12 ms·

I’ve often been intrigued at the sense of fascination, cultural and technological, directed towards the USSR on HN. I share the fascination. It may stem from an

I’ve often been intrigued at the sense of fascination, cultural and technological, directed towards the USSR on HN. I share the fascination. It may stem from an appeal to see engineered works from a system far different than our own both on the technology front as well as cultural engineering/propaganda front; there may be some appeal in the notion that the USSR is historically contained/bounded in some sense and can be isolated and studied; also, the political message of focusing national efforts on progress/technology in some sense would resonate with engineers (though communist policies impeded innovation and no doubt industrious politicians stood to gain more than industrious scientists/engineers at most junctures). Would be interested in others’ thoughts.

mhh__ 6y ago
I'm very interested (slowly building up a library) in cold war espionage - no one does it better than the Russians. The present tense is not an oversight, the Lubyanka is still the tallest building in Moscow as the saying goes. To me the Soviet Union represents this kind of philistinic failed experiment (Lenin was literate which therefore elevates him above Hitler?) come horror movie that is simultaneously terrifying and yet very fascinating. One of the strangest things one finds in books about Soviet spies (double agents or not etc.) is that often the only photos of them in public taken with state blessing and thus surviving are those taken by the Soviet internal security services. I find Soviet aircraft design quite interesting too, in the sense that even just in the cockpit designs you can see the work of designers making do with relatively limited budgets. In a flight simulator it becomes obvious that US planes are almost easy to use whereas Russian cockpits are one size fits all (i.e. training vs design costs)
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  For those who haven't heard the joke: the [KGB HQ] Lubyanka is the tallest building in Moscow, because from its basement you [political prisoners] can see Siberia [gulags].
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Repressive systems are apparently good for humour; the jokes are excellent. My current favourite, on how important ministries wound up led by sclerotic ideologues with no clue: Chief Rabbi of Moscow synagogue dies. In atheist soviet times, party functionary, not congregation, picks replacement. Comrade Burns: Nu, who are candidates? Comrade Smithers: Well sir, we have comrades Flanders, Szyslak, and Rabinovich. Comrade Burns: Who is recommended? Comrade Smithers: Is toss up, sir. Comrade Szyslak is impeccable Party member, but knows nothing about religion. Dr. comrade Flanders has degree in religion, but not recommended by Party. Unfortunately, you have to decide. Comrade Burns: But what about —checks notes— comrade Rabinovich? Comrade Smithers: What? You can't appoint him, he's a jew!
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      One of the better accounts of the “unofficial” anti-semitism in the Soviet Union of the late 80s can be found in Frenkel’s Love and Math.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  > I'm very interested (slowly building up a library) in cold war espionage If anyone hasn’t read the below account of Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky’s life and defection, it’s well worth the time. Ben Macintyre (2018), The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
themodelplumber 6y ago
It's also a projection of: - Desired process: Parlaying emotional suffering into last-ditch displays of heroic boldness - Doing what needs to be done come hell or high water (or, come softness/weakness) - Mowing down one's fragile sense of self in order to become a new and stronger person via some objective process like meeting a goal - Winning at all costs (and there will be costs) Interestingly, the Soviet march-style (just move forward) tech and economic focus has been noted as being a polar opposite to chaotic freedom. In the USA we are faced with a very strange dichotomy in this way; we are ever attempting to transcend historic barriers by uniting economic expedients and technology with a sense of freedom and ethics. This makes us the "weak" state, in various narratives. In the Soviet Union model, the individual must die; individuals are not leveraged positively in the economic model. It's interesting if you look at the end of the Soviet Union and the tempting role of individualist culture. IMO it's an interesting archetype, the Soviet Union, but in individuals it can be somewhat worrying insofar as it portrays or carries the subject's inner state for them. This is far from uniformly true across the board, but there are often evidences of striking face validity if you do a lot of work with individuals who are A) in tech and B) suffering. The Soviet Mindset carries a perception that they must forget themselves and go to work, winning at all costs. However if the boss pushes themself this way, for example, their employees may find themselves suffering unfairly under a covert contract with what amounts to the Soviet Union mindset, and this is not exactly the world's healthiest leadership culture. (I designed a productivity system around these concerns and spent a lot of time reconciling symbol and implications for productivity) There's also the reverse case, in which one is basically stuck due to subjective emotional complications, and they are effectively rescued by this Soviet mindset. If one needs to adopt an executive mindset, few executive mindsets are going to execute better than the Soviet ;-)
