A hushed quiet—subtle acceptance in an inconsiderate world.

On the evening of November 7th, 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin and his followers, changed the course of history. The violent civil war that followed between the Red and White Armies ended in a Bolshevik victory and the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The USSR promised equality and unity, but the lived experience was often defined by scarcity, surveillance, and sacrifice.

For many Soviet citizens, and for one woman, Natalie Igel, who grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the late Soviet era holds a distinct memory. Yet this memory is not abstract—it’s physical. Each recollection is wrapped in a sensory imprint. As she left behind her homeland and resettled in the United States, she carried with her the five senses of a life shaped by displacement, community, and resilience.

Sight: Subway Murals and Unspeakable Customs

Natalie Igel still remembers the Tashkent metro stations—each one a mosaic of pride and propaganda. “Every station was unique,” she said. “One was themed around kosmennatov, Soviet space explorers. There were sculptures that looked like they popped out of the walls: it was a memorial, almost sacred.” Featuring various individuals—most notably Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova—who contributed to the USSR’s role in the Space Race, the station aimed to honor the Soviet Union’s world dominance and unification.

The platforms gleamed under glass chandeliers; the walls were lined with clean tiles. There were no rats, no graffiti—only pristine, well-maintained cleanliness filled the air. “On the train, you got up for older people—whether you knew them or not. That’s just what you did,” she explained.

“Coming to the U.S., it was shocking. There was trash. There were rats. People didn’t stand up for the elderly.”

There was a deep sense of order in the Soviet Union, both aesthetically and socially—one that was not just enforced by rules, but by unspoken mutual understanding. At the same time, this sense of unison was accompanied with one of conformity and inability to express unique beliefs. 

It wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was familiar.

Taste: Candy, Commerce, and Barter

“My mom would bring back Babayeva chocolate from Moscow, and we treated it like gold,” Natalie Igel said. “Each piece was wrapped in silver foil. You wouldn’t eat it all at once—you’d cut it into dozens of little pieces so you could savor it in its whole, so that it would last just a little bit longer.” With its aerated hazelnut texture, the candy was more than a sweet; it was a reminder of love, of care, of home.

Bananas were nearly mythical. “You didn’t get bananas unless someone brought them from Moscow or Leningrad,” she said. Obtaining a handful of the sweet yellow fruits meant standing in line amidst hundreds of other desperate families for hours on end.

Food was expensive. Salaries were low. “One kilogram of meat could cost a week’s wages.” People relied on harvesting their own produce, bartering, and the only real community they had—their families.

Grandmothers became master negotiators. Hers would bring unique melons from Tashkent to trade for other rare goods. “Uzbek melons—uzbekskiy dynya—were so sweet and fragrant. We shared everything between our families. The land between our homes was filled with gardens and tomatoes that looked like hearts. Peppers, grapes, you name it—we canned and stored everything for winter.”

There was no concept of fast food or overabundance. Food was a product of labor, patience, and close-knit trust in a community.

Touch: Frozen Laundry and Black Market Jeans

There were no washing machines. Laundry was done by hand on a wooden washboard, dragging clothing across metal rungs. “In winter, we’d hang the clothes outside, but they’d freeze solid. You’d bring them in, clothes and ice all together,” Natalie Igel recalled, laughing softly. “They’d crumble like stiff paper until they thawed.”

Clothing was not about fashion. It was about function and scarcity. “At sixteen, I got my first pair of jeans: they were dark wash. I bought them from the black market for twenty-five rubles—for us, it was a fortune.” These jeans weren’t just pants. They represented possibility and rebellion; an embrace of identity once thought unimaginable. 

The black market was where you went to get what wasn’t supposed to exist. Western goods, extra food, items smuggled in trucks and suitcases. “Everyone knew, but no one spoke about it.”

Smell: Tomatoes, Apricots, and Disappointment

In the bazaar, your nose did the shopping. “We smelled the tomatoes to know if they were ripe,” Natalie Igel said. “You could tell if something was good. Your whole body could feel it.”

She helped harvest fruits for her family, climbing rooftops to pick apricots off their branches and place them in bitoncheks, metal containers for collecting and storing milk or jam.

Everything had its season. Everything had a purpose. In winter, they pulled potatoes, carrots, canned vegetables, and jars of pickled preserves from the root cellar. “You worked all summer to eat in the winter,” she said. “There was no waste. Nothing was instant. You grew it. You traded. You waited.”

Coming to the United States brought a different kind of abundance—sterile and overwhelming. “Everything was available, but it had no taste. No smell. It was all so… empty.”

The richness of scarcity had been replaced by the blandness of excess.

Sound: Parting Words and Stifled Cries

Natalie Igel remembers the sound of her own sobs echoing in the train car from Tashkent to Moscow—the first leg of her journey to America. “We had to leave everything,” she said. “We were allowed to take only $200 for the whole family, leaving behind any meaningful keepsakes. I left my boyfriend. We had been together for years. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.”

The train moved through the darkness like a goodbye stretching across land, every mile leaving behind her life that once was, every sound a reminder that her world was splitting in half. For days, she wept.

Memories became smuggled contraband: love letters, jewelry, photographs—anything sentimental had to be hidden or left behind. “If it looked valuable, they would take it. You had no control over what you could keep.” 

Years later, she would return to the USSR—just once—to marry him. But the years in between carved permanent spaces of absence.

Last Goodbyes

Though the USSR was on the brink of falling apart in the eighties and nineties, harsh conditions including discrimination and censorship within the republic persisted.  

One of the most harmful forms of discrimination presented itself against the Jewish population in the USSR—from quotas being placed to limit Jewish individuals’ access to education, to increasing risks of physical attacks, my mother understood her hometown was no longer a safe environment to stay in after receiving a series of threats. 

At the age of eighteen, Natalie Igel left the USSR alone. She traveled 6,200 miles to a foreign, unfamiliar territory full of strange people who spoke an equally strange language: the United States. Life was far from easy. It was different and uncomfortable working as a cashier and nanny during the day, only to study medicine at night in hopes of pursuing her dream. 

Today, she lives just floors away from family members in an apartment building. “It reminds me of home,” she says, “how we used to live next to each other, share everything. It’s different, yes. But it’s also the same.”

Memory clings to the senses. In her stories, you can still taste the chocolate, hear the frozen laundry crunch, smell the vine-ripened tomatoes. These are not just recollections; they are inheritances.

The Soviet Union collapsed. Borders shifted. Languages changed. But the sensory map of her childhood still lives on—in the sweetness of a hard-earned treat, the scent of ripe fruit, the unspoken gesture of standing for someone older.

For Natalie Igel, and for so many others shaped by similar journeys, the past is not gone. It’s simply woven into the fabric of the present.

For many Soviet citizens, and for one woman, Natalie Igel, who grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the late Soviet era holds a distinct memory. Yet this memory is not abstract—it’s physical. Each recollection is wrapped in a sensory imprint. As she left behind her homeland and resettled in the United States, she carried with her the five senses of a life shaped by displacement, community, and resilience.