10 ms·

A Western Kid Living in Communist Poland (2014)

135 points by ash 11y ago

tinbad 11y ago
Growing up with my grandparents in the 80s in Moscow, I remember standing in line in front of a place literally called 'Store' for hours. Nobody knew what the line was for or what it was the store was getting in that day. Some people spend the night waiting just to be in front. After standing in line all day, finally by dusk a truck pulls up. Everybody looking in anxiety and worried about not being enough merchandise, still not knowing what was inside. A few men start unloading the boxes inside the store. All of a sudden people at the front of the line start spreading the rumors, "it's bananas!", "what is a banana?" I thought to myself. I was 5 years old and had no idea what it was. We made our way from outside, into the store. The store was full of empty shelves, there was literally no inventory. Finally we got the cashier, it was our turn and my grandpa got handed a big box and he handed the clerk money. "Hurry" my grandpa said, we rushed out of the store and started walking back home. "There's no more!" I heard somebody shout out of the store. There were still at least a hundred people in line. We kept walking, not looking back. We got home and opened the box. It was full of green bananas. We tried to eat them, I loved it. Only later in life I found out bananas supposed to be yellow and not bitter :)
- x0054 11y ago
  Yes, indeed, the "магазин" or the "гастраном" :) I also still remember the experience of having to bring a 3 liter pickle jar to buy milk from a barrel on wheels. It's funny because sometime we would see the barrel pull up, but we wouldn't know what they were selling. Could be mil, could be beer, could be kvas (not sure how to translate). We would rush in, because what ever it was, it's better than nothing ;) I also remember a really funny story from my friends dead about his visit to Cuba. He went there in the early 80s, I am guessing. He went there with a delegation on some kind of diplomatic mission. Up on arrival he bent over to pick up his bag, and, as luck would have it, ripped his pants. Now, as you might imagine, being a proper Soviet and all, he was only traveling with that one pair of dress pants. So he asked their translator if there is any way they could go to a store of some kind to purchase another pair, before his fancy diplomatic meeting. So they went to the store, supposedly the main fashion store in the center of the city. When asked, the clerk told them: "Oh, no, we haven't had dress pants in for at least 3 weeks." My friends dead, desperate, asked: "Well, what about just needle and some thread?" Clerk: "Well, we have thread, but needle? Hmm, we haven't had those in years now." Eventually they ended up finding a seamstress who fixed the pants, but it was all very hush hush, because it was a crime for her to offer a private service, or for them to solicit it. Yeah, so communism rocks indeed :)
  - brc 11y ago
    So I'm genuinely curious - what's your attitude towards socialism and communism now?
    - zbraniecki 11y ago
      you're kidding right? People who lived through it don't find it funny... As my mom always said "Communism is such a great idea, but they should test it on mice first".
      - brc 11y ago
        Not kidding, genuinely intersted. I think you have answered the question. The reason for asking is occasionally I read about stories of people who are sad that they no longer live in a communist country. There was a movie made about that storyline as well. I always thought that - given the mass movements of people after the borders were opened - everyone would have seen it as a gigantic waste of years of their life and would hate the very mention of it. But I've only met a handful of people who lived under communist regimes and usually they don't want to talk about it.
        x0054 11y ago
        I only lived through the tail end of it, I was borne in Kiev in 1984 and moved to US in 1996. Politically I am libertarian, very much so. I think every one should do their own thing, marry who they want, smoke what ever they want, and take care of them selves and their family, and not expect the government to do anything for you. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am just swinging too much in the other direction after communism, but it is what it is. My parents are largely the same, they hate communism, hate Russia, and would never want to come back to communism. My grandfather was a Military Colonel, but on the medical side, he was a Doctor. I guess he could be considered a "party" man, but he hated the party and the government. He loved his work, and cared deeply for the soldiers he was helping, but he couldn't stand the communist party. He was incredibly happy to see the day Ukraine became independent. My grandma, on the other hand, loved the communist party. She was always well taken care of by the system, and she thinks communism is awesome, or at least that's what she says. In reality what she is missing are the good days, when she was younger, had lot's of friends, and had a generally good life. She never experienced the really horrible side of the Soviet union, so she only has good memories. That said, if I was to ask her if she thinks I would be better of in a communist state, he answer would be "God NO!" She is a realistic woman. She knows intellectually that the Soviet government was evil, but their current situation in Ukraine is very bad as well, and she can't help but be nostalgic.
- da02 11y ago
  Did you see the abacus being used in "stores" or restaurants back then? John Stossel visited a govt restaurant back then and the waiters were lazy even when the cameras were around. I do remember reading that many people who fled East Germany wanted to go back. I'm guessing it was mainly adults. One couple who left Soviet Russia mentioned on a daytime talk show the one thing they did not like about the US was the higher taxes. (Book: For Good and Evil by Charles Adams)
  - pandaman 11y ago
