This paper compares oral histories with Uzbek respondents from a 1997 project with oral histories with Uzbek and Kyrgyz respondents in a 2023 project, both discussing their memories of the transition as it affected their lives in the end of the Soviet period and at the beginning of independence. In 1997, there was a sense that independence, however welcome, was beset with problems. In 2023, respondents focused on the fact that it took them a long time to realize or accept that the Soviet Union truly was over.