4 ms·
Like most places it varies depending on the person. I work in Russia and my colleagues range across from having very deep seated patriotism and believing in all
by csydas 10y ago
Like most places it varies depending on the person. I work in Russia and my colleagues range across from having very deep seated patriotism and believing in all things Russian to more moderate reviews of it. World War 2 is exceptionally relevant nearly 70 years out, with the major cities having monuments/statue after statue and so on.
Many of the major attractions in St. Petersburg and the surrounding areas are historical and were rebuilt after the siege of Leningrad, though at great pain due to difficulty in raising funds to do the restorations. The city thrives on the more world renown cultural heritage (ballets for example), and many of the old soviet performers are still draw huge crowds and fill arenas/auditoriums. Many older Russians I've met look very fondly back at the USSR; younger generations have a mixed attitude, many just echoing their parents' sentiments, others enjoying modern Russia.
As far as preservation goes, I think it depends on just how crappy it is. There's a few buildings downtown in St. Petersburg that are the last few that were directly involved in the Siege of Leningrad (remnants of former buildings) and there is discussion on what to do with them - knock'em down and replace or restore as a historical site. It's prime area and the buildings weren't of any importance, but at the same time, the history of WW2 is just really tightly woven into pretty much everything, so there is some deadlock on what to do. Much of SPB was rebuilt to "it's former glory" after the siege so there is interest in restoring what was lost. But it also hasn't stopped gigantic shopping malls from being installed downtown in these spaces, with the exterior of course matching the surrounding architecture.
- ido 10y agoMany older Russians I've met look very fondly back at the USSR; younger generations have a mixed attitude, many just echoing their parents' sentiments, others enjoying modern Russia. I have family in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and have often heard that sentiment - that things weren't too bad back then. Hard to say how much of it is due to viewing the past in rose tinted glasses or missing their youth though.
- csydas 10y agoMy partner's mother explains it like this; while she's happy with modern Russia, she misses when it was a super power. She recalls having enough month at the end of each month for new outfits, apartment paid for (owned), plenty of food, and a nice vacation every 3 months or so. She also says she likes having a focused and goal oriented leader, and that democracy makes her head spin since it seems like nothing ever gets done. We (partner and I) haven't pressed much into how much she actually knows about what was happening politically, but that's the perspective that a lot of other older folk echo. The few older people I have seen pressed on it usually just get stubborn about the bad parts of the USSR and don't want to talk about it.
- ido 10y agoCzechoslovakia was never a super power, and communism was to an extent forced upon it by the soviet union, but still people miss the security of the old system: you would basically never get fired or worry about the basics like clothes and shelter as long as you didn't rock the boat. This seems to be the main point rather than democracy being hard to comprehend or inefficient.
- toyg 10y agoSomeone from Yugoslavia described it to me as "back then, everyone had a little something; not much, but something. Now some people have lots more, and others have nothing."