Fiona Hill

You'd go into a shop that was supposed to sell boots and there'd be just one pair of boots all in the same size and the same color.

I actually lucked out because once I was in this Hungarian boot shop that was right next to where my hall of residence was and I was looking for a new pair of boots and every single pair of boots in the shop were my size.

And they were all women's boots.

There were no men's boots at all, you know, because there has been an oversupply of boots in that size production.

But you could really kind of see here that there was something wrong.

And, you know, in the north of England, everything was closed down.

The shops were shuttered because there was no demand because everybody lost their jobs.

There was massive employment.

When I went off to university in 1984, 90% youth unemployment in the UK, meaning that when kids left school, they didn't have something else to go on to unless they got to university or vocational training or an apprenticeship.

And most people were still looking, you know, kind of months out.

of leaving school.

And so shops were closing because people didn't have any money.

You know, I had 50% male unemployment in some of the towns as the steelworks closed down and the wagon works, the railways, for example, in my area.

But in Moscow, people in theory did have money, but there was just, there was nothing to buy.

Also, the place was falling apart, literally.

I saw massive sinkholes open up in the street, balconies fall off buildings, you

And then there was, you know, this real kind of sense, even though the vibrancy and excitement and hope of the Gorbachev period, a real sense that the Soviet Union had lost its way.

And of course, it was only a year or so after I left from that exchange program, and I'd already started with my degree program in Soviet studies at Talbot, that the Soviet Union basically unraveled.

And it really did unravel.

It wasn't like it collapsed.