- baybal2 6y ago
  I think you don't got even a bit how life in USSR was. Through almost all of its history, the public was deeply cynical about anything the CPSU wanted to impose on them. Among common people, the best name for a person naively believing the party was an idiot, and the worst, well much worse. Even among the system's insiders, a double think was universal. Only for a brief three periods of USSR's history, were there any social upheaval, and a semblance of "belief" in it: twenties, sixties, and immediately before the collapse. And every time the soviets made it sure to extinguish that.
Synaesthesia 6y ago
My views on the Soviet Union have shifted over the years, when I learned about Stalin's offer of a unified Germany in the 1950's which was rejected, for example, and you realise the USA also was guilty of prosecuting the Cold War. The technological progress made was impressive, although I thought it was made largely at the cost of the people and workers, rather than in co-operation with them. I am a socialist, (anarchist) and anti-Bolshevik. The October revolution was more of a right wing coup, which came after a true broad based revolution according to my interpretation of history. That said, despite the brutal methods employed to reinstate managerial control of the factories and so on, the country did progress from an impoverished, illiterate state in 1917 to an advanced manufacturing state. The same can be said of China, which in 1948 was developmentally on the level of say India or Africa.
- hdre4hee5 6y ago
  Ah yes, Good Faith Joseph Stalin. LOL jesus.
- nickik 6y ago
  > The October revolution was more of a right wing coup, which came after a true broad based revolution according to my interpretation of history. It was a coup from some socialist against others. Only an anarchist could call it 'right wing' and by that standard essentially 99.9% of history is 'right wing'. Seems kind of a useless way of using words. > the country did progress from an impoverished, illiterate state in 1917 to an advanced manufacturing state This is mostly nonsense. People regularly underestimate the Imperial economy. If you actually look at the Imperial economy and the war economy they had during the war, it was quite impressive. The efforts by socialist to call it some medieval economy is just plane nonsense. Growth during the last 30 years of Imperial was quite good, among the best in Europe. Arguably the Soviet economy was never as dynamic. And only the Stalin industrialization drives produced more industrial growth at a cost the Imperial government wouldn't pay. Check out this set of lectures on Imperial Russia, it includes a lot of insight on their economy and industry: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEETkM6vwQPHJHhXinsuQN7jahEjbUPPY https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEETkM6vwQPHJHhXinsuQ...
  - 6y ago
holoduke 6y ago
Despite the Russian society reality is based on explicit corruption, fear and no respect for human rights, I do still find it much deeper than the US society. Focus on art, classical music, poetry and group/family values. The west, but in particular the US is so individualistic that there is hardly any inspiring cultural aspects. Nevertheless I'd rather live in the US than in the USSR or modern Russia.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > The west, but in particular the US is so individualistic that there is hardly any inspiring cultural aspects. I good saying I heard on that is "The West is 100% collectivist in its individualism." Ever noticed the hordes of "be different" seekers following every social trend in some times terrifying unison? I say, US is not a place where smart people have courage to dissent, being afraid to be booed, and outshouted by the "be different" collective
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Nonsense! The US used to have racism and inequality under the ancien régime, but now it is a workers' paradise, colourblind[1] and bountiful[2] for all. [1] And crown thy good with brotherhood... [2] Thine alabaster cities gleam... Why, I bet I could stand all day in front of the White House with a sign saying "Thank you, President Trump, for my happy childhood!" and no one would turn me away.
puranjay 6y ago
I'd traveled to St Petersburg, Moscow and Tashkent last year precisely to satiate this fascination. Stayed in an Airbnb in central Moscow in an old soviet-style apartment (most of which are now luxury apartments with BMWs parked out front). The biggest difference was their approach to public infrastructure. The metro stations in all three cities are absolutely gorgeous. The trains are old and creaky, but the stations look like palaces (which is exactly what they wanted to create - "palaces for the people").
zymhan 6y ago
I just can't get over the idea that it is a place that existed, but no longer does. Even though the physical place is still there, of course.
- newsbinator 6y ago
  It still exists in some ways and in some places. Here in Belarus you still get a sense of it.
protastus 6y ago
