All readers of the site have graduated secondary schools.

Chekhov is still tout in Russian school : https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%8...

I can only comment about the years I spent in school there. I think Soviet era of education pretty much ended with my generation when the old school staff reached retirement years. I have no idea where Russian schools rank nowadays. I heard pretty low.

The Soviet Union fell, among other things.

Presumably, in this context meaning that there was much more literature available for reading?

Probably that people had a much harder time surviving to read as much...

I don't think so. I'm sure reading was encouraged in USSR. Just not reading the wrong books. But overall, people got good education to culture there. It was one of the ideals of the soviet state that actually worked.

Only in the later stages of decline, when economy was tanking and people spent half their time queuing for things, they probably had less time to read...

>Only in the later stages of decline, when economy was tanking and people spent half their time queuing for things, they probably had less time to read...

That's what I meant: in the turmoil of 1991 and beyond, people would have less time to read...

Or you could say that post-1991 they had other things to do (to survive, or to entertain themselves: Western movies etc became available.)

However I was thinking already 1980's: probably the dysfunction of the economy had an impact on people people's reading (like, do you typically read a book while you are at the meat shop queue or shoe shop queue?)

After 1991 they have a lot of other entertainments to spend a time on - pirated videos, more than 3 state-approved TV channels, spread of BBS, FIDO and Internet...