Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Most Important Supermarket Visit in History (Encore)

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

The cold war was the defining event of the second half of the 20th century.  When exactly it ended has been subject to debate. Was it the fall of the Berlin Wall? Was the day the Soviet Union was dissolved? There is an argument to be made that end might have actually occurred before any of those things, although no one knew it at the time.  The event in question didn’t take place in Moscow or Washington but in a supermarket in the suburbs of Houston.  Learn more about the most important supermarket visit in history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Sign up for ButcherBox today by going to Butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily at checkout to get $30 off your first box! Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Ben Long & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, this is Gary. This week, I'm going on my first proper vacation in several years, and the first since I launched this podcast almost four years ago. As I'm going to be away from the microphone this week, I've lined up some shows from the archives that most of you haven't heard, and if you did, it'll be a good refresher. I'll be back again with new episodes on September 9th. The Cold War was the defining event of the second half of the 20th century. When exactly it ended as been subject to debate? Was it the fall of the Berlin Wall, or was it? was at the day the Soviet Union dissolved. There is an argument to be made that the end may have actually occurred before any of those things, although no one knew it at the time. The event in question didn't take place in Moscow or Washington, but in a supermarket in the suburbs of Houston. Learn more about the most important supermarket visit in history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thulein podcast from NPR. The Cold War got its name because it wasn't a hot war. The Soviet Union and the United States didn't engage in any direct military confrontation. The fact that there was never a shooting war was a good thing, as each side had thousands of nuclear weapons. Instead of direct military confrontation, conflict during the Cold War shifted to other venues. Sports became an area of competition.

When the Soviets beat the Americans in basketball at the 1972 Olympics, it was a big deal. When the Americans beat the Soviets in hockey in 1980, it was a big deal. The chess board became a battleground when Bobby Fisher defeated Boris Spaskey for the world chess championship. The competition, however, wasn't just cultural. There were proxy military conflicts all over the world in places like Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, Lebanon, and Korea. The Americans and Soviets might not have been shooting at each other, but they had people shooting at each other on their behalf. The space race was a technological competition. The Soviets put a satellite and human into orbit first, which scored points for them,

and then the Americans landed someone on the moon, which was points for the Americans. Ultimately, however, the competition between the two countries was economic. Communism and capitalism are economic systems. While this never got the attention of the other things I just made, mentioned. At the end of the day, economics was the thing that set the two systems apart. The Soviets were able to get wins in some areas of culture, technology, and even in some proxy wars. And the fervent communists truly believed that they had a superior economic system that was better than capitalism. This became very apparent in 1959 during the famous kitchen debate between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon.

In a cultural exchange, both countries set up exhibitions in each other's country, when the American exhibition to open in Moscow, it included cutting-edge technologies such as color television sets. As Khrushchev and Nixon walked around the American exhibit, they began an extremely loud and spirited argument in front of reporters in a mock-up of a model kitchen. They argued about the necessity of many of the gadgets on display, and then Khrushchev told Nixon, quote, This is what America is capable of, and how long is she existed? 300 years? 150 years of independence, and this is her level? We haven't quite reached 42 years, and in another seven, will be at the level of America, and after that, we'll go farther." End quote.

The state of the Soviet economy was sort of a known mystery. Everyone knew that it didn't perform as well as Western economies, but nobody was quite sure of exactly how well or poorly it was performing. It was like looking at a blurry picture of a person. You knew it was a person, but you couldn't see any details. Even though the Western economies weren't secretive about their economic data, the Soviets didn't know much about the American economy either. It wasn't that they couldn't get the freely available data. It was that they didn't want to share it or publicize it internally.

As such, the only people in the Soviet Union who really knew what life was like in America were diplomats who had been stationed there or people who worked in the intelligence service. Soviet television would occasionally show scenes of life in the United States, but what was shown was always carefully selected. They would usually show street scenes, often of crowded urban areas, trying to paint the country in a negative light. What they never showed on television was the interior of a supermarket. Just as Americans had a fuzzy image of the Soviet economy, the average Soviet citizen had a fuzzy view of the American economy. There were rumors which were passed around from person to person about all the things that could be found in the West, but no one really knew for sure.

