price per gallon). Then he would figure up the cost and you could pay usually by cash or check there were credit card options but no electronic scanning at the time. The full service types I remember up till 1984 or 85 then they began to slowly disappear and only self service stations where left. Interestingly I think the state of Oregon still requires full service stations to guarantee employment . In addition to getting gas going to the station as a kid was always a treat there were great selections of snacks ,sodas and candy and cheap toys!

In UK in the 1930s very few people owned cars but during world war 2 most of those people were not allowed to buy fuel for their cars. Certain people like doctors could get fuel but they were issued with coupons, as the fuel was rationed. They still had to pay money in addition to the coupon but the coupons would be free of charge. Also no cars for private use were manufactured in UK for the duration of the war.

GAS STATIONS!!! Thank you Comrade Sergei!!! The answer to a question i never thought about asking but likes to know

Thank you for documenting and talking about the more mundane details of Soviet life. Stuff like this is important as well, especially if we're to remember what actual life was like, and not just specs on T-34's or something. I'd also imagine the design was mainly for looks at least in Russia. In Japan they probably lined these up and were able to squeeze quite a few more cars per station than at least American ones I'm used to. Since in the Soviet Union they don't seem to line them up (or really be fixed for space either), I imagine they were just a cool new style to wow people with more than function. Or they got them cheap.

1:24 - Black Volga ! Run brown Jacket guy, RUN !!!

Back in 1960's gasoline in USSR was cheaper then soda. 0.07 for liter gasoline and 0.12 for liter of soda drink or 0.03 for glass 250 milliliters. Coupons were used to eliminate cash payments and control gasoline usage.

The B-17 above the gas pumps was known as "The Bomber" and was in Milwaukie, Oregon just a few miles from where I grew up. The plane was removed for restoration some years ago.

Thanks for this fascinating information. I bought your book, it resonates with me as an immigrant myself; I have to admit that my experience was not as colorful as yours coming from the Soviet Union. Lol

1988 Astro OMFG they made sooo many of those!

On the coupons you saw "AI-93". That was the gasoline grade. Equal to around 89 octane gas (89 AKI) in the United States. There were also the unleaded lower grades, A-76 (MON 76) and A-72 (MON 72). To tell leaded from unleaded gas easily, they were tinted differently: reddish for leaded, bluish for unleaded. In East-block countries, the gas was rated in MON (motor octane number). The newer (mid-1970s and up) passenger cars were designed mostly for AI-93, although there were exceptions, like ZAZ-968 that still used A-76, and Moskvitch that had a reduced-compression version that ran on A-76, for the people who didn’t have AI-93 available. The trucks ran mostly on A-76, except for the military trucks. The older cars and trucks were designed for A-72. A-72 pretty much disappeared somewhere in the very late 1980s, In the US, our gas is rated by AKI (anti-knock index) which is (RON+MON)/2. In much of Europe, the gas octane rating is only rated by RON (research octane number), which is why Europe appears to have higher octane gas, though the gas available in the US and Europe are actually about the same RON number. In Germany premium is 98 RON which would be 93 AKI in the United States.

How much did a Soviet garage cost, and how long was the waiting time?

Superb video. Thanks for posting and explaining the system of gasoline sales in such great detail.

You just blew my mind. That's so radical. So different from the normal I grew up with. Not sure I would even want to bother with all the fuss.

I’m sure Brezhnev had suitcases full of fuel coupons for his automobile collection. I worked at an auto consignment auction in the early 2000s when diesel was almost 6 dollars a gallon. It was so bad that many of the repossessed cars and trucks had gas tanks punched or filler necks to tanks damaged due to syphoning fuel. Many times auto transporters would syphon furl using a fuel pump they had out of a car rigged up to a jumper box. I sold premium fuel to dealers when they would pick up a Benz or BMW etc that had no fuel. To cushion the cost I would collect the recycling cash it in then fill a 10 gallon gas can I’d keep in the trunk of my car. This went on for almost a year. Along with the high fuel costs came making more money with pulling cars for transporters / dealers. Meaning they would call me to verify the car/truck was there then pay me to find them and get them ready for pick up. The job barely paid 10 dollars an hour but with what I made in the side before/ after hours or on the clock was probably double what I made in 8 hours. Crazy to think the high fuel prices worked to my advantage.