    I've seen abacus being used. Most stores sold everything over the counter (as opposed to pick-stuff-up-and-bring-to-the-register-yourself, which was called "Self-service store") but often there has not been a cash register behind the counter. In order to buy something you had to stand in line to the counter, ask the clerk for the goods you wanted to buy and the clerk would put them aside and tell you the total price, then you had to go to the cash register line and pay the price to the cashier, then come back with the receipt to the clerk (they'd allow you to cut in the line for this) and pick up your purchase. In big stores there were multiple counters so you would get all the receipts at once by telling the counter's numbers and prices to the cashier. Cashiers usually did not have to use an abacus since the cash register worked as a calculator but the clerk had to calculate the price of your purchase and for that she often used an abacus though some stores had an electronic calculator at the counter. The whole system was very bizarre. I am not sure why they had to do this. One theory was that it was to prevent people who were handling food items at the counter from touching money but this also happened in the stores that sold non-edible goods. They did minimize the number of the cash registers I imagine, since one register could be shared between multiple counters. Could be easier to account for fewer registers?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - warkdarrior 11y ago
    Yes, except for the fact that iPhones are not a food item you need, while milk, meat, bread, flour are.
- dsmolovich 11y ago
  Bananas were a common good sold in Moscow back in 80-s. Every time my grandpa was on his business trip to Moscow he brought a bunch of them. Green, but in a few days they go yellow and sweet enough to eat. Lines formed nowadays for buying a newer version of iPhone remind me those days back in USSR. No kidding. :)
  - tinbad 11y ago
    They got more common over time indeed, but most things you could buy abroad just weren't available. Mostly tropical fruits and vegetables that wouldn't grow in most of Russia and since there was little import of anything... I remember tasting Kiwis for the first time after we moved to Europe. As far as standing in line for the latest iPhone: no thank you indeed, been there done that :)
- rokhayakebe 11y ago
  Oh man, I laughed at your story. I am amazed at how you are able to find irony in such a tough moment. Or perhaps kids are just able to enjoy even the smallest things. This is definitely a story to tell (someday) your kids and grandkids during summer breaks, around the fireplace. Thanks for sharing.
- shas3 11y ago
  Growing up in not-quite-communist-just-socialist India, we had 'ration shops' (they probably still exist in rural India). Similar principle, but most people used it for optimizing their budgets- buy certain things at ration shops and other things at privately owned grocery stores/farmers markets. For poorer people, ration stores were a very useful way of saving money. I think kerosene, which is a fuel used by low-income sections of the population is still rationed in this manner. It is not uncommon to find lines of people at parked trucks towing kerosene tanks with their ration cards and plastic containers for filling up with kerosene. 'Ration cards' were even the main form of government identification till they opened up the economy, streamlined tax, etc. in the 1990s. They still are, for older people and in rural areas.
kome 11y ago
ouch... I must have something in my eye...
ilaksh 11y ago
I think its important for Hacker News readers to read this because techno-communism is becoming a very serious force in western politics. It needs to be tempered with a historical context. The problem we should focus on is over-centralization, which comes easily out of a competitive OR cooperative society. Yes to holistic measurements, efficiency and equality. But do that on a meta, protocol level that allows for diverse decentralized systems to evolve while still integrating information.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  On that note, if one go back to old guy Marx we find that he was no fan of centralization. His thinking was towards workers owning the factory they worked at. Then again he also apparently had himself talked in circles to make his findings fit the labor theory of value. Still, while mostly we hear about worker exploitation etc he did dial in on the issue of debt and banking. And how there was a second struggle between industrial capitalists and financial capitalists. From that an later sources it may well help to think about a economy as a systems of flows. Goods in one direction, and money in the other. And much like with all asynchronous flow systems, there has to be buffers to even out peaks and slumps. Banks do that for the money flow via their issuance of debt.
  - ilaksh 11y ago
    Not sure what you are ultimately aiming at but although flows is a good way to think of traditional economics, economics as commonly understood is fundamentally flawed and unable to serve the purposes it is supposed to. Effectively the money flow regulates ALL aspects of our society. The problem with this is that its like doing medical science where the only aspect of the body anyone really understands is the cardiovascular system. We need to integrate more physical and social sciences and better values into our economic systems. The moneyflow religion must be converted somehow into a dynamic technological decentralized automated system incorporating data and feedback loops ensuring human and environmental health. And this needs to enable freedom and the ability to evolve. But elitist VC or technocratic engineers rationalizing the flawed, limited belief system around the one-dimensional money system is not constructive.
twqqis 11y ago
