Have you ever wondered what it was like to live in a communist - or, to be more precise, socialist country? Or how does it feel to be a part of such a dramatic political change like transformation of a communist country into a democratic one? I have this experience, it is a part of my identity and it makes a considerable difference between my childhood and that of my kids.

When my parents got married, they only had each other and nothing else. Both sets of my grandparents could hardly make ends meet and there was no way how they could help their children, except that my mother´s parents offered them one of their two bedrooms to live in. My father got himself a job and applied for an apartment - that was the only way how you could get one. Each factory was assigned a certain number of apartments and there was a waiting list that was usually many times longer than the number of available apartments. After my older brother was born, they were given a room in a factory rooming house but they shared kitchen, bathroom and toilet with another couple. When my mom got pregnant with me, they applied again and, finally, they were given an apartment (five years after they submited their first application). By the way, by "given" I do not mean that the apartment was for free. They had to pay a considerable deposit and then they payed monthly instalments - something like a mortgage.

My first childhood memories are connected to this apartment. Two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and toilet - around 60 square metres, located in a typical prefab block of flats, with thin walls, lino on floors and formica on kitchen and bathroom walls instead of ceramic tiles.

Nearly all kids in our country went to nursery. By law, every citizen had to work - and that included mothers as well. They could only stay at home on a maternity leave, which prolonged over the time from three months to three years.

Discipline in a nursery was quite rigid. Lots of screaming from teachers, physical punishments, forced sleep - endless two hours of pretending with your eyes closed, otherwise you were punished.

First day at school wasn´t that much of a shock after nursery but still, sitting for 45 minutes with your arms crossed behind the beckrest of a chair was no fun either. And we had to get used to being cramped in one class together with more than 30 other kids. There were so many of us and not enough schools that we had to go to school in shifts - one week in the morning, one week in the afternoon.

Being a teacher, what I really envy my teachers is respect and discipline they had. I cannot put my finger on the exact reason for that. Maybe it was the general atmosphere of fear that is present in any society under communist regime. But the main difference I can see is that at those times, when a child had problems at school, they were sure to have them at home, too. Parents made sure that they wouldn´t get into trouble with any authority.

Television - there were only two public channels that broadcast only approved programs, usually newscast, some programs for children and some movies (mostly home production or from other socialist countries) but there were also ong breaks without any program at all. The only advantage was the amount of adverts - nearly none.

Radio and music - since it is impossible to stop the radio waves from crossing the borders, radio became the major source of information for those seeking freedom. And music became the symbol of the West. The ruling communist party tried to soften the impact by allowing Czechoslovak bands and singers to adapt hits from the west and make their Czech or Slovak versions. thus, when turning on a Czech or Slovak radio station you could mostly hear Czech and Slovak lyrics. However, this started to change in the 80-ies.

Transport - compared to today, there were only few cars driving in the streets of our town when I was little. You could see more bikes and quite a lot of public transport. The main reason was economy - salaries were low and it was difficult to save enough money to buy a car. If you were lucky enough and you could afford to buy one, the choice was quite limited. The majority of the cars you could see in the streets were made in our country - at that time it was Czechoslovakia and there was only one brand of cars - Skoda. You could also see some cars made in East Germany, Rumunia, Soviet Union and there were a few French and Italian cars. The cheapest and easiest to obtain were Skoda cars. When you wanted to buy one, you had to subscribe on a waiting list and sometimes it could take even over a year to get it.

Travel - we spent most of our holidays in Czechoslovakia, either at home or we went to some of our mountains. It was a bit difficult to get abroad, to some of our "socialist brothers" like Hungary, East Germany or former Yugoslavia. To get out of East Block was nearly impossible, especially if you had some relatives or friends living in the West.

Although I was just a child, I could sense absurdity of the regime. It wasn´t difficult when you were made to be a part of something you didn´t care about - like the pioneer organization, or you had to celebrate "the brotherhood with Soviet Union" and every year on May 1 you took part in a march where people were making fun of banners and streamers they were made to carry. When the Velvet Revolution started, it was a bit of surprise, but no shock. At that time I was only fourteen and I didn´t really understand everything that was going on but now I see that people were not ready for such a change. They couldn´t have been. For decades they were taught not to think and not to speak up. That is why many put their trust to populists and dishonest politicians, many of whom are simply transformed ex-members of communist party.

When I was at university I had the honor to interpret a lecture for an American professor, an expert in political science who dealt with Central Europe. His main advice for us - post-communist country, was not to copy America, not to throw away all that was part of the regime, but to keep what was good and combine it with what is good in western democracies. Unfortunatelly, we haven´t been able to do so. The notion of democracy got misunderstood and many people confuse it with anarchy. It is just like when you suddenly let your child go out of control. I hope that this child will grow up eventually.