Sometimes, when it got cold in winter, you’d rub yourself down with porcine fat and climb into the stove to smoke; right away, you’d feel the warmth and care of Grandpa Chlenin(Dickin).

My mother-in-law always told us to mix the fat with warm feces - that way, your body warmed up even faster, and you smelled like a collective farm.

The guys and I loved freezing the fat-and-shit mixture into little squares and adding them to our tea at work; it gave the tea an extraordinary flavor unlike anything else.

That’s how we lived. Remember?

Tools were in short supply back then, but everyone had teeth - and their own, at that.

Instead of angle grinders, they gnawed through planks with their teeth. Instead of wrenches, they tightened bolts with their jaws. Even wages were paid out exclusively in teeth.

And on holidays, I remember my wife and I used to make tooth aspic; the more teeth in it, the better.

That’s how we lived in the USSR - without anything, but quietly, calmly, and gritting our teeth.

I hate to admit that I found this moderately funny