Excellent pump designs in Ushankagrad, fellow Ushankans. The Japonkee gas stations are partially gravity feed. My guess is the station attendant would pump however many gallons from the ground level tank into the above-ground tanks every few hours. Very interesting, since there are still places here, especially with farmers, fellow Sergie's, that use the above ground tanks to fuel tractors, and right down the road, the county (road crews) use above grounder tanks (like 1000 gallon tanks on legs) for their road graders, front end loaders, dump trucks, etc. Those tanks are used because they are cheap, efficient, easy to maintain, and tend to not draw as much water as underground tanks (which leak as they age). So my guess is that a engineer decided to do the above ground fillers to cut down on maintenance and power usage, and you can control the output to each filler hose fairly easily without a lot of parts (electric, etc.). I could be wrong though...there might be like a 40 barrel pump truck (or bigger) that came thru once a day or so and he filled up those tanks up top, or a tank under ground there, and the attendant kicked on the lift pump every few hours to fill the above ground one up. i don't really known on that, the Japanese ones are designed to save space, the Soviet ones look like they are designed to be bare bones refueling. I only say that, fellow Ushankans, because I knew a guy that owned a convenience store down the road here, and he was looking to add in some fuel pumps, but the cost of permitting and doing an underground tank (just a small one like a 1,000 gallon one) was in the $100,000 range (safety stuff, very expensive). So he started looking at an above ground one (permitted and still safe using berming along with auto-shutoff stuff). Still in the $50k range, but the profit on gasoline/diesel is so low he never did it. He was going to start with gasoline, then add in a diesel tank if it brought more business in (it would have). In that case, the plan was once every few days, a 40 barrel (or so) tanker would come thru, and would have topped the tank off. It would have run from fuel tank, to fuel meter pump, with lots of stuff attached to regulate pressure and safety cutoffs. All of it gravity feed, pretty much like all the counties around here do for their road crews and equipment at the county or state yards. There's a propane place down the road the other way from me that uses that old gravity feed system for their gas and diesel pumps. One above ground for gas, one for diesel, feeding a central island of pumps (one gas pump, one diesel pump, with four filler lines total). Just think, I have seen them, but never seen one work (though my dad says they worked great when he was a kid)...the old filling pumps had a giant handle on them, and a giant glass jar on top of the pump. You pumped the handle and it filled up the glass container to however many gallons you needed/wanted (it had a big red or orange rubber ball that floated in the glass jar to show you). Then you stopped pumping, and put the filler handle in your vehicle, and it gravity fed. Those are long gone now. Only ever saw two of them, neither of them worked.

Wow, what an interesting video with great info and excellent photos. Simply fascinating. You've a new subscriber 🙂

I remember in USSR gas and diesel was free, grandparents was getting coupons for a gas station.

13:25 That little trailer is kinda interesting, especially with that normal car door on the side. Is it meant for passengers? Or just cargo?

love the lunakhod painting!

I adore all the latte Communists among your commentors. lol It's easy to be a good Communist when you live in a wealthy Capitalist country.

In 1977 in USSR gas was free people pay with coupons/talons There no options even to pay for it😂 May be only in Moscow for foreign agents. Find a picture or video of USSR paid gas station. I personally never saw one.

Soviet movie "Gas Station Queen" is on KZfaq. Good movie, about a struggling skater who gets a job at a gas station. She skates around on *INLINE* skates, in a movie made in the early 60s, decades before inline skates became popular in America. She's also a great actress, who reminds a lot of people, including myself, of the "Soviet Gidget".

