The Memories of a 90s Childhood in the Former USSR Bloc

I grew up and continue to live in Romania.

For reference, this is where we lie:

I am literally closer to the Greek islands than Russia.

And yet, Russia has played a bigger influence on my life than any of the surrounding countries. Not in an obvious way — but in a way that lingers on in everything we do as a people.

I live in a city with Hungarians, Germans, Serbians, Bulgarians, and people coming from the Muslim world, as well as a small community of Jewish people (which, from what I know at least, is smaller by the day). This has never been an issue — up until my father’s generation, a big majority of the people here were able to speak at least 3 of the languages spoken in the area (e.g. my father speaks Romanian, Hungarian, a bit of Serbian, and it took him one year to refresh his German to the point where he can have a normal, basic conversation in it).

I was born in November 1990 — roughly one year after the fall of communism in Romania.

Growing up in the 1990s here is difficult to describe to anyone coming from the outside. But, I guess, the best way to do it is by imagining a picture of your own childhood and applying a slightly gray filter over it.

I grew up hearing about the “Mineriads” on TV, about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, and about Michael Jackson. He even came to Romania twice in the 90s, and the rumors about him were already buzzing around. I guess to the date, many remember that one big star that turned his eyes towards a small, a rather unknown country that had just opened its gates (and hopes) to the world.

The music I listened to and the games I played as a kid in the Romanian 90s is an odd mix of the 70s, 80s, and 90s all at once. Somehow, Romania used that decade to align with the West in terms of cultural influences — until then, only people with relationships on the outside could get their hands on a Boney M, CC Catch, or even Abba cassette.

In the 90s, however, they were everywhere. I remember street corner stalls with pirated cassette tapes were everywhere. I clearly remember walking down the street with my father, begging him to buy me one with Barbie Girl!

Yeah, you read that right. I wanted the Barbie Girl song in my ears all day long.

The 90s was also an infusion of cartoon shows the West had already been very well-accustomed with. We will be forever associating Tom & Jerry and The Flinstones with the 90s. I guess many, in many other parts of the world, do that too.

I have a bunch of tastes in my mind when I think of my childhood. There was the Kiss chocolate, the cheap German chocolate everyone who left the country brought to the kids here when they came back on Christmas vacation, a bunch of local and national sweets, an ice cream that was sold as a block (looked like vanilla or chocolate butter, wrapped pretty much the same way too), and then, towards the end of the 90s, I remember tasting McDonald’s for the first time.

We were poor, so McDonald’s was kind of luxury — the kind that happened after Christmas and Easter lunches at my grandparents when I and my parents were walking back home to the other side of the city.

I remember the flat blocs where most of us grew up. They were gray and ugly, and there were children and old ladies outside all the time. Now, they are mostly just gray and ugly. The children grew up and moved to new flats and houses outside of the city area, and most of the old ladies faded into memory.

The summers were filled with calla lily fragrance at night and talks about The Young and the Restless, as well some South American telenovelas that had started to pop here and there.

Like this:

Romanian music started to boom towards the end of the 90s too. It was mostly a dreaded mix between the 80s, 90s, and what would become early 2000s music. Here and there, hip-hop bands were singing about life behind the communist bloc.

This was Romanian pop music in late 90s and early 2000s:

Lyrics on the chorus: “Santa, you’re so young, this is the first night you are visiting me, I won’t let you ever leave again, I’ll have a dream night with you”.

And this was hip-hop:

Lyrics in the beginning: “Behind the gray blocks of flats, we’re here, the vast majority, we live a bit higher up the street, so that you won’t see the hunger so that guys are fooling girls and girls sell p***y on corner street at night. A good chunk of us won’t do anything productive for the community […]” — and the lyrics go on, on the same note. Some will argue this is not hip hop and that the band has since sold out. I did pick this one, however, because I feel it depicts Romanian reality in the 90s quite well.

In between the first and the last song (which, by the way, kind of portray the two extremes of the Romanian society: the high, who could afford to dream, and the low, who could barely afford to live), it’s a true wonder how my generation turned out pretty normal. We carry our grayness in our hearts now, and it’s all covered in a mellow, sugary tune of innocence and childishness. But I think most would agree life in the 90s Romania was odd and happy and terrifyingly sad for a kid — all at the same time.

I remember Ion Iliescu being voted for the second time around at the end of the 90s. That was the only time my father went out to vote — mostly because Iliescu’s adversary had started to talk about sending all Jews to Israel. My father is half-Jewish and he doesn’t like high heat— so he, like many other Romanians, voted for Iliescu.

I remember the first post-communist shopping center in the city being opened at the beginning of 2000s. It was gorgeous, with shiny floors and PVC windows everywhere. It had A/C, and about 20 stores with clothing, cassette tapes, and copycat perfumes. Imagine that! A place with so many stores and PVC windows and cool temperatures during hot summers!

It was everything!

Growing up in Romania in the 90s is like becoming a Millennial on fast-forward. Most of our parents had been the “Decretei”. This is kind of the equivalent of Baby Boomers in the US, but their name is all about a decree issued by Ceausescu in the 1960s that made abortions illegal. Thousands died in illegal procedures — and the children that survived became “Decretei”. Ceausescu, on the other hand, wanted a country with 23 million inhabitants. When Romanian citizen number 23 million was born, Ceausescu went to the hospital and took pictures with the baby.

As of 2017, Romanian population has dropped to 19.64 million.

We were the generation that could have it all.

Millennials everywhere in the world have been told that they can be anything.

Us, Romanian Millennials, we were told that we could do, have, and be everything. We were the generation of change. We were the generation that could see the world. We were the generation that grew up wanting to move to America, and then saw our parents work in Spain in strawberry fields so that we could buy American shoes and American food.

I didn’t have a computer until about 2001 — which was actually the norm for the lower-average part of Romania. When I did have a computer, my parents bought a second-hand 386, which survived until about 2002/2003. The next computer I had came in 2005 — which is also when I discovered the Internet, Metallica, Green Day, and Piczo (this weird social media site where I learned about HTML for the first time).

What do I actually remember from the 90s Romania?

Most of everything, I remember a taste of bitterness that clouds my judgment to the day. Deep inside, I will always bear the memory of a post-communist childhood. We weren’t always poor, but even when things went well, there is a sad fragrance lingering over everything I remember. Kind of like a perfume that mixed the heat of the summers reflected from cemented buildings and the sweetness of candy I will never be able to get my hands on ever again.

In my generation, some people went off to live in other countries. Many stayed — but even more of them will fade away in the following years. Doctors, teachers, engineers — all packing their lives in travel-sized duffel bags and moving to places where they can finally be everything, do everything, have everything.

The gray layer faded into Instagram filters — but it lingers on in my heart.

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