And this included most Communist Party officials. The vast majority of party members were just as much in the dark as the common Soviet citizen. However, they also had a vested interest in buying into Soviet propaganda, at least superficially. Also, given their status, they usually had access to better quality stores and housing. And with that, I now need to introduce one Boris Yeltsin. You've probably heard of the name Boris Yeltsin before. He became the first president of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, before that, he was a Communist Party official. He had a good career. He worked his way up the ranks, and in 1985 he was appointed as the equivalent of the mayor of Moscow.

He was later appointed to the Politburo, where he became the first Politburo member in Soviet history to resign in 1987. In 1989, in the first real free election in Soviet history, he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union as a delegate from Moscow. And in September of 1989, he went on his first trip to the United States. It needs to be stressed that in September of 1989, Boris Yeltsin wasn't that big of a deal. He wasn't yet the leader of Russia. He was simply a member of the legislature. So his visit wasn't a state visit. He had guides to show him around, but it wasn't as if Gorbachev was visiting. And this is important because no one would have gone out of their way to try to impress him, and he knew that. He started his trip in New York City.

He saw the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, and other attractions. And he wasn't really that impressed. He then flew to Houston to visit NASA's Johnson Space Center. On Saturday, September 16th, 1989, he was shown mission control for the space shuttle on a mock-up of a space station. Again, it was nice, but nothing that world-chattering. However, after his visit to NASA, he made an unusual request. He wanted to visit a supermarket, a regular local supermarket. Because this was an impromptu visit for a low-level representative from a foreign country. There was no way the Americans could possibly have thrown together some fake store just to impress him. His American guides didn't think it was that big of a deal, so they called a local supermarket. Randall Foods, just off El Dorado

Boulevard and Highway 3 in Clear Lake, Texas. The manager on duty that Saturday was Paul Yerga. He was told that a VIP would be showing up in about 15 minutes and should get ready for his visit. Yeltsin and his entourage arrived at the store, met the manager, and were given a two of a What Yeltsin saw changed his entire worldview and his life. The store was filled with food. There were thousands of products of every type, multiple options for almost every product. The meat and produce sections were filled with fresh food. Yeltsin was fascinated by the frozen food section, in particular, jello pudding pops.

He spoke to customers and asked them through an interpreter what they were buying and how much it costs. He even had some free cheese samples which were being given away. and there was nothing special about Randall Foods in Clear Lake, Texas. It was just a typical American supermarket. However, Boris Yeltsin never saw anything like this before. When he left the store, he flew to the next stop on his tour, which was Miami. However, on the flight, he was despondent and hardly said anything. He reportedly had his head in his hands and was gently sobbing.

After a long silence, he lifted his head and said, quote, What have they done to our poor people? people. His visit to Randall's foods stuck with him and had a profound impact. He kept thinking about his visit over the next several years as the Soviet Union fell apart, and he became the leader of the new Russian Federation. In his autobiography, he wrote, quote, when I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons, and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt, quite frankly, sick with despair for the Soviet people, that such a potentially

super-rich country as ours had been brought to a state of such poverty. It's terrible to think of it." Perhaps the thing that shocked him the most is that the choices the average American had were greater than those of the highest-ranking Soviet officials. Yeltsin noted, quote, even the Politburo doesn't have this choice, not even Mr. Gorbachev. One of his longtime personal aides, Lev Shukunov, said his trip to Randall's foods was when the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed inside of him. If you do a search on a Boris Yeltsin video to a supermarket in 1989, you will not find a video from his trip to Texas. There were no news crews there. Instead, you'll find him visiting a store in Moscow with empty shelves, which pretty much explains why he found his store visit in Texas

to be so profound. What he learned from his visit stuck with him over the next several years as he became the leader of Russia. It played a small part in helping shape the economic reforms of Russia and the future trajectory of the country. Boris Yeltsin passed away in 2007 at the age of 76, having served as the president of Russia for over eight years. Randall's Foods was purchased and is now a food town. And Yelton's visit was actually turned into a comedic opera called Yeltsin in Texas. It's amazing how something so mundane as a visit to a supermarket can have such profound and far-reaching impacts. Yet that is exactly what happened in 1989.

The man who was to become the president of one of the largest countries in the world, was swayed by fresh produce, cheese samples, and jello pudding pops. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise

is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members, of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.