For me it's a combination of extraordinary achievements in scientific fields, a very distinctive art aesthetic and the promotion of an ascetic life. Even the well connected aristocracy lived plainly by western standards. I'm inspired by the ideal of success through sheer determination and ingenuity, against all odds. Having known folks who lived in the USSR and modern Russia, I recognize the romantic elements are the effect of powerful propaganda. In reality, people were burdened by not being able to meet basic needs and were afraid of their government. Engineering was done under the barrel of a gun. Romantic elements aside, I think we can all recognize the USSR was responsible for remarkable accomplishments, ranging from sublime to deeply horrifying.
- Muromec 6y ago
  >Engineering was done under the barrel of a gun. Good example is head of their space program — Sergey Korolev, who sent the men to space but wasn’t able to open his mouth properly because of the torture he went through in prison: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev And unfortunately not much has changed since except the fact that you could leave or at least move to Moscow fairly easily
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    even the propaganda gets recycled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_lYBxDLwz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_lYBxDLwz8 (on the other hand, lots of propaganda, as in the former FRY or Donetsk, doesn't exactly seem to be the recipe for peaceful change) I would've expected a swarthier Moldovan, but maybe she's supposed to have been sunburnt from working in the vines?
082349872349872 6y ago
I never knew much about the USSR as a kid. We grew up in fear of MAD, but the iron curtain meant that we didn't know, for instance, what kids TV shows were like on the other side, or what their music videos were like, or that they also liked Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins, the Three Musketeers ... or played with hula hoops and skateboards. (even getting TV shows from the UK, a western country, was hard, because they were on PAL. people used to "camera copy", running a VCR to a TV on one system, and videorecording that with a camera running the other system) So anyway, lately I've been taking full advantage of web standards to see what I had only been guessing about during the Cold War. (the kids shows are still useful; I've had enough greek that I already knew a good portion of cyrillic, but learned the rest from Khryusha, Stepashka, and Philya) Full props to all the ex-Warsaw Pact countries who changed their basic political systems without much violence. молодец!
- markvdb 6y ago
  Some childrens tv series did actually gain recognition on both sides of the Iron Curtain. One example I remember as a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colargol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colargol . Here's a sci-fi one that as far as I'm aware didn't make it across except as bootleg dubbed tapes: The mystery of the third planet (1981): - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0305861/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0305861/ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TAmISW76Rk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TAmISW76Rk
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    merci je wel! From the same book series: Guest from the future (1984) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086723/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086723/ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWGKZatqTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWGKZatqTU I think Julia's grandmother knows a thing or two because she's seen a thing or two? (Wikipedia claims brits and french got this one, but we never did)
  - tailwagsthedog 6y ago
    "The mystery of the third planet" is [..] based on a children's science fiction novella "Alice's Travel" by Kir Bulychev [..], which made an even bigger impact with live action movie "Guest from the future" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhA8YyAn2fE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhA8YyAn2fE https://www.amazon.com/Guest-from-the-Future/dp/B07171ZTHP https://www.amazon.com/Guest-from-the-Future/dp/B07171ZTHP ), perfectly preserving that spirit of the passionate era that is now lost (for those with imageboard background, that's kind of soviet Bridge to Terabithia). From easy-going spirit, - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmB4DfG-3K4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmB4DfG-3K4 "Wow, a talking fish" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQ1B7-Miog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQ1B7-Miog "I will give you this star!" to late perestroyka era, - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE Polygon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc "There Will Come Soft Rains" (Bradbury) these cartoons retell a story of an early Heinlein era turning into Orwell/Huxley state.
jacobush 6y ago
You will love the 80s movie Afghan - the Soviet Experience
- pram 6y ago
  Agreed 100% it’s an amazing documentary, especially the convoy section. Having been at Bagram myself (the same base the Soviet aircrew was at in the movie) I was also amused at how similar the experiences were.
Noughmad 6y ago
People are often fascinated by some aspects of those considered "enemies", even if for good reasons. Like Guy Fawkes and Che Guevara, almost nobody agrees with their idealogies, but they are both widely recognized as symbols of resistance. And similar fascination of Nazis is present as well, from their uniform design, scientific achievements, to their detailed record-keeping.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Fascination with the enemy. Fascination with the horror of that day to day life.

