In the weird and mean empire of malicious management and brutal control, known as USSR, some of the things worked fine for Georgia, as strange as it might sound. It would be pathetic of me to feel nostalgic about those wicked times. I don’t! I swear upon anything that could be called honest inside me. I simply want to try to be fair in appreciation of our bygone days. 

To detail the past, territorial integrity was not an issue; ethnic strife

was not heard of, at least audibly; sense of avid ownership, making so much harm, was nonexistent; taxes were symbolic; unemployment looked negligible; legislation and government were rubber-stamped and thus with minimum headaches; demographic situation made us feel proud and happy; emigration was at nadir and nobody felt miserable about it; education was extremely well organized and free, although ideologically marked and restrained; healthcare was as good as it could be at that time, and it was absolutely free; none of us cared about insurance and the rip-offs, perpetrated by today’s providers. Food in stores used to be healthier – scantier though, and prices on them hardly were growing; confrontations of any kind were simply not allowed because it was deemed a source of overwhelming destruction; scary thoughts about the future did not disturb anybody – people were living as if somebody very powerful were backing them on permanent basis, and taking care of their hopes to come to fruition and their dreams to come true. And all that was not a mirage but a reality. So where is the progress? Is it in the variety of luxury cars being nervously driven around by survival-preoccupied citizens of these happier times? Is it in cell phone communication – the debilitating process, consuming huge amount of time and nerve although accelerating contact between people? Is it in big comfortable homes? – Comfort is within me, not outside! Is it in a travel opportunity created thanks to transportation boom, making the world a smaller place? – You know, one of my cousins, a strapping fellow of sixty has never ever left the boundaries of his beloved village but he feels and recognizes himself as the happiest man on earth, living with his beautiful wife and kids, making enough wine for the family to use and watching TV only once a week. Is it democratically held elections for giving a human face to politics? – Do we really need that? Is it freedom of speech? – How much does a rank-and-file benefit from it? What is the indicator of actual progress? Naturally, its yardstick has changed around the world in general and is still changing compatibly with the boom of science and technology. What I am seeking to understand is how much the concern for survival has slacked and how easier it has become to feel humanly happy. I personally feel happiness, derived from progress, when my way of thinking is coincidental with my way of life which, as I have come to believe is a problem for the majority around me. So, where is the progress? And what does the already achieved progress actually mean for our Modus Vivendi and Operandi too, if you will?