For as long as I can remember I've had an interest in going to live in another country. But the older I get and the more I get to understand people and the more I travel, the more I start to hold myself back from actually moving to another country. Even if just for a year or two. I think I realise more and more that cultures really are different, vastly more than I once thought. It has me wonder what I would actually end up gaining from such a move, countries with language barriers even more so. Yet, I cannot stop thinking that by NOT doing it, I'm missing out greatly...
- idlewords 11y ago
  You are missing out. It's a stressful experience but it will change your life.
  - ews 11y ago
    I am in my fourth country, and I can't recommend traveling and especially living in a different country with a very different culture enough.
    - da02 11y ago
      Which countries have you visited? Any favorite cities/towns?
- goodcanadian 11y ago
  We're on our fourth country, and we've traveled to many more. I think what you learn is that there are many ways to do different things. Other cultures get some things very right that your home culture gets wrong. Your home culture gets some things right that other cultures get wrong. But overall, the main takeaway is that it broadens your view of the world and it opens your eyes to possibilities that you would not otherwise see. You get some of this from travelling, but not nearly as much as what you get when you go and live in another place with a different culture.
  - dman 11y ago
geeklodhi 11y ago
I have read many articles but found this the most helping and motivating http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training.html http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training....
rmchugh 11y ago
Sweet story.
V-2 11y ago
> The Polish secret police (the UB or MBP) was quite active and if you didn’t know someone personally you could not trust them I don't mean to nitpick, but UB was renamed to SB in 1956. MBP ceased to exist in 1954. And by the way, knowing someone personally didn't mean you could trust them, either. Pretty much everyone could be a police informant, especially if you were a person of interest : your husband, or your doctor... The number of informal collaborators approached 100 thousand people in the 80s, which means about 0.5% of the nation (only counting adults).
- stretchwithme 11y ago
  Perhaps Jacques was actually there 30 plus years earlier than he claims :-) Maybe that Citroën has a flux capacitor!
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    It had a ton of hydraulics but I never noticed anything like that. Even so the DS was way ahead of its time and in many ways still is.
- odiroot 11y ago
  There was also a big issue of huge cooperation of the clergy. Don't know the concrete numbers but Anne Applebaum explains it in her "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe". Our catholic church was the most penetrated one in the whole Warsaw pact. This means people literally didn't have anyone to trust. Just try to imagine that. Three generations of people shaped by this feeling, ending up completely paranoid or indifferent/escapist.
stretchwithme 11y ago
Great story, Jacques.
rasz_pl 11y ago
The bit about getting a work permit is a little weird. At that time average monthly salary was ~$5. His Dutch parents could literally just send him lunch money, and it would be enough to for an upper class lifestyle at the time. Flower/grape/whatever picking for a month in the west was enough to finance rest of the year. It was as bad as in Greece right now, everything worth something got sold to multinationals for pennies on the dollar. All the famous polish brands absorbed into mcdonalds/cocacolas/pepsis of the world.
- V-2 11y ago
  Of course you're right, but then again I believe it was obligatory by law to be employed somewhere. Those who weren't used to be considered "social parasites" (official terminology, see eg. http://www.zielona-gora.po.gov.pl/index.php?id=36&ida=3790 http://www.zielona-gora.po.gov.pl/index.php?id=36&ida=3790) Now, whether or how this law was actually enforced is another matter, but at the very least not having a "normal" source of income was frowned upon, so I imagine already standing out as a foreigner you might prefer to keep a straight record.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > The bit about getting a work permit is a little weird. At that time average monthly salary was ~$5. His Dutch parents could literally just send him lunch money, and it would be enough to for an upper class lifestyle at the time. I've never depended on anybody for my living expenses after I turned 17 and to ask my parents for money simply never even occurred to me. Also, once you were legally employed you could drop the exchange requirement (which in terms of western money was substantial, you are looking at the $5 as the black market exchange rate, unfortunately for westerners living in Poland the exchange rate was substantially worse which meant that doing this legally would cost many 100's of $ per month). > Flower/grape/whatever picking for a month in the west was enough to finance rest of the year. Yes, because the money brought in from the west was exchange piecemeal on the black market. > It was as bad as in Greece right now, everything worth something got sold to multinationals for pennies on the dollar. The rape of Poland by the Western countries was - and is - an absolutely horrific crime. Not that anybody will ever by punished for it but it is incredibly bitter that the first contact between Eastern and Western economies led to yet another round of those people being taken advantage of. The damage from this lasts to this day. If that story interests you research 'polinvest' and several other nasty schemes that were pulled off just after the change. > All the famous polish brands absorbed into mcdonalds/cocacolas/pepsis of the world. And the Philipses, Volkswagens and Siemenses...
ekr 11y ago
Jacques, may I ask what brought you to Romania (are you still there)?
- jacquesm 11y ago
  A contract job. I'm back in NL right now.
_mgr 11y ago
