I suggest talking to some people who actually lived through the pre-perestroika era in the USSR.
Yes, there was generally clothing in stores. Whether there was clothing in your size (no matter what size you were; pretty much all normal sizes tended to be hard to find in practice) was a big gamble on any given day.
When you say "apartments were small"; I just want to make sure we understand that we're talking about things like a family of 4 living in a 16 sq meter room plus shared access to a small kitchen (this is personal experience here).
And note that if we're talking about smaller towns or villages the situation was different yet again: more living space, but running water might be a real problem. Heck, consistent hot water was a problem even in reasonably large cities.
The 80s brought their own set of problems, but it was not all rosy before that, by a long stretch. Saying "it was all there" elides the fact that what was there was quite poor quality, especially compared to what was available even just across the border in Romania, much less Western Europe or the US.
Yes, there was generally clothing in stores. Whether there was clothing in your size (no matter what size you were; pretty much all normal sizes tended to be hard to find in practice) was a big gamble on any given day.
When you say "apartments were small"; I just want to make sure we understand that we're talking about things like a family of 4 living in a 16 sq meter room plus shared access to a small kitchen (this is personal experience here).
And note that if we're talking about smaller towns or villages the situation was different yet again: more living space, but running water might be a real problem. Heck, consistent hot water was a problem even in reasonably large cities.
The 80s brought their own set of problems, but it was not all rosy before that, by a long stretch. Saying "it was all there" elides the fact that what was there was quite poor quality, especially compared to what was available even just across the border in Romania, much less Western Europe or the US.