What everyday life looked like in the Soviet Union

Everyone's heard of long Soviet bread lines, but that's not even the half of it. Even a self-proclaimed "well off" American student living in Moscow in the mid-'60s says that getting any food at all was a tremendous chore. Dr. Naomi F. Collins says that "exhaustion" followed her in the "efforts of daily living." Even buying staples like cheese and rice "took forever" because you had to stand in long lines for nearly every item you wanted.Even after waiting, you didn't get the item directly; you had to get vouchers at each "station" and pay a cashier before going back to the stations and picking up your items.