i dont need to troll. what’s the point. cyrillics dont work here.
ты просто пишь глупости вот и всё. похоже ты мало чего помнишь или знаешь о СССР
oh and calling some a “dumbass” tells me that you are petty young.
probably not old enough to remember anything of real value about soviet union.
[quote]vitaly wrote:
i dont need to troll. what’s the point. cyrillics dont work here.
ты просто пишь глупости вот и всё. похоже ты мало чего помнишь или знаешь о СССР[/quote]
One more reason you are a troll: You said “cyrillics.” No one who grew up in a country that uses a Cyrillic alphabet would do that, no matter how poor their English is.
I have to say, the Moscow subway station and the seven sisters buildings are quite impressive pieces of architecture. Something about soviet/Russian architecture that reminds of the star destroyers and death star, probably from American propaganda.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
I have to say, the Moscow subway station and the seven sisters buildings are quite impressive pieces of architecture. Something about soviet/Russian architecture that reminds of the star destroyers and death star, probably from American propaganda. [/quote]
I never noticed that before, but you are totally right! That is pretty cool.
OK, I have to get ready to go to dinner and propose, so I may not get to answering any questions, comments, or trolling as fast as I usually do, please do not be offended. I will be back on tomorrow with some more stories and to let you all know how it went.
Good Luck!
Good luck. This is all I have to look forward to after not winning the lottery.
And grading papers.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Christine wrote:
I can’t imagine the difficulties of changing an entire economic system for such a large group of people. It must be difficult to rid the system of corruption. It obviously wont happen overnight. [/quote]
Definitely not. After the Fall until recently Russia went into a depression worse then the one here in the 30’s and we still have only begun to recover. It has been over 20 years now and we are still not there. During Putin’s first two terms, our economy was growing and he did help increase wages quite a bit. The Russian Mob also became even more powerful and I think he had something to do with it, but if he does as much for the economy as he did in his first two terms I will be happy. Things are much better now than during the Soviet Union, but there is still a long way to go.[/quote]
What are your views on a corrupt system being seen as backward by the outside world (not just the S.U)?
Good luck with your lady, doc.
Good luck with the proposal.
Out of curiosity for when you get back, what do people in Russia now think of Gorbachev? Is the opinion generally positive?
It’s an interesting thread, matt and your particular russian tales are especially bleak.
I’ve got family and some roots (still) there. Most are now in Moscow.
What I find astonishing about russians is that most are very cool, in a literally, non-awesome sense.
Kinda laconic. Stoic.
I guess if you go through hardships, some cultures learn to just embrace shrugging as a perpetual state of mind.
“so it’s just onions for the next three days. Ok.”
Still, I wonder if your city, or maybe your family was especially troubled. Is your family jewish?
Starving for days seems tough.
I feel a bit connected to your story since my family members also had scientific backgrounds and were forced to do repair jobs. A nuclear physicist was actually fixing clothes irons.
Had your family no garden or anything like that?
Someone asked about the army:
Having your kids sent to the military was bad news because they would probably beat the shit out of him, traumatize him etc. Especially later on, some would return as vegetables.
If you happened to be a minority among non-russians (Kazakhs, Kyrgyz etc), they would for sure beat him bloody, or worse.
A relative was quite the ferocious T-man, big, strong, a martial artist.
He defended himself so well they had to lure him to the loo at night where he was ambushed by a group. He was hospitalized for months.
A russian collegue told me about his time. Although among non-russians, he was lucky at first since he showed the right amount of defense; he was no pansy, but didn’t break any jaws.
It seemed alright after a while.
However, he had good marks and because of that was selected to receive additional training (radio operator, something like that). That seemed unfair to the others, so he, too, awoke in the hospital shortly after that.
Pay was mostly stolen from the officers. The same officers also took bribes to “let” him go west with his family.
Imagine, under these conditions, your kid as a frail and artistic person.
I recall an amusing story from a different socialist-bloc family branch.
Since there was an eternal shortage of everything (officers could get away with selling stuff, might be that was their only income), a gi seldomly had a complete set of equipment.
So soldier A stole his footwraps from soldier B, B had to steal from C and so on.
One dude was bound to be unlucky.
It’s a bit like in ancient Sparta, where under the pretext of hardening soldiers they had to learn how to scrounge, steal and be creative.
And the analogy gets even further: A spartan was whipped when caught “stealing”, and a Warsaw pact soldier would also learn to make do while pretending everything was fine.
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
Dr.Matt
You should write a detailed account of your life as much as you can recall, and publish a book. You might have a bestseller on your hands.[/quote]
I would agree totally, I would buy it w out hesitation through iTunes for iPad, content could include experiences from the doctors friends and relatives… What a great read it would make!!!
I know Soviets viewed their military personal as expendable, considering they only gave 1 rifle per 2 soldiers in some battles, but i would think in the military the strong would prevail alot more so than in normal life. That’s pretty shitty it wasnt the case.
And no, i wouldnt want my emo kid going into the military in any country, hell my cousin is in now and im begging him to give up being a vegetarian.
I’ve studied the battle for Stalingrad somewhat extensively, and the more you learn about it; the more disturbing it becomes. Which i guess i could be said for everything that went on at the Eastern Front.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
I’ve studied the battle for Stalingrad somewhat extensively, and the more you learn about it; the more disturbing it becomes. Which i guess i could be said for everything that went on at the Eastern Front. [/quote]
I’d love to hear more about this if you have the time to put it together in decent detail.
A coworker at my first technical job was Ukrainian, and I used to love talking to him about how things were in the Soviet Union. He had a job designing missile guidance systems for the military and was an absolute genius with electronics. He escaped the Soviet Union by getting clearance to visit his sister in East Berlin, and then somehow getting into Western Europe with his wife and child in tow. He told me that when he arrived in Brooklyn he saw his first banana ever and was dumbfounded about how cheap they were. He and his son made themselves absolutely sick eating so many bananas.
He thought he was going to be rich after he saw how Americans just threw away old TVs. He would collect them from the curb and fix them all. They all worked flawlessly, but he never understood why he couldn’t get anyone to buy them.
I honestly think we take it all for granted. Just assuming that i can go to any supermarket within a 2miles radius, which there are roughly 4-7 and just buy whatever is something we as American severely take for granted and i think there would be massive problem for society if god forbid i wasnt able to buy cantaloupe in the middle of December
You’ve described yourself as being non-religious. Does this have anything to do with your upbringing in the Soviet Union? Did you “experiment” with various religions (especially post-soviet union) or have you always been non-religious?
awesome thread! i doubt many here know that I minored in eastern European history (Slavic) history, as an undergrad, and am somewhat of a russianophile.
ignore the trolls and keep posting dr.!
a good book for the novice to Slavic history to read is the Bridge on the River Drina. check it out.