If you grew up in the Soviet Union, how is Russia better or worse, today?

I will begin my story with a joke, which was still in Soviet times.
Quite an old Chukchi (Chukchi- is the indigenous people of the extreme north-east of Asia) was asked:

• Chukchi you lived a long life, so tell me, when did you live best - under Stalin, under Khrushchev or under Brezhnev?
  Chukchi thought for a long time and said the following:
• However, Chukchi lived best under Stalin.
  Everyone was very surprised and said that Stalin was the most ruthless leader. Asked to explain the answer to Chukchi.
  To this Chukchi said:
  
• However, under Stalin, Chukchi was quite young and his young girls loved ...
  You put me in the same position, although I was also born under Stalin, my childhood was spent under Khrushchev, my youth under Brezhnev, and in my mature age, all the other leaders.
  To say that during the Soviet times we lived badly, it would be - not true. To say that they lived just fine, it would not be true either.
  In Soviet times, we never thought that we could find ourselves without housing and work. Education, medical care and social assistance were available and were always implemented. Higher education was received not only by those who stood higher on the social ladder. Upon admission, the decisive factor was the ability and knowledge of the applicant.
  When I was studying at the institute, people who used to communicate, in the bulk were deducted for inferiority.
  The society adhered to justice and honesty.
  You might think that I glorify those times. Yes of course I was young and I loved young beauties.
  Each medal has two sides.
  
  In those days, morally they lived quite safely, but in a material sense the picture was much worse.
  We lived very modestly, without excesses. The food was good, but also modest. Many families lived in communal apartments, and lucky people received small separate apartments with a minimum of amenities.
  When I was at the institute, every summer I worked for 2 months in a student building group. There I acquired my first work profession. I became a mason. Maybe some will think, yeah he became a "free mason", or rather joined a Masonic box. I want to upset the dreamers, I just started building houses, although everything in our world is quite symbolic ...
  For 2 months I managed to earn more than 1000 rubles (which at the rate of the dollar in those days was about $ 1100). In addition, I received a scholarship for a good study - 60 rubles a month. According to my calculations for 10 months of the year I had an income of 1600 rubles or 160 rubles a month (2 months I do not think, because I worked at that time in the order of the detachment on full provision).
  When I graduated from the institute and started working at a research institute, I immediately ran into a problem. My income fell sharply and after receiving the salary, paying membership fees to the Komsomol and the tax for childlessness, there were 100 rubles left on my hands.
  This money, which was enough only for food and the most modest purchase of necessary things. A couple of normal shoes had to save a few months. To earn additionally in the legal version was simply impossible. Everything rested on laws that declared any additional work as illegal enrichment or even speculation.
  It was very disappointing when I, having received higher education and having spent 6 years of my life as a result, receive a salary 3 times lower than my school friends, who after school started working for the plant as ordinary workers. It was the policy of the CPSU about the dictatorship of the proletariat. You could achieve something in your career only if you were a member of the party. The engineer of the scientific research institute to join the party was simply unrealistic. the Institute had a strict order for admission to the members of the CPSU (1-2 people per year, provided that there worked more than a thousand engineers).
  After much thought, I decided to serve in the Armed Forces. He submitted a report to the military commissariat and within a month I took the post of platoon commander with the rank of lieutenant.
  Everything changed overnight.I immediately received a separate apartment, a full uniform and a monetary allowance several times higher than my previous salary. Literally after 2 years of service, I was already sent to Germany and then my total earnings was about 900 rubles a month in Russian and foreign currency. Please note that these were 1978-1983.
  If all these described years of life in the USSR were sufficiently favorable, then in the future problems of the impasse in the development of society were increasingly acute. It is impossible to maintain a long production enthusiasm. The growth in labor productivity has actually frozen. Without additional incentives, the people are completely corrupted.
  Then in the course was such a joke:
  The Soviet government pretends that it pays us a salary.
  And we pretend that we are working ...
  As we say, there is a joke in every joke.
  So this "joke" just ruined the USSR.
  We perfectly saw how people live abroad. "Iron Curtain" played with us literally a cruel joke. All these secrets created in the USSR are just legends about a beautiful life in the west. We began to idealize capitalist society and many people were eager to go abroad. The first emigrants were people of Jewish nationality under the program of family reunification.
  
  By that time, I had already lived in the GDR for about 10 years. Western life, even because of the Berlin Wall, was visible in all its glory. A large mass of Soviet people did not even suspect the validity of the Western way of life, which had its own equally profound flaws.
  All this led to years of restructuring and democratic upheavals. As a result, Russia remained virtually alone against the hostile Western world. Now there is a revival of Russian identity. role of Russia in the present world. We learned a lot from the west and we still have some elements of the former socialism. All this is ours, the society, which has been won by the people, which has successes and shortcomings. Who fights against his old and new enemies, who also acquires new friends. Freed from the constant "feeding" of their former and betraying "independent" countries, the Russian people began to live much richer. We live in the best living conditions. Many can even afford real villas. We go on foreign cars. We do not have problems with food, clothes and entertainment.
  
  If you compare how the family lived under the Soviet Union and the current average family, then of course it was impossible to imagine it to former citizens even in fantasies. You can not of course idealize our reality. A lot of new problems have appeared in the country, which are "solved with a creak". Now we do not like the economic policy of the government, much harm is also brought by sanctions from the west. The United States has placed the cornerstone-by any means economically weakening Russia, politically to discredit our country. The US forces its vassals to make unpopular decisions. Now, due to sanctions, the European Union has suffered more than Russia and every year the fertile Russian market is moving away towards Asia.
  Bridging the line under this "opus" I can say that we live much better than under the USSR, but we want to live even better and strive for this.
  I do not envy those who try to stop us ...
  
  "Topol" is not afraid of sanctions
  SS-25 Sickle