I've read this before. Has this already been posted to HN? I am trying to convince my native born Polish girlfriend to move back for a year to live/work/travel. I figure I will pick up the language far quicker than my current pace. She's a little apprehensive about our earning potential there. The Polish Zloty does not appear to be the strongest currency and the average wage is half of some of it's other EU cousins.
- krallja 11y ago
  It's from 2014, and by an infamous HNer, so you've almost certainly had a chance to read it before.
  - bernardom 11y ago
    It's even weirder clicking on the story, thinking "wait, I remember this," and then reading your name on the intro :-) (Thanks again for writing this up, Jacques!)
- viraptor 11y ago
  I can understand it. Moved out around 9 years ago and I really wouldn't go back for a longer period. Tech jobs I see are not that exciting, unless you work in some startup-like company. (although it got way better in the last few years, can't deny this) And there are just so many things I see every time I go back, that I don't want to experience in normal life. If you're successful after moving and don't have strong family/friends ties, it's hard to find good reasons to go back.
- limaoscarjuliet 11y ago
  Poland is still very closed society. You will be fine in large cities (Wroclaw, Krakow, Poznan, Warszawa, Gdansk), but unlikely to do well in small and medium cities. Wages are way smaller than in EU countries, prices are pretty much the same. Real estate might be the only exception, but not by much. Polish is a very hard language to pick up. Not only tongue twister, but full of exceptions and mind twisting rules. A pretty good example is counting objects, e.g. apples: 1-4 jablka, 5-21 jablek, 22-24 jablka, 25.. jablek. Yes, good luck with that! The good news is most young and some mid-age people speak English, large cities welcome foreigners, and - if you have decent profession - you will do ok.
fapjacks 11y ago
When I was just a couple months into being a teenager, I went to Russia in 1993. We were the first group of Americans allowed into the Udmurt region, and we traveled from Saint Petersburg to Izhevsk to meet our host families for a short stay, and then to Moscow before leaving the country. It was the first time in my life when I saw anything like that. I remember a few times when I said things that I still cringe at saying to this day. Prior to entering Russia, we stayed in Stockholm. Stockholm was a shining jewel compared to Saint Petersburg, which itself was a shining jewel compared to Izhevsk. I remember I asked out loud if a hotel was going to "be like Sweden", completely oblivious that I was embarrassing the Americans and Russians around me. Things like this that still make me cringe today. The city of Izhevsk was famous for being the home of the inventor of the AK-47, as well as the Baikal munitions plant, which supplied a lot of the world's Soviet ammunition. I remember seeing a group of children, perhaps six or seven years old, running through the street and drinking from a bottle of vodka. A few months later, our Russian host-family counterparts came to stay with us in the States for about as long as we were in Russia. My grandmother gave me a hundred dollars (kind of a big deal in '93 heh) to take my counterpart shopping. When we were at the store, I remember talking about buying some toys and taking my counterpart to the toy section at Walmart. You know what he did instead? He bought Levis and cans of coffee for his family. I still cringe every time I think about how I behaved back then, but for sure it taught me an enormous amount about the world in a very short time.
limaoscarjuliet 11y ago
I'm from Poland, born in 74, so I remember that time well. 1987 was 3 years before bankruptcy of the communist government and fall of iron curtain. It was still bad as author described. I remember the long lines to bakeries, I remember the grey block of flats (these are still there, and even though painted in other colors are dull as hell!). But... we, children, did not know there is a "better life" out there. Sure, everybody had someone in the West (mostly in US), we got an occasional package for Xmas with chocolate and some clothes. But we, children, did not care for the West that much. We were outside playing stupid games like hanging out on carpet hanger next to block of flats (and screaming "cinema!" when one of the girls revealed her underwear while doing some risque maneuver). We jumped rope and "rubber". We played war (zee Germans vs us). I would come out in the morning or right after school and stay until dark, at which time my mom would call "comeeee baaaaaack!" from the window. So yes, it was dark middle ages, but somehow simple and pleasant. This is in contrast to my children today rarely venturing outside and playing some phone crap all day long. For adults that might have been whole another story. The promise of the West likely has been large. But I still want to bet guys were busy chasing the ladies, the family was the focus, and people who wanted to be happy were happy. So not romanticizing the system too much - I am a successful software engineer working all other the World for "the man" and like it - it was not that bad as people might think. Some of us were quite happy, despite system's shortcomings. Strange for sure, but not hopeless.
- jpatokal 11y ago
  Your description of life for kids in Poland reminds me a lot of my own childhood in Finland -- except that I was on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and there were no bread lines. (Quite few grey blocks of flats though...) I also remember driving through East Germany and visiting East Berlin in the mid-1980s and getting thoroughly freaked out by what a even child could recognize as a monochrome totalitarian dystopia. It's the US, with its pervasive fear that kids must be supervised at all times or they'll immediately be kidnapped and sold into sex slavery or something, that's the real outlier here. See http://www.freerangekids.com/ http://www.freerangekids.com/ for a movement that's trying to roll this back, with some success.
- tallanvor 11y ago
cafard 11y ago
A repost, but a charming story.

