[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news!
I was right.
[quote]Edevus wrote:
[quote]Bambi wrote:
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?[/quote]
It was answered back then. Not positive, it’s totally negative. He’s a western whore, a coward and a traitor.
Ask any brainwashed moron like Vitaly.
I still laugh at the fact that less than 30 people moved from Estonia to Russia when they were offered a house and a job. Hilarious.
[/quote]
Usually, I feel really sorry for people like him. The people like him just can’t open their eyes,get pat the brainwashing that we all went through, and see how bad it was. They often have blocked out the really bad parts, like the winters of 88 and 89 where everyone, even many of the well off people would go days with little or nothing to eat and still swear that life was great. Sure, things are not great now in the former Soviet Republics, but it is definitely better.
Or, they are one of the few people who actually did have it good in the Soviet Union and ignore the fact that most of us had to suffer through great hardships, or just don’t care, in which case I do not feel sorry for them at all.
[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Aggv wrote:
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 [/quote]
I would this is pretty true for middle class US but not for many poor. Check out “food deserts”.
[/quote]
I was just discussing this with a friend in the context of our hometown’s best known ghetto. No supermarkets within an accessible distance…[/quote]
Shoulda stayed in school. In the US we have the power of choice to pursue a better life or not and that is all anyone should be entitled to. Nevermind grants, scholarships, hardship entitlements et cetera that are readily accessible.[/quote]
There is more at play than this, and it is an interesting topic, but let’s not derail this thread.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news![/quote]
Thanks, man. She has spent the entire morning calling texting and e-mailing what seems like every person she has ever met telling them, which means that I get to hang out on here for a while. I should probably call my family too, before it gets too late in Volgograd.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news![/quote]
Thanks, man. She has spent the entire morning calling texting and e-mailing what seems like every person she has ever met telling them, which means that I get to hang out on here for a while. I should probably call my family too, before it gets too late in Volgograd.[/quote]
I proposed to my wife in the Texas Hill country while staying at an old German homestead, which meant no phones (did not have a cell). Nearly drove my wife nuts but is meant we had the news all to ourselves for awhile.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]imhungry wrote:
That’s awesome, Doc!! Congrats!!!
Will she be surprised?
[/quote]
I think she knows something big is going to happen, but I don’t think she quite knows that I am going to propose. I am taking her to this really nice restaurant called Isabela on Grandview that has a wonderful view of the city. I am pretty sure she will say yes (her parents are 100% sure), but I am still pretty nervous.
[/quote]
Great restaurant choice, Matt! :-)[/quote]
For special occasions, there is none better in the area. For just regular eating, though, I prefer Sauce in Bridgeville. Huge ass burgers covered in cheese, bacon, and all kinds of other tasty things. Nothing like it, especially after a hard workout.
[/quote]
No kidding?
I’ve driven by there a million times and have wondered if it was good. I usually just default to Burghs Pizza & Wings cause it is close to parking.
I’m going to have to try that soon.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
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?
[/quote]
I don’t know what you mean by “especially bleak.” Nothing that happened to me and my family was out of the ordinary for the majority of Soviet citizens. Many people block out or don’t talk about the worst of it (sometimes because of brainwashing, and sometimes they just don’t want to remember, which I don’t blame them for), though, so maybe the stories you have heard were a little toned down.
We aren’t Jewish, or of Jewish ancestry, but our city was destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad (if you think my stories about the Soviet Union are bleak, you should hear some of my grandfather’s stories about surviving the Battle of Stalingrad, my childhood was sunshine and lollipops compared to just those few months)
Oh, for those of you not familiar with the subject, Volgograd was Stalingrad until the early 1960’s, and before that it was Tsaritsyn.
Anyway, The city was completely destroyed in WWII and was rebuilt afterwards. The surrounding farmlands were also devastated by battle and took decades to become arable again, plus the reconstruction concentrated on developing the industrial complexes and neglected agriculture, so we were more dependent on imported food than many other parts of the Soviet Union, so when the West placed their trade embargoes on the Soviet Union in the 80’s, we were hit really hard.
And no, we did not have a garden. Pretty much all the farming equipment (seeds and fertilizer and such) went to the collectivized farms or household plots that only the farmers or wealthy/well connected could afford to have and/or cultivate. Those are the people who tended to eat well and think that life was good under the Soviet Union, but they made up a small percentage of the Soviet citizens (less than 10 %). We lived in a two bedroom apartment that had no balcony and two small windows, so even if we could get our hands on some seeds and such, the food we would have gotten out of it would not have been worth the price we would have had to pay for them.
[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]imhungry wrote:
That’s awesome, Doc!! Congrats!!!
Will she be surprised?
