This book examines rural households' use of and views toward different types of services during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the market economy. Using data from 1991 and 1993 household surveys in two rural villages, one in southern Russia and the other in eastern Ukraine, the researchers describe how rural residents viewed the transition from state, mainly kolkhoz (collective farm), monopolies on the provision of retail food and consumer goods, health, housing, education, and communications/transportation, to the beginning of mixed public and private service provision. This book provides a unique benchmark for the study of rural quality of life at the end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the post-Soviet era.