135 points by ash 11y ago

Growing up with my grandparents in the 80s in Moscow, I remember standing in line in front of a place literally called 'Store' for hours. Nobody knew what the line was for or what it was the store was getting in that day. Some people spend the night waiting just to be in front. After standing in line all day, finally by dusk a truck pulls up. Everybody looking in anxiety and worried about not being enough merchandise, still not knowing what was inside. A few men start unloading the boxes inside the store. All of a sudden people at the front of the line start spreading the rumors, "it's bananas!", "what is a banana?" I thought to myself. I was 5 years old and had no idea what it was. We made our way from outside, into the store. The store was full of empty shelves, there was literally no inventory. Finally we got the cashier, it was our turn and my grandpa got handed a big box and he handed the clerk money. "Hurry" my grandpa said, we rushed out of the store and started walking back home. "There's no more!" I heard somebody shout out of the store. There were still at least a hundred people in line. We kept walking, not looking back. We got home and opened the box. It was full of green bananas. We tried to eat them, I loved it. Only later in life I found out bananas supposed to be yellow and not bitter :)

x0054 11y ago
Yes, indeed, the "магазин" or the "гастраном" :) I also still remember the experience of having to bring a 3 liter pickle jar to buy milk from a barrel on wheels. It's funny because sometime we would see the barrel pull up, but we wouldn't know what they were selling. Could be mil, could be beer, could be kvas (not sure how to translate). We would rush in, because what ever it was, it's better than nothing ;) I also remember a really funny story from my friends dead about his visit to Cuba. He went there in the early 80s, I am guessing. He went there with a delegation on some kind of diplomatic mission. Up on arrival he bent over to pick up his bag, and, as luck would have it, ripped his pants. Now, as you might imagine, being a proper Soviet and all, he was only traveling with that one pair of dress pants. So he asked their translator if there is any way they could go to a store of some kind to purchase another pair, before his fancy diplomatic meeting. So they went to the store, supposedly the main fashion store in the center of the city. When asked, the clerk told them: "Oh, no, we haven't had dress pants in for at least 3 weeks." My friends dead, desperate, asked: "Well, what about just needle and some thread?" Clerk: "Well, we have thread, but needle? Hmm, we haven't had those in years now." Eventually they ended up finding a seamstress who fixed the pants, but it was all very hush hush, because it was a crime for her to offer a private service, or for them to solicit it. Yeah, so communism rocks indeed :)
- brc 11y ago
  So I'm genuinely curious - what's your attitude towards socialism and communism now?
  - zbraniecki 11y ago
    you're kidding right? People who lived through it don't find it funny... As my mom always said "Communism is such a great idea, but they should test it on mice first".
    - brc 11y ago
      Not kidding, genuinely intersted. I think you have answered the question. The reason for asking is occasionally I read about stories of people who are sad that they no longer live in a communist country. There was a movie made about that storyline as well. I always thought that - given the mass movements of people after the borders were opened - everyone would have seen it as a gigantic waste of years of their life and would hate the very mention of it. But I've only met a handful of people who lived under communist regimes and usually they don't want to talk about it.
      - x0054 11y ago
        I only lived through the tail end of it, I was borne in Kiev in 1984 and moved to US in 1996. Politically I am libertarian, very much so. I think every one should do their own thing, marry who they want, smoke what ever they want, and take care of them selves and their family, and not expect the government to do anything for you. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am just swinging too much in the other direction after communism, but it is what it is. My parents are largely the same, they hate communism, hate Russia, and would never want to come back to communism. My grandfather was a Military Colonel, but on the medical side, he was a Doctor. I guess he could be considered a "party" man, but he hated the party and the government. He loved his work, and cared deeply for the soldiers he was helping, but he couldn't stand the communist party. He was incredibly happy to see the day Ukraine became independent. My grandma, on the other hand, loved the communist party. She was always well taken care of by the system, and she thinks communism is awesome, or at least that's what she says. In reality what she is missing are the good days, when she was younger, had lot's of friends, and had a generally good life. She never experienced the really horrible side of the Soviet union, so she only has good memories. That said, if I was to ask her if she thinks I would be better of in a communist state, he answer would be "God NO!" She is a realistic woman. She knows intellectually that the Soviet government was evil, but their current situation in Ukraine is very bad as well, and she can't help but be nostalgic.
da02 11y ago
Did you see the abacus being used in "stores" or restaurants back then? John Stossel visited a govt restaurant back then and the waiters were lazy even when the cameras were around. I do remember reading that many people who fled East Germany wanted to go back. I'm guessing it was mainly adults. One couple who left Soviet Russia mentioned on a daytime talk show the one thing they did not like about the US was the higher taxes. (Book: For Good and Evil by Charles Adams)
- pandaman 11y ago
  I've seen abacus being used. Most stores sold everything over the counter (as opposed to pick-stuff-up-and-bring-to-the-register-yourself, which was called "Self-service store") but often there has not been a cash register behind the counter. In order to buy something you had to stand in line to the counter, ask the clerk for the goods you wanted to buy and the clerk would put them aside and tell you the total price, then you had to go to the cash register line and pay the price to the cashier, then come back with the receipt to the clerk (they'd allow you to cut in the line for this) and pick up your purchase. In big stores there were multiple counters so you would get all the receipts at once by telling the counter's numbers and prices to the cashier. Cashiers usually did not have to use an abacus since the cash register worked as a calculator but the clerk had to calculate the price of your purchase and for that she often used an abacus though some stores had an electronic calculator at the counter. The whole system was very bizarre. I am not sure why they had to do this. One theory was that it was to prevent people who were handling food items at the counter from touching money but this also happened in the stores that sold non-edible goods. They did minimize the number of the cash registers I imagine, since one register could be shared between multiple counters. Could be easier to account for fewer registers?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- warkdarrior 11y ago
  Yes, except for the fact that iPhones are not a food item you need, while milk, meat, bread, flour are.
dsmolovich 11y ago
Bananas were a common good sold in Moscow back in 80-s. Every time my grandpa was on his business trip to Moscow he brought a bunch of them. Green, but in a few days they go yellow and sweet enough to eat. Lines formed nowadays for buying a newer version of iPhone remind me those days back in USSR. No kidding. :)
- tinbad 11y ago
  They got more common over time indeed, but most things you could buy abroad just weren't available. Mostly tropical fruits and vegetables that wouldn't grow in most of Russia and since there was little import of anything... I remember tasting Kiwis for the first time after we moved to Europe. As far as standing in line for the latest iPhone: no thank you indeed, been there done that :)
rokhayakebe 11y ago
Oh man, I laughed at your story. I am amazed at how you are able to find irony in such a tough moment. Or perhaps kids are just able to enjoy even the smallest things. This is definitely a story to tell (someday) your kids and grandkids during summer breaks, around the fireplace. Thanks for sharing.
shas3 11y ago
Growing up in not-quite-communist-just-socialist India, we had 'ration shops' (they probably still exist in rural India). Similar principle, but most people used it for optimizing their budgets- buy certain things at ration shops and other things at privately owned grocery stores/farmers markets. For poorer people, ration stores were a very useful way of saving money. I think kerosene, which is a fuel used by low-income sections of the population is still rationed in this manner. It is not uncommon to find lines of people at parked trucks towing kerosene tanks with their ration cards and plastic containers for filling up with kerosene. 'Ration cards' were even the main form of government identification till they opened up the economy, streamlined tax, etc. in the 1990s. They still are, for older people and in rural areas.