[/quote]
I think she knows something big is going to happen, but I don’t think she quite knows that I am going to propose. I am taking her to this really nice restaurant called Isabela on Grandview that has a wonderful view of the city. I am pretty sure she will say yes (her parents are 100% sure), but I am still pretty nervous.
[/quote]
Great restaurant choice, Matt! :-)[/quote]
For special occasions, there is none better in the area. For just regular eating, though, I prefer Sauce in Bridgeville. Huge ass burgers covered in cheese, bacon, and all kinds of other tasty things. Nothing like it, especially after a hard workout.
[/quote]
No kidding?
I’ve driven by there a million times and have wondered if it was good. I usually just default to Burghs Pizza & Wings cause it is close to parking.
I’m going to have to try that soon.
[/quote]
I ate at Burghs on Thursday, their Hungarian Hot Peppers are awesome. You definitely have to try Sauce. Amazing burgers.
Edit: Oh, and there is a parking lot on Station St. just behind Sauce.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news![/quote]
Thanks, man. She has spent the entire morning calling texting and e-mailing what seems like every person she has ever met telling them, which means that I get to hang out on here for a while. I should probably call my family too, before it gets too late in Volgograd.[/quote]
I proposed to my wife in the Texas Hill country while staying at an old German homestead, which meant no phones (did not have a cell). Nearly drove my wife nuts but is meant we had the news all to ourselves for awhile.[/quote]
I don’t want to imagine what my girl would be like if she couldn’t tell people. The second she woke up, she started telling everyone.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Matt, I too have found this thread very interesting. However, believe it not, much of what you’ve disclosed is no news to me. I’ve read these type stories before but it is more fascinating reading them from a “local” guy.
[/quote]
X2
And Push, I think our age has something to do with that.
We grew up with a real keen awareness of the USSR, I think.[/quote]
I agree with you. I forget sometimes that the average age here is 20-something and they have little to no memory of the communist era.[/quote]
The sad thing is that they barely even teach what life was like under communism and socialism is schools these days. They just concentrate on the political interactions between the US and the Soviet Union and neglect how horrible life was for the majority of Soviet citizens. It could lead to kids starting to think that socialism or communism may be a good idea again and a repeat of the Soviet Union. Capitalism and democracy may not be perfect, but they are millions of times better then communism or socialism.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news![/quote]
Thanks, man. She has spent the entire morning calling texting and e-mailing what seems like every person she has ever met telling them, which means that I get to hang out on here for a while. I should probably call my family too, before it gets too late in Volgograd.[/quote]
I proposed to my wife in the Texas Hill country while staying at an old German homestead, which meant no phones (did not have a cell). Nearly drove my wife nuts but is meant we had the news all to ourselves for awhile.[/quote]
I don’t want to imagine what my girl would be like if she couldn’t tell people. The second she woke up, she started telling everyone.[/quote]
I asked her in the morning, watching the day break over a pasture of sheep and fields of wildflowers. We had the whole day to ourselves with the news. She got to call a couple of days later. She pretty much had the whole thing planned in her head by then.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news![/quote]
Thanks, man. She has spent the entire morning calling texting and e-mailing what seems like every person she has ever met telling them, which means that I get to hang out on here for a while. I should probably call my family too, before it gets too late in Volgograd.[/quote]
I proposed to my wife in the Texas Hill country while staying at an old German homestead, which meant no phones (did not have a cell). Nearly drove my wife nuts but is meant we had the news all to ourselves for awhile.[/quote]
I don’t want to imagine what my girl would be like if she couldn’t tell people. The second she woke up, she started telling everyone.[/quote]
I asked her in the morning, watching the day break over a pasture of sheep and fields of wildflowers. We had the whole day to ourselves with the news. She got to call a couple of days later. She pretty much had the whole thing planned in her head by then.[/quote]
That sounds pretty awesome. I should have done something like that. I am happy with the way it happened though. I hope my girl has it all planed out already, that way I don’t have to.
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
She said yes! I can’t believe I am going to get married. You were right Tex, it only took her a few seconds to say yes but those were the longest three seconds ever.[/quote]
Great news![/quote]
Thanks, man. She has spent the entire morning calling texting and e-mailing what seems like every person she has ever met telling them, which means that I get to hang out on here for a while. I should probably call my family too, before it gets too late in Volgograd.[/quote]
I proposed to my wife in the Texas Hill country while staying at an old German homestead, which meant no phones (did not have a cell). Nearly drove my wife nuts but is meant we had the news all to ourselves for awhile.[/quote]
I don’t want to imagine what my girl would be like if she couldn’t tell people. The second she woke up, she started telling everyone.[/quote]
I asked her in the morning, watching the day break over a pasture of sheep and fields of wildflowers. We had the whole day to ourselves with the news. She got to call a couple of days later. She pretty much had the whole thing planned in her head by then.[/quote]
That sounds pretty awesome. I should have done something like that. I am happy with the way it happened though. I hope my girl has it all planed out already, that way I don’t have to.[/quote]
It was different but she knew it was coming. Whenever she tells me about someone’s engagement, I ask “We’re there goats or Round Rock donuts? If not, then I am not interested.”