mhh__ 6y ago

I'm very interested (slowly building up a library) in cold war espionage - no one does it better than the Russians. The present tense is not an oversight, the Lubyanka is still the tallest building in Moscow as the saying goes. To me the Soviet Union represents this kind of philistinic failed experiment (Lenin was literate which therefore elevates him above Hitler?) come horror movie that is simultaneously terrifying and yet very fascinating. One of the strangest things one finds in books about Soviet spies (double agents or not etc.) is that often the only photos of them in public taken with state blessing and thus surviving are those taken by the Soviet internal security services. I find Soviet aircraft design quite interesting too, in the sense that even just in the cockpit designs you can see the work of designers making do with relatively limited budgets. In a flight simulator it becomes obvious that US planes are almost easy to use whereas Russian cockpits are one size fits all (i.e. training vs design costs)

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
For those who haven't heard the joke: the [KGB HQ] Lubyanka is the tallest building in Moscow, because from its basement you [political prisoners] can see Siberia [gulags].
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Repressive systems are apparently good for humour; the jokes are excellent. My current favourite, on how important ministries wound up led by sclerotic ideologues with no clue: Chief Rabbi of Moscow synagogue dies. In atheist soviet times, party functionary, not congregation, picks replacement. Comrade Burns: Nu, who are candidates? Comrade Smithers: Well sir, we have comrades Flanders, Szyslak, and Rabinovich. Comrade Burns: Who is recommended? Comrade Smithers: Is toss up, sir. Comrade Szyslak is impeccable Party member, but knows nothing about religion. Dr. comrade Flanders has degree in religion, but not recommended by Party. Unfortunately, you have to decide. Comrade Burns: But what about —checks notes— comrade Rabinovich? Comrade Smithers: What? You can't appoint him, he's a jew!
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    One of the better accounts of the “unofficial” anti-semitism in the Soviet Union of the late 80s can be found in Frenkel’s Love and Math.
lostlogin 6y ago
> I'm very interested (slowly building up a library) in cold war espionage If anyone hasn’t read the below account of Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky’s life and defection, it’s well worth the time. Ben Macintyre (2018), The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

themodelplumber 6y ago

It's also a projection of: - Desired process: Parlaying emotional suffering into last-ditch displays of heroic boldness - Doing what needs to be done come hell or high water (or, come softness/weakness) - Mowing down one's fragile sense of self in order to become a new and stronger person via some objective process like meeting a goal - Winning at all costs (and there will be costs) Interestingly, the Soviet march-style (just move forward) tech and economic focus has been noted as being a polar opposite to chaotic freedom. In the USA we are faced with a very strange dichotomy in this way; we are ever attempting to transcend historic barriers by uniting economic expedients and technology with a sense of freedom and ethics. This makes us the "weak" state, in various narratives. In the Soviet Union model, the individual must die; individuals are not leveraged positively in the economic model. It's interesting if you look at the end of the Soviet Union and the tempting role of individualist culture. IMO it's an interesting archetype, the Soviet Union, but in individuals it can be somewhat worrying insofar as it portrays or carries the subject's inner state for them. This is far from uniformly true across the board, but there are often evidences of striking face validity if you do a lot of work with individuals who are A) in tech and B) suffering. The Soviet Mindset carries a perception that they must forget themselves and go to work, winning at all costs. However if the boss pushes themself this way, for example, their employees may find themselves suffering unfairly under a covert contract with what amounts to the Soviet Union mindset, and this is not exactly the world's healthiest leadership culture. (I designed a productivity system around these concerns and spent a lot of time reconciling symbol and implications for productivity) There's also the reverse case, in which one is basically stuck due to subjective emotional complications, and they are effectively rescued by this Soviet mindset. If one needs to adopt an executive mindset, few executive mindsets are going to execute better than the Soviet ;-)

baybal2 6y ago
I think you don't got even a bit how life in USSR was. Through almost all of its history, the public was deeply cynical about anything the CPSU wanted to impose on them. Among common people, the best name for a person naively believing the party was an idiot, and the worst, well much worse. Even among the system's insiders, a double think was universal. Only for a brief three periods of USSR's history, were there any social upheaval, and a semblance of "belief" in it: twenties, sixties, and immediately before the collapse. And every time the soviets made it sure to extinguish that.

Synaesthesia 6y ago

My views on the Soviet Union have shifted over the years, when I learned about Stalin's offer of a unified Germany in the 1950's which was rejected, for example, and you realise the USA also was guilty of prosecuting the Cold War. The technological progress made was impressive, although I thought it was made largely at the cost of the people and workers, rather than in co-operation with them. I am a socialist, (anarchist) and anti-Bolshevik. The October revolution was more of a right wing coup, which came after a true broad based revolution according to my interpretation of history. That said, despite the brutal methods employed to reinstate managerial control of the factories and so on, the country did progress from an impoverished, illiterate state in 1917 to an advanced manufacturing state. The same can be said of China, which in 1948 was developmentally on the level of say India or Africