Did you live there? I did.
- Electricity rationed: we had maybe 3-4 days per week and mostly evenings and in winter. We lived in a medium sized city. Plenty of villages had no electricity whatsoever.
- Food rationed: You could buy meat twice a week. Bread? Once ever two days. We were lucky we lived close to nature so collecting mushrooms and fishing filled the gaps.
- Hot water rationed: You can get used to cold showers, I guess.
- Ethnic minorities were viewed as vermin (we were one).
- More and more school subjects were thought not in your mother's tongue.
- Roof? Sure we had.
- Lack of market economy? We had "illegal" movies, "illegal" rock music and some "illegal" western tech. There was a thriving black market economy.
- Your phone was constantly taped and listened on.
- You were afraid who you talked to, were afraid of your friends because they could be informants.
- Criminality low? Maybe in one aspect but corruption was through the roof. You wanted something? Bribe someone.
- There was also a pandemic of alcoholism and violent men towards their wives. My father and 3 of my 5 uncles were part of this statistic. So were thousands of others.
But yeah, life was "not bad".