Posted on 01/02/2018 8:07:24 AM PST by GoldenState_Rose
Nadezhda Vlasova says that those who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union include both those whose youth was passed while it existed and who remember it through the gauzy lens of memory and young people who did not live then but who believe because of what some of their elders say that life was better (momenty.org/city/i180459/).
She points out that this is much like the reaction of those who like “romantic films about the Middle Ages with beautiful dresses and architecture” but who in no case “would like to live in a city without plumbing.” Russians today look at the USSR like the first but increasingly and at the same time recognize that it was like the second.
The interest in all things Soviet in Yekaterinburg provides support for Vlasova’s position. People are intrigued with various Soviet clothes, radios, and even wines, in short with all things retro. But this is a fashion and fashion, experts say, comes and goes. People are bored with the current situation and are looking for something to interest them.
There is now a Museum of Soviet Life in that city, and its organizers suggest that people are trying to make sense of what happened rather than simply showing their support for what was at least in terms of the communist political system. An exhibit at the Yeltsin Center is in fact devoted to “the gap” between Soviet advertising and Soviet realities.
Aleksandr Tsarikov, who has organized a house museum of Soviet realities, says that visitors are “nostalgic not for the Soviet Union but for their own childhood.”
(Excerpt) Read more at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com ...
- Disenchantment with the economy (and awareness of) the extreme gap between elites and rest of population.
- Disillusionment with society's submission to what they see as Western excesses and norms: from GMO foods in the supermarket to obsessive consumer culture as opposed to a society driven by a cohesive vision and ideology, which sheltered them from corrupting, external influences. (Communism)
- Socialist economic ideas VERY en vogue among millennials as is here in the U.S. among the "Bernie Sanders" contingent.
- And most importantly: The watering down of historical memory especially with regard to Soviet-era repressions, mass atrocities, and horrors, in the name of keeping national pride among the population in tact.
- The "Victory Day" military parade in Moscow celebrating the Soviet triumph in World War II is annually the most watched telecast according to ratings, and the closest thing Russians have to a collective ritual binding them to a cohesive national narrative of which they can be proud and undivided on. Not unusual to be dressed in Soviet attire and blaring Soviet tunes and anthems while waving Sickle and Hammer flags on that day especially.
I don’t think there was a lot of enthusiasm for celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Many are now more sympathetic to the Romanovs than to Lenin and Company.
Nope. Not unusual at all.
Quack, Waddle...
Unfortunately, whatever comes there, I do not see a truly republican capitalist country on the horizon.
Dictatorship or back to the bad old days of communism.
I worry about our youts too.
Ah yes. They skip talk (at least in public) of that episode.
Religious folk, among the Orthodox faithful especially, revere the tsars - even as saints.
Or live in Europe on the Middle Ages without toilet paper, something they would have in common with that other socialist paradise, Venezuela.
It’s like longing for the good old days when you lived with your parents and didn’t have to worry about bills and all the other trappings of being an adult on your own. As in, yes, they long for it, but not really.
There is a reason we all moved out of our parents house. And for most of us, we couldn’t wait to get out and would not want to ever go back to that as our lifestyle.
I forgot to mention the hyper-emphasis of Soviet-era accomplishments (like space travel) make today’s generation feel inferior by comparison.
And as for tsarists: even Ivan the Terrible is en vogue:
http://m.gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/why-russia-is-suddenly-eulogising-its-past-1.2150597
“Venuezuela did not send people into outer space like the Soviet Union did,” would be a likely response to that conjecture.
And Russians in general, don't think of Stalin as a Communist, they see him more along the lines of Ivan the Terrible, who was actually Stalin's hero.
If the Russians want to relive the good old days of an abusive elitist politburo just come to America and get on a plane with Sheila Jackson Lee.
That is the thing. Their nostalgia for USSR does not correspond with affection for Marxist political correctness of the West.
I well remember the time before the “fall of the Soviet Union”. I was reading an article in one of my wife’s home decorating magazines. Anyway it was about how Muscovites tried to spruce up their apartments. A couple of gallons of paint to brighten up a room were virtually impossible to obtain, unless you knew someone who might lift some from a government project.
There was one place to buy a kitchen table in Moscow and it required a long waiting time and you had to take what you could get. My small town—about 30,000 had at least a dozen stores where one could get a kitchen table and have it delivered the same day. I can’t see being nostalgic for that kind of life.
Ikea’s troubled history in Russia:
http://www.alaco.com/our-insight/intelligence/ikeas-troubled-history-in-russia
I’ve heard that Russians are shocked and dismayed at how society has gotten more dangerous, what with rampant street crime and mafia style companies with such big places in Russia today.
I heard somebody from Russia once say, that while they are happy at the end of communism, that back in the day, you could take a walk at midnight without fear in major cities. They feel that Russian life has fundamentally transformed, but not all the changes have been good.
“” “” I well remember the time before the “fall of the Soviet Union”. I was reading an article in one of my wife’s home decorating magazines. Anyway it was about how Muscovites tried to spruce up their apartments. A couple of gallons of paint to brighten up a room were virtually impossible to obtain, unless you knew someone who might lift some from a government project.
There was one place to buy a kitchen table in Moscow and it required a long waiting time and you had to take what you could get. My small town—about 30,000 had at least a dozen stores where one could get a kitchen table and have it delivered the same day. I can’t see being nostalgic for that kind of life.”” “”
First of all Russians mostly aren’t using paint to renovate apartments and didn’t use it before. Floors were usually extremely durable birch parquet which required some polishing once in a few years to look just like new, ceilings were covered in lime and on the walls they had British-style wallpapers.
The unavailability of consumer products in USSR is mostly a myth. The problem was a variety of choices and overall low build quality of such. Let’s say there were like ten patterns of wallpapers, two types of kitchen tables and four types of chandeliers available nationwide. The same was true for the furniture, appliances and so on.
In that sense it was extraordinary boring. People who had money went to the black market for imports which was of higher quality and simply looked original.
Moscow certainly had more than one place to buy a kitchen table and these were readily available.
There were shortages of some specific items. For example if you wanted a front-loader washing machine or a better stereo or a foreign TV you had to tour related shops frequently or go to the black market.
Even new automobiles weren’t that much a problem unless you wanted more desirable ones. Lada or Volga required to be on a waiting list, some more popular models for years.
You you was ok with Moskvich it was months and you could go straight to a dealership for Zaporozhets.
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