8 myths that children of the 80s believed in
Today, even the most naive schoolchild will not believe that for an anniversary ruble you can get a new car, and a kilogram of dried mosquitoes can significantly increase the level of personal well-being. But they believed in the 80s.
The lucky ones who took part in the VI Festival of Youth and Students in 1957 were able to try imported chewing gum for the first time. In the 80s, chewing gum among children became a subject of bargaining and speculation. The owner of the Turbo wrapper, which appeared in the late 80s, automatically rose in the eyes of his peers. What can we say about those who could effectively take a pack of gum out of their pocket and offer it to friends.
At this time, there were rumors among schoolchildren that the still active “enemies” were inventing new sabotage measures to harm the Soviet pioneers, for which blades were placed in some chewing gum. Many children were so imbued with these stories that, as adults, they continued to break the stick of chewing gum into two halves before consuming it.
In 1965, the first anniversary ruble was minted in the Soviet Union with a circulation of 60 million pieces. The sum of one ruble in itself was already wealth for a Soviet child, let alone an unusual anniversary coin. In the 80s, Soviet children enthusiastically told their parents that there was a certain secret government organization that would willingly exchange an anniversary ruble for a real car.
The reasons for the unprecedented generosity seemed very transparent: the iron ruble was allegedly made from a miracle metal, which the Japanese and Americans were tirelessly hunting for. The metal was so secret that no one knew its exact name, as well as the name of the organization that exchanged rubles for cars.
There was a myth among teenagers in the 80s that if you loaded a mysterious red film into a camera, the people in the photo would appear without clothes. Naturally, no one had ever seen such a film, but everyone dreamed of getting it. Schoolchildren who were lucky enough to get a camera took pictures of their classmates shouting “Now you are on red film!”, which drove the latter to hysterics. True, of course, no one has ever seen the compromising photographs.
One of the first electronic games appeared in the 80s. Thousands of Soviet schoolchildren watched a wolf catch eggs on a black and white screen. Apparently, trying to somehow justify their fooling around, while their peers were scouring the city in search of scrap metal and waste paper, the owners of the game said that if they managed to score a certain number of points, a gorgeous Disney cartoon would be shown.
The older generation, not advanced in terms of computers, believed that this was possible. The wolf actually made some ridiculous movements when achieving a certain result, but calling them a cartoon was a huge stretch.
Even scientists don’t seem to think about how much a mosquito weighs. But Soviet schoolchildren in the 80s often wondered how many blood-sucking insects needed to be killed in order to collect a “herbarium” weighing a kilogram. The reason for the search for a solution to such an unusual problem was a legend according to which something “super” was given for a kilogram of dried mosquitoes. What exactly - no one knew. Sometimes it was a question of a very large sum of money. The main problem, according to the young naturalists, was that less than a kilogram was not accepted, and collecting an entomological collection of a given weight could take a lifetime.
The peak of karate's popularity in the Soviet Union also occurred in the 80s, despite numerous bans. The boys eagerly imitated the fighters who defeated a crowd of opponents with almost their bare hands. Shouting “kiya!” and almost every schoolchild knew the traditional karate stance. Sometimes self-taught people “honed their skills” through the “folk training system.” For example, if you rub the edge of your palm with a pencil lead for a long time, you can then easily break bricks.
There were two conditions that had to be met. First: the pencil must be Chinese. Second: I had to use up all the lead. Needless to say, it was very difficult to get imported products in the 80s, and not many people had the patience to complete the “exercise.” The most determined ones, however, completed the job and often ended up in the hospital with broken fingers or wrists.
For many Soviet schoolchildren, a brand new “Orlyonok” bicycle was just a dream. Thus was born a myth that promised to make the fairy tale come true. If you collect the mysterious numbers that, for some unknown reason, were placed on one of the cartons of a pack of Cosmos cigarettes, you can become the happy owner of your own means of transportation.
There were a huge number of variations of this legend: numbers could be looked for not only in packs of Cosmos, but in other cigarettes, and for a complete combination they gave not a bicycle, but an air gun. Whether someone managed to collect all the numbers from 1 to 15 and where the miracle exchange took place - history is silent about this, but the fact that my father’s cigarette packs were controlled and mercilessly tortured in search of the magic numbers is a fact.
The horror myth about a black tinted bus (or “Volga”) traveling across the open spaces excited the minds of Soviet children. Allegedly, children were lured into it under various pretexts and taken away in an unknown direction. For what purposes - history is silent. It was very easy to recognize the bus that “killed millions”: its license plate contained two “S” and “D”, which stood for nothing less than “Death to Soviet children!”
An instructive story once and for all discouraged obedient children from talking to strangers, much less getting into their car. In addition, many parents intimidated their children with stories about killer toys that could be found on the street. At home, toys “intensified” and destroyed not only little owners, but also entire families. Bringing such finds home was strictly prohibited.