All I planned was the music and my cake, and a bit about the order of things. I really enjoyed my wedding.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
It was different but she knew it was coming. Whenever she tells me about someone’s engagement, I ask “We’re there goats or Round Rock donuts? If not, then I am not interested.”
All I planned was the music and my cake, and a bit about the order of things. I really enjoyed my wedding.[/quote]
That is what I want. I would much prefer her to do most of the planning. Although that cake you told me about does sound amazing, I may have to insist there. And she knew it was coming too. After I talked to her parents, her mom told her older sister, who is not married and my girl is kind of rubbing it in her face, and she blabbed.
Congrats again, Doc. I’m really happy for you.
When you saw what and how much food was available, what were the foods that you wanted to eat the most?
[quote]Dr.Matt581 wrote:
[quote]Bambi wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Matt, I too have found this thread very interesting. However, believe it not, much of what you’ve disclosed is no news to me. I’ve read these type stories before but it is more fascinating reading them from a “local” guy.
Your supermarket experiences remind me of similar events when Khrushchev and later Yeltsin visited the US. Both men (and Khrushchev’s wife) were astonished at the sights that practically every single American takes for granted when it comes to food quality, quantity, availability and pricing.
Keep going, man, and good luck with the nuptial business! Congrats![/quote]
I read an anecdote once that Khrushchev confided with his colleagues that he knew the USSR would never win the cold war when he was in a plane over America and he saw all their swimming pools
Also he believed that the government must have put all the cars on the road wherever he visited, because he could not believe that there were so many privately owned vehicles.[/quote]
Khrushchev was a bit before my time, but I can believe that. Less than one in ten people in the Soviet Union owned a car or lived in a house. You either had to be a well connected party member or a farmer. The funny thing is that anytime someone from the party went to America or anywhere in the West, they would come back and go on the radio and tell us all how destitute the West was and how much better life was in the Soviet Union. And we of course believed it, which helps foster the warped view of the Soviet Union that Edevus and I have talked about, and you guys saw here from that troll.
[/quote]
There is the story and I do not know if its true that they showed the Grapes of Wrath in the SU to show the people how bad it was in America.
The movie had to be pulled however, because the lesson Russians learned from it where basically these:
Poor people in America can afford CARS?
If things do not work out in one place the can PACK AND LEAVE?
Edit: oops and yay!! congrats, fireworks and so forth…
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
[quote]Chushin wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Aggv wrote:
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 [/quote]
I would this is pretty true for middle class US but not for many poor. Check out “food deserts”.
[/quote]
I was just discussing this with a friend in the context of our hometown’s best known ghetto. No supermarkets within an accessible distance…[/quote]
Shoulda stayed in school. In the US we have the power of choice to pursue a better life or not and that is all anyone should be entitled to. Nevermind grants, scholarships, hardship entitlements et cetera that are readily accessible.[/quote]
There is more at play than this, and it is an interesting topic, but let’s not derail this thread.[/quote]
No derail intended, considering communism and all.
[quote]imhungry wrote:
Congrats again, Doc. I’m really happy for you.
When you saw what and how much food was available, what were the foods that you wanted to eat the most?
[/quote]
Everything. I seriously wanted to stay at the supermarket and eat everything. I was most tempted by the stuff that had colorful labels and such, so candy and soda were high on my list of things to try first. That and all the different meats. My grad school actually paid a really good stipend. Well, not really, but it was more than my family had to live off of per month in the Soviet Union, so I thought it was. But it was enough that I could afford to try all kinds of different foods that I never could growing up. That very same day, my escort took me to get a burger at a local restaurant, which was the first time in my life that I had tasted beef. That is probably why to this very day, my favorite food is bacon cheeseburgers. I eat them all the time when I am not dieting.
[quote]orion wrote:
There is the story and I do not know if its true that they showed the Grapes of Wrath in the SU to show the people how bad it was in America.
The movie had to be pulled however, because the lesson Russians learned from it where basically these:
Poor people in America can afford CARS?
If things do not work out in one place the can PACK AND LEAVE?
Edit: oops and yay!! congrats, fireworks and so forth…[/quote]
I never heard of that before, but it seems like the sort of thing that would have happened during Stalin’s reign. He had a habit of doing whatever the hell he wanted without thinking it through and then having it backfire. Just look up collectivization if you are not already familiar with it.