Cars
The most desirable car in Soviet times for all Soviet citizens, be it worker, professor, director, or general, since 1970 was a Lada, or VAZ (Volzski Automobilnii Zavod - The Volga Automobile Factory) as it was known this side of the iron curtain.
To get a Lada, one not only needed the necessary amount of money, but also had to wait in an endless queue for the car to be delivered. Some say the waiting list could be as long as 10 years!
However, mostly those who could afford to purchase the cars were either high in Party and Soviet ranks, who had special distribution channels, or more adventurous people who earned their living on a slight conflict with the law prohibiting free businesses. The former group got their cars faster, but the latter used advantages of the black market, or connections, called the 'blat system'.
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