Although there was no tabloid press and the Internet in the Soviet Union, the genre of so-called urban legends existed at that time. There were real "horror stories" passed from mouth to mouth and sometimes passed off as the truth.
Maggots in kvass
They said, for example, that once a barrel of kvass was turned over - the same one that was sold on the streets, poured into mugs and cans. And it turned out that giant maggots were moving at the bottom of the barrel (for reference: maggots are worms that eat the decomposing bodies of the dead). This legend also existed in another version: at the bottom of the barrel was a human corpse! And buyers drank this kvass …
Pest foreigners
It was difficult to buy tasty sweets in the USSR, they were very scarce. And so a legend was born: foreigners allegedly approached Soviet children on the street and treated them to chewing gum or sweets that were infected with tuberculosis or syphilis. Alternatively, the sweets were stuffed with needles, pieces of razor blades, or whalebone.
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Infected jeans
Good branded jeans in the Land of the Soviets were also a terrible shortage. They were often bought from farmers, who, in turn, bought them from foreigners. And they were selling jeans infected with syphilis. Or a bag with fleas or lice went to the jeans.
Rat in kindergarten
The story is like this. In one kindergarten, rats were poisoned. And now the animal, which had swallowed rat poison, accidentally fell into the cauldron in which the cook was preparing semolina for the children. All the children who ate this porridge were poisoned and then died.
Afghan rat
This legend was born in the 80s, at the height of the Afghan war. One family bought a dachshund puppy who behaved strangely, ate too much and paid special attention to the owner's child. After the "puppy" bit the child to death, and it turned out that this was not a dachshund, but an Afghan rat: they say, these animals were specially sent by the Mujahideen to the rear of the enemy to kill people.
"Product" legends
There have been many legends about food. Allegedly, toilet paper was added to the sausage, butter was made from oil, and vodka was driven from sawdust. It was as if washing powder was added to the beer to create more foam. They also said that in sausages, pies and other products, sometimes rat paws and tails, and sometimes even human teeth and fingers, are found!
Vampire mosquitoes on BAM
There was a legend that bloodless human corpses were found at the BAM construction sites. All these people became victims of a special breed of mosquitoes that drank all the blood from them.
People walled up in walls
There is an old belief that a building will stand firmly if it is walled up in a person's wall. And then there were rumors that during the construction of each house someone would be killed and walled up. Most often it is one of the workers or even a foreman.
Uranium mines instead of "derrick"
In the USSR, there was still such a measure of punishment as the death penalty. But, according to rumors, those sentenced to the "tower" were sent to work in uranium mines instead of death. Most of them died there, but sometimes they also met the living - very sick people, without teeth …
Lost places
They said that the bandits were losing seats in cinemas at cards. The loser had to come to the session, sit behind the lost seat and kill with an awl in the heart of the spectator who was sitting there. The same allegedly happened with the seats in the train carriages.
Ruined escalator
There was such a "horror story" associated with the metro. As if, if the escalator deteriorates, then the passengers who are traveling on it at that moment will fall inside it and there will be ground by gears. And the authorities hide such cases …
Killer doctors
There were many legends about medical killers in the USSR. Their essence was the same: instead of saving human lives, doctors killed people. For example, they talked about a gang of doctors who specifically kidnapped children in order to pump out their spinal cords for transplantation to paid patients.
Gagarin's fate
After it became known about the death of the first Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, there were numerous rumors that he did not actually die, that his brain was damaged and he ended up in a psychiatric hospital. There were even eyewitnesses who allegedly saw Gagarin sitting in a wheelchair on the territory of some hospital … But this is from the field of conspiracy theories.