Today we’d like to show the range of goods available to the residents of Herota in 1976.
Everything Herota Has
Bread, grains, pasta, tea, salt, sugar, canned food, cigarettes, and vodka.
That’s almost the entire assortment delivered to the village through weekly shipments.
The quantity is always limited. Even if someone has the right to purchase a product, it doesn’t mean they’ll actually get it.
What Herota Doesn’t Have
- Meat
- Butter
- Fresh fruits and vegetables
- Chocolate
- Sweets
- Most personal hygiene products
Not because the Soviet Union is unable to produce them.
The government simply decided long ago that supplying remote and hopeless settlements like Herota with such goods wasn’t worth the effort. As a result, residents receive only the bare minimum that officials consider sufficient.
Even What Exists Isn’t Available to Everyone
Even this modest assortment is out of reach for many residents.
Access to many products requires approval from the local consumer cooperative. But having the proper documents guarantees nothing—supplies regularly run out before everyone gets their share.
As a result, one of your main responsibilities in Selsoviet is deciding who receives scarce goods and who has to leave empty-handed.
What’s On The Shelves
| 🧼 72% Laundry Soap Officially intended for washing clothes, but in times of shortage it’s more often used for personal hygiene. ──────────────── | 🍬 Refined Sugar Cubes A rare source of simple happiness. Added to tea or eaten on their own. ──────────────── | 🔥 Matches A valuable resource. To make supplies last longer, many residents cut matches in half, while the most skilled manage to split them into four pieces. ──────────────── |
| 🍞 Bread Baked directly in the village store using Herota’s own “special” recipe. ──────────────── | 🍚 Rice Rarely eaten on its own. It’s too dry and bland without additional ingredients. ──────────────── | 🥫 Canned Meat According to the label. What’s actually inside is best left unquestioned. ──────────────── |
| 🍶 “Road to Communism” Vodka Путь к коммунизму / Put’ k Kommunizmu One of the most consistently available products on the shelves. ──────────────── | 🚬 “Dream” Cigarettes Мечта / Mechta The assortment may disappear almost entirely, yet cigarettes somehow remain available. ──────────────── | 🥣 Yeast Officially intended for baking. In practice, residents find many other uses for it. ──────────────── |
| 🍝 Pasta One of the few products that can still be turned into something resembling a decent meal. ──────────────── | 🌾 Buckwheat A staple food for many families, especially when there’s nothing else to eat. ──────────────── | 🍵 Tea Indian, Georgian, or of completely unknown origin. Every package is a small lottery. ──────────────── |
| 🧂 Salt The unsung hero of Herota. Without it, local cuisine would lose what little flavor it has left. ──────────────── |
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All products are based on real goods that could be found throughout the Soviet Union during the 1970s. We tried to recreate their appearance and atmosphere as authentically as possible.