kome 11y ago

ouch... I must have something in my eye...

ilaksh 11y ago

I think its important for Hacker News readers to read this because techno-communism is becoming a very serious force in western politics. It needs to be tempered with a historical context. The problem we should focus on is over-centralization, which comes easily out of a competitive OR cooperative society. Yes to holistic measurements, efficiency and equality. But do that on a meta, protocol level that allows for diverse decentralized systems to evolve while still integrating information.

digi_owl 11y ago
On that note, if one go back to old guy Marx we find that he was no fan of centralization. His thinking was towards workers owning the factory they worked at. Then again he also apparently had himself talked in circles to make his findings fit the labor theory of value. Still, while mostly we hear about worker exploitation etc he did dial in on the issue of debt and banking. And how there was a second struggle between industrial capitalists and financial capitalists. From that an later sources it may well help to think about a economy as a systems of flows. Goods in one direction, and money in the other. And much like with all asynchronous flow systems, there has to be buffers to even out peaks and slumps. Banks do that for the money flow via their issuance of debt.
- ilaksh 11y ago
  Not sure what you are ultimately aiming at but although flows is a good way to think of traditional economics, economics as commonly understood is fundamentally flawed and unable to serve the purposes it is supposed to. Effectively the money flow regulates ALL aspects of our society. The problem with this is that its like doing medical science where the only aspect of the body anyone really understands is the cardiovascular system. We need to integrate more physical and social sciences and better values into our economic systems. The moneyflow religion must be converted somehow into a dynamic technological decentralized automated system incorporating data and feedback loops ensuring human and environmental health. And this needs to enable freedom and the ability to evolve. But elitist VC or technocratic engineers rationalizing the flawed, limited belief system around the one-dimensional money system is not constructive.

twqqis 11y ago

For as long as I can remember I've had an interest in going to live in another country. But the older I get and the more I get to understand people and the more I travel, the more I start to hold myself back from actually moving to another country. Even if just for a year or two. I think I realise more and more that cultures really are different, vastly more than I once thought. It has me wonder what I would actually end up gaining from such a move, countries with language barriers even more so. Yet, I cannot stop thinking that by NOT doing it, I'm missing out greatly...