A very interesting system of distributing gasoline.

11:46 you said it right there on why this system of coupons makes no sense, they had a ton of oil and gas available, it was incredibly inefficient to make people go through this extra trouble and limiting gas consumption. Who knows how much this extra layer of bureaucracy hurt the Soviet economy throughout the 1970s and 80s.

I didn't knew i needed this info, but thank you

Thanks!

Thanks for the video. Interesting

Eye Opener! State control to the max. Scary

I don't understand the hate comments in the beginning. You aren't glorifying the USSR in any way. You are if anything showing why the Soviet system was doomed to fail while showing the human story behind the outcome of the Soviet system. Its just showing the reality of central planning and in just about every case it has huge negatives that underperform an open market. I don't see how that is supporting the USSR at all. I guess if they didn't watch the video it could seem that way. Essentially if you are an idiot.

"Bensin" means petrol in alot of languages, German, Swedish, Danish etc etf

Fuel got siphoned on every stage - from refineries, from storage, on their way to gas stations, from gas stations themselves and then by drivers of state owned companies - shortage of supply spawned a large black market. Besides, why pay, if you can just steal?

I found your channel again! Been wanting to watch your vids but couldn’t remember your name I’m subbed now friend, thank you

Saturday night with Sergei. THANK YOU!!!

I see in these old picture a lot those window gaurd things. In Latvija, they still have them sovet times on soviet Era stores, not in modern times. Was there a lot of theft in the magazines?

Keep posting I love these videos is so cool so see how life was behind the Iron Curtain !!!!

Mongolia still dependent on Russian and Chinese fuel

The reason for the hanging gas pumps is so that it does not matter which side of the car the fuel filler cap is on you can reach it either way without having to watch people turn around because they don't know what side of the car their gas cap is on and it happens a lot in america around me so i wish we had pumps like that..

Them Astro vans are good machinery

“And the driver is checking her out”

Your best bet would be to use ethanol instead of buying gas.

So what kind of racket did the taxi drivers run with gasoline?

This is amazing information

I know I was just a kid, but this was a simpler happier time. I am satisfied with all the nice things I have now, but somehow it was nice to know that things around you are to be appreciated and not just thrown out. My grandparents would probably beat me up over the way I drive my daily car. I use it like it means nothing, while they carefully washed their car every week, kept it in the garage etc.

One thing that I noticed when I was in the Crimea after the fall of the Soviet Union was that fuel pumps were contained in steel box with doors on that protected what looked to me like a 1970s electro mechanical fuel pump. Not sure if this was done for security to stop people stealing fuel when it was closed or to protect the pump from the heat in the summer sun in southern Soviet Union.

wife who lived 30 years in Soviet Union found your product accurate and on point and very interesting. PS she picked and fed me mushrooms and I'm still here. I guess that I didn't mess up too badly or cause significant offense. To your detractor Fu, ...her and the horse she rode in on. Charlie mike!

I live in Michigan

happy weekend John Wayne Cheeseburger :D

You never set foot in a Soviet gas station? Thought you may have gone there to fill up your bicycle tires! Soviet gas stations must not have had any air compressors. To fill up vehicle tires. You must use a hand or foot pump. Primitive by US standards. But you made up for it with gas stations that looked like flying saucers! Soviet gasoline coupons were worst than WW2 US rationing cards.🤔

3.9 liters per gallon. You couldn't buy a lot of gas at 1 time.

3:20 1939 Ford Standart 2 door sedan

Huh, "Ford" cars very similar to this one were also assembled in Riga, Latvia between 1937 to 1940, branded as "Ford-Vairogs", as it was "Vairogs" factory/ Wonder if the particular car was then nicked, as Soviets occupied Baltic states or maybe it's just a "Ford" from the same era.

You don’t glorify anything about the Soviet Union all your videos of just showing what life was like

Where motorcycles as hard to obtain as cars? Seems like they’d be a lower cost alternative and much more fuel efficient.

