USHANKA SHOW

USHANKA SHOW is a YouTube channel hosted by the Ukrainian-born, Michigan-based Sergei Sputnikoff , who makes videos about everyday life in the Soviet Union.
==Content==
Sergei makes videos dealing primarily on various aspects of life in the USSR, based largely on his own experience in growing up there for the first twenty years of his life until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. He covers everything from daily life, like foodhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Y0NXh9Xzg&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW, housinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsmny-tPgc&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW, grocery shoppinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa6btjwdKTc&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW, televisionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9NhsDoZPsU&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW, vacationinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3ZbcejoVA&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW, to specific events like the Chernobyl disasterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CJoF4Z_-Ro&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistanhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLGSh0EjNLk&ab_channel=USHANKASHOWhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIaGmIH4tdc&ab_channel=USHANKASHOW.
He has multiple series that cover a wide variety of topics from politics, public transportation, occupations, tourism, the military, housing, healthcare, life after the USSR collapse, and many more. These videos are often collected into a single large video, referred to as Ushanka Digest.https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNq3y0OU1_BY0IrB3IOJPDHTj5z_vwH8F
Sergei tells personal stories of his time in the USSR, as well as stories of other citizens living in the USSR at this time. The main purpose of the channel is to explore the former Soviet Union from a personal and nuanced perspective unique to someone who had actually grown up in it.
==About==
Sergei was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (present day Kyiv, Ukraine) in 1971. He grew up in the Soviet Union during its "era of stagnation" that ultimately led to the USSR's collapse in 1991. In 1994, Sergei took part in an exchange program that brought him to the United States, and he has since lived in the US, specifically in the state of Michigan, from 1999 onwards. He has an American wife, and two children, a daughter named Sasha and a son named Oliver.
==Trivia==
* Sergei served in the Soviet Army in 1989-1991 as was mandatory for male citizens of the USSR. He remarked that he was extremely grateful to have been drafted just after the war in Afghanistan had already ended.
* Sergei visits his native Kyiv each summer.
* He was once an exchange student in Riga, Latvia, in 1987. At the time, both Ukraine and Latvia were part of the USSR.
* Sergei has nostalgia for various aspects of life in the USSR, but overall he does not miss the USSR itself, and is glad that it collapsed in 1991.
* He once tried to vacation in West Germany during the late 1980s, but a KGB agent denied him his ability to visit, because he potentially knew "state secrets" from working a job at a tank factory for a month (he didn't know any secrets at all). Sergei stated that this was the straw that broke the camel's back for permanently destroying his sense of patriotism for the Soviet Union, remarking that he felt "trapped in a cage" when a single pencil-pushing bureaucrat was able to arbitrarily deny him his ability to visit another country despite his clean record.
* Sergei speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English. Despite being Ukrainian by nationality, he actually spoke Russian as his first language, due to the linguistic requirements of the USSR.
* His mother visited him in America once in 2005. She had never ventured far outside of Ukraine, and so experienced a massive case of culture shock while in America. She hasn't returned since then, but still remains in contact with him and his family.
* Sergei has since gained a US citizenship after moving to America.
==References==
Category:Educational YouTubers
Category:Ukrainian YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2013