idlewords 11y ago
You are missing out. It's a stressful experience but it will change your life.
- ews 11y ago
  I am in my fourth country, and I can't recommend traveling and especially living in a different country with a very different culture enough.
  - da02 11y ago
    Which countries have you visited? Any favorite cities/towns?
goodcanadian 11y ago
We're on our fourth country, and we've traveled to many more. I think what you learn is that there are many ways to do different things. Other cultures get some things very right that your home culture gets wrong. Your home culture gets some things right that other cultures get wrong. But overall, the main takeaway is that it broadens your view of the world and it opens your eyes to possibilities that you would not otherwise see. You get some of this from travelling, but not nearly as much as what you get when you go and live in another place with a different culture.
- dman 11y ago

geeklodhi 11y ago

I have read many articles but found this the most helping and motivating http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training.html http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training....

rmchugh 11y ago

Sweet story.

V-2 11y ago

> The Polish secret police (the UB or MBP) was quite active and if you didn’t know someone personally you could not trust them I don't mean to nitpick, but UB was renamed to SB in 1956. MBP ceased to exist in 1954. And by the way, knowing someone personally didn't mean you could trust them, either. Pretty much everyone could be a police informant, especially if you were a person of interest : your husband, or your doctor... The number of informal collaborators approached 100 thousand people in the 80s, which means about 0.5% of the nation (only counting adults).

stretchwithme 11y ago
Perhaps Jacques was actually there 30 plus years earlier than he claims :-) Maybe that Citroën has a flux capacitor!
- jacquesm 11y ago
  It had a ton of hydraulics but I never noticed anything like that. Even so the DS was way ahead of its time and in many ways still is.
odiroot 11y ago
There was also a big issue of huge cooperation of the clergy. Don't know the concrete numbers but Anne Applebaum explains it in her "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe". Our catholic church was the most penetrated one in the whole Warsaw pact. This means people literally didn't have anyone to trust. Just try to imagine that. Three generations of people shaped by this feeling, ending up completely paranoid or indifferent/escapist.

stretchwithme 11y ago

Great story, Jacques.

rasz_pl 11y ago

The bit about getting a work permit is a little weird. At that time average monthly salary was ~$5. His Dutch parents could literally just send him lunch money, and it would be enough to for an upper class lifestyle at the time. Flower/grape/whatever picking for a month in the west was enough to finance rest of the year. It was as bad as in Greece right now, everything worth something got sold to multinationals for pennies on the dollar. All the famous polish brands absorbed into mcdonalds/cocacolas/pepsis of the world.

V-2 11y ago
Of course you're right, but then again I believe it was obligatory by law to be employed somewhere. Those who weren't used to be considered "social parasites" (official terminology, see eg. http://www.zielona-gora.po.gov.pl/index.php?id=36&ida=3790 http://www.zielona-gora.po.gov.pl/index.php?id=36&ida=3790) Now, whether or how this law was actually enforced is another matter, but at the very least not having a "normal" source of income was frowned upon, so I imagine already standing out as a foreigner you might prefer to keep a straight record.
jacquesm 11y ago
> The bit about getting a work permit is a little weird. At that time average monthly salary was ~$5. His Dutch parents could literally just send him lunch money, and it would be enough to for an upper class lifestyle at the time. I've never depended on anybody for my living expenses after I turned 17 and to ask my parents for money simply never even occurred to me. Also, once you were legally employed you could drop the exchange requirement (which in terms of western money was substantial, you are looking at the $5 as the black market exchange rate, unfortunately for westerners living in Poland the exchange rate was substantially worse which meant that doing this legally would cost many 100's of $ per month). > Flower/grape/whatever picking for a month in the west was enough to finance rest of the year. Yes, because the money brought in from the west was exchange piecemeal on the black market. > It was as bad as in Greece right now, everything worth something got sold to multinationals for pennies on the dollar. The rape of Poland by the Western countries was - and is - an absolutely horrific crime. Not that anybody will ever by punished for it but it is incredibly bitter that the first contact between Eastern and Western economies led to yet another round of those people being taken advantage of. The damage from this lasts to this day. If that story interests you research 'polinvest' and several other nasty schemes that were pulled off just after the change. > All the famous polish brands absorbed into mcdonalds/cocacolas/pepsis of the world. And the Philipses, Volkswagens and Siemenses...

ekr 11y ago

Jacques, may I ask what brought you to Romania (are you still there)?

jacquesm 11y ago
A contract job. I'm back in NL right now.