Hey, I remember one of those Japonka peteol stations in Kyiv, in the mid 2000's. I was still a kid, but my dad would refuel there. I think at the time that station had the cheapest petrol that was good enough for the BMW he had at the time.

4 kopeks per kwh then is as much as some people in the EU pay now if you take a salary of €1500😮

great stuff

Absolutely charming as always😂❤

Good video as always! I wonder if their was a black market or shenanigans with fake coupons at gas stations? On the topic of the overhead gas pumps, I did see those a couple of times when I was in Japan in 2004. I was told there it was for space conservation, eg can fit more cars side by side to fill them up. Now where I get confused is why in the Soviet Union? In that one photo in Kiev it looks like their was adequate space? I guess it looks pretty cool? Those might be a good idea for that Costco gas station thing, fill both sides, fit more cars in?

Greetings Sergei. I totally forgot if you did a video on this specific topic but "farming equipment during the Soviet union" or " lumber workers during the Soviet union" I live in the country side in Texas and always see like harvesters and other crop vehicles. I've always been interested in farming life or lumber workers during that time.

Chevy Astro for the win!

Van in 2:11 looks like Nysa 522, produced since 1969

@UshankaShow you may have covered this, but was there insurance for home and automobile? So if your garage with 60L of gas burned with the car. The insurance would replace or repair the damage. Or were the people on there own?

I went down the rabbit hole and google leads me to believe that ussr commonly sold gasoline that was only 76 octane.

13:00 I can imagine all the corruption around gas.

I still don't get the coupon stuff. How are the coupons given out? Because if it's a first come first serve principle, then they could just give out gas at the station on a first come first serve basis

russian jokes are just like russian soldiers - they never get old :-)

Its to save space. We have one in thane city india .tip mounted

I assume those A-## parts on the coupon refer to the gasoline octane rating? 93 RON is sufficient for most modern car engines, and 72 RON was probably OK for older farm tractors and agricultural machinery, small motorcycles, and maybe older trucks?

That was a beautiful Astro

Those Japanese petrol pumps are a really good idea regardless of what side the petrol cap is you don't have to pick the side your petrol cap

The opening slur by a chauvanistic person who accepts the same type of filth from somewhere else. No need to rerun this. Comparisons between prices of goods and services between these two nations is somewhat misleading because economic setting rules were very different. But the narrative is truly interesting for many dream it can be repeated.

Given the centralized economy of the U.S.S.R., were there other goods distributed by this coupon system? Or was it just gasoline?

Those gas coupons look easy to copy and make fake ones and sell them for few kopeks. Probably I would end up in golag for ten years.

Sergei, I just rewatched your video about your childhood bus trips to your grandparents' home. One thing that was unclear to me. From the last village bus station to your grandparents' how did you get there? IIRC correctly, it was about 3km away. Was this by another bus, foot, taxi, someone pick you up, or hitch a ride? Thanks in advance.

You didn't own a Car and you liked it.

Any chance to share about soviet lighters, matchsticks and other means of starting a fire?

Hey, I’ve been watching for years! I just need to know if your parents and brother are alright?

Looks like things are swinging this way in the West , soon.

Были заправки, где надо было заказать определенное количество литров, но на большинстве оплата наличными проводилась по фактическому расходу, точно как в Мичигане, но только наличными. Был ещё бензин А-95, в одной цене с АИ-93, но значительно лучше. Но он был довольно редок. Существовал черный рынок бензина по половинной цене и ниже, но он касался только А-76. Поэтому многие разжимали свои двигатели при помощи замены головки цилиндров или путем установки дополнительной прокладки...

were they ever Counterfeited? or gas stolen?

I would like to see the average American worker making $4000 per month. Perhaps they averaged Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk with the rest of the country.

if i lived in a soviet union, i would only buy benzin from black market ))))

Gasoline in USSR leaded or unleaded ? Octane ratings ?