Lidia Josifovna Granič

"We didn't know how to go on living. What do we do? All the people were... What's next? How will things be? Where are we going to do? What will we eat? How will we live? There is no kolkhoz, no nothing. They gave the land... there was no tractor, so it was how much you can dig with a shovel. They divided it up but didn't know how to make it right. " "How was the USSR better than Moldova is today? " "The work was organized. The future was planned. We always knew what was coming next. See, my husband and I knew that we had to teach, dress, and feed our four children. We both worked, we weren't lazy. We had everything at home and we got money enough to even save some. During the holidays, I worked in the fields with the children for extra money that we put in a savings account. We did that for ourselves too. We lived in the same house with my inlaws. I wanted to buy new furniture, a new kitchen, a bedroom. The inlaws were sorry about that; they wanted to keep the old furniture because they'd had a hard time making money for it. I said to my husband, 'They're getting old, let's wait for three, four, or five more years, save more money and then buy it.' And when the Soviet Union collapsed, we were left with nothing." "There was no money in your savings?" "We had 5000 rubles, 4000 rubles... and that was some money!" "And you lost that?" "We didn't get anything. They gave us a thousand lei."