_mgr 11y ago

I've read this before. Has this already been posted to HN? I am trying to convince my native born Polish girlfriend to move back for a year to live/work/travel. I figure I will pick up the language far quicker than my current pace. She's a little apprehensive about our earning potential there. The Polish Zloty does not appear to be the strongest currency and the average wage is half of some of it's other EU cousins.

krallja 11y ago
It's from 2014, and by an infamous HNer, so you've almost certainly had a chance to read it before.
- bernardom 11y ago
  It's even weirder clicking on the story, thinking "wait, I remember this," and then reading your name on the intro :-) (Thanks again for writing this up, Jacques!)
viraptor 11y ago
I can understand it. Moved out around 9 years ago and I really wouldn't go back for a longer period. Tech jobs I see are not that exciting, unless you work in some startup-like company. (although it got way better in the last few years, can't deny this) And there are just so many things I see every time I go back, that I don't want to experience in normal life. If you're successful after moving and don't have strong family/friends ties, it's hard to find good reasons to go back.
limaoscarjuliet 11y ago
Poland is still very closed society. You will be fine in large cities (Wroclaw, Krakow, Poznan, Warszawa, Gdansk), but unlikely to do well in small and medium cities. Wages are way smaller than in EU countries, prices are pretty much the same. Real estate might be the only exception, but not by much. Polish is a very hard language to pick up. Not only tongue twister, but full of exceptions and mind twisting rules. A pretty good example is counting objects, e.g. apples: 1-4 jablka, 5-21 jablek, 22-24 jablka, 25.. jablek. Yes, good luck with that! The good news is most young and some mid-age people speak English, large cities welcome foreigners, and - if you have decent profession - you will do ok.

fapjacks 11y ago

When I was just a couple months into being a teenager, I went to Russia in 1993. We were the first group of Americans allowed into the Udmurt region, and we traveled from Saint Petersburg to Izhevsk to meet our host families for a short stay, and then to Moscow before leaving the country. It was the first time in my life when I saw anything like that. I remember a few times when I said things that I still cringe at saying to this day. Prior to entering Russia, we stayed in Stockholm. Stockholm was a shining jewel compared to Saint Petersburg, which itself was a shining jewel compared to Izhevsk. I remember I asked out loud if a hotel was going to "be like Sweden", completely oblivious that I was embarrassing the Americans and Russians around me. Things like this that still make me cringe today. The city of Izhevsk was famous for being the home of the inventor of the AK-47, as well as the Baikal munitions plant, which supplied a lot of the world's Soviet ammunition. I remember seeing a group of children, perhaps six or seven years old, running through the street and drinking from a bottle of vodka. A few months later, our Russian host-family counterparts came to stay with us in the States for about as long as we were in Russia. My grandmother gave me a hundred dollars (kind of a big deal in '93 heh) to take my counterpart shopping. When we were at the store, I remember talking about buying some toys and taking my counterpart to the toy section at Walmart. You know what he did instead? He bought Levis and cans of coffee for his family. I still cringe every time I think about how I behaved back then, but for sure it taught me an enormous amount about the world in a very short time.

limaoscarjuliet 11y ago

I'm from Poland, born in 74, so I remember that time well. 1987 was 3 years before bankruptcy of the communist government and fall of iron curtain. It was still bad as author described. I remember the long lines to bakeries, I remember the grey block of flats (these are still there, and even though painted in other colors are dull as hell!). But... we, children, did not know there is a "better life" out there. Sure, everybody had someone in the West (mostly in US), we got an occasional package for Xmas with chocolate and some clothes. But we, children, did not care for the West that much. We were outside playing stupid games like hanging out on carpet hanger next to block of flats (and screaming "cinema!" when one of the girls revealed her underwear while doing some risque maneuver). We jumped rope and "rubber". We played war (zee Germans vs us). I would come out in the morning or right after school and stay until dark, at which time my mom would call "comeeee baaaaaack!" from the window. So yes, it was dark middle ages, but somehow simple and pleasant. This is in contrast to my children today rarely venturing outside and playing some phone crap all day long. For adults that might have been whole another story. The promise of the West likely has been large. But I still want to bet guys were busy chasing the ladies, the family was the focus, and people who wanted to be happy were happy. So not romanticizing the system too much - I am a successful software engineer working all other the World for "the man" and like it - it was not that bad as people might think. Some of us were quite happy, despite system's shortcomings. Strange for sure, but not hopeless.

jpatokal 11y ago
Your description of life for kids in Poland reminds me a lot of my own childhood in Finland -- except that I was on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and there were no bread lines. (Quite few grey blocks of flats though...) I also remember driving through East Germany and visiting East Berlin in the mid-1980s and getting thoroughly freaked out by what a even child could recognize as a monochrome totalitarian dystopia. It's the US, with its pervasive fear that kids must be supervised at all times or they'll immediately be kidnapped and sold into sex slavery or something, that's the real outlier here. See http://www.freerangekids.com/ http://www.freerangekids.com/ for a movement that's trying to roll this back, with some success.
tallanvor 11y ago

cafard 11y ago

A repost, but a charming story.