Or were they so segmented or different that competition was not a thing?
For example, we had the CORECOM store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom) - which was really a place for all truck drivers, air-pilots or whoever had to work outside of Bulgaria, especially outside the Eastern Block to come back and exchange their """filthy""" currency with products that you can't get anywhere else.
It was really hard to get a Kinder Surpsise Egg for example (only to be found at the Corecom). Even if you had the bulgarian levas, it was not possibly (easily) to exchange these for dollars in order to buy them. You had to know the people that might've brought some from outside (Then again, this is from my memory as a kid).
So PEZ, Kinder Surprise Eggs, or anything listed (and much more) on the wikipedia page above was DEAR to all of us kids. I do remember the day where I went to the local bakery (some years after the communist regime went down) for normal bulgarian pastry (these are still yummy), and saw so many kinder surprise eggs available for anyone to buy with levas. It was no longer that great :) lol.
Ok, here is a weird one - empty cans from coke, pepsi were prized collections. We would use these empty cans to put our pencils or just to demonstrate we got something from the west. The (free) Neckermann magazine was "required" in every home - you got to glimpse into furniture, clothing, and just to stroll through the enourmous volume of the latest (this year, last year - doesn't matter).
I also vividly remember when the french magazine store opened, and I've got PIF Hercule comics (without knowing french), and some of the greates PC games magazines (great graphics).
So hard to tell. Probably people had preferences - there were several, if not dozen types of Russian-made and other cars: Lada, Zaz, Moskvich - surely some prefer one vs the other. But this joke was not so far off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I9AdLnjP0M
You had to wait sometimes years to get your car, refridgerator, etc.
anyway :) - I guess TLDR was - WE WERE OBLIVIOUS - We had some "fake" glimpse into what the western world was, without really knowing what it was (it was also distorted through our own media).
But again, as a kid - I had such good time!
I love learning about different experiences than my own, especially if they're specific to a time/world that doesn't really exist anymore. Know the past to better prepare for the future, etc. :)
The link to CORECOM (and other countries' equivalents) was fascinating! I'd never heard of them, but assume literally everyone from eastern parts of Europe would instantly recognize them.
I read through "Why?!" and somewhat wrapped my head around it -- necessity for hard foreign currency for trade purposes demanded it -- but it still seems incredibly destabilizing, if one were trying to run a communist country. At the end of the day, I guess economy >> politics, though.
The "fake" glimpse / distortion point is also fascinating. I always thought of that as a Japanese thing in more modern times -- broad cultural awareness of very specific foreign things, but with a different meaning, that would be confusing to the actual origin country's citizens.
And as you said, at the end of the day, a kid with a toy is a kid with a toy. :)
Some things are universal. Every kid wants to have the popular/rare thing and show it off. And assuming there's food/shelter/family, whether it's a Coke can or the most luxurious Western consumer good doesn't really matter. I try and remind myself to me more childlike when it comes to happiness.
Thanks again for sharing!
And PS: Computer game magazines were the same for US kids. Until the late-90s, computers fast enough to run good games well were still pretty expensive, so most kids window shopped via game magazines. Or later, the demo CD-ROMs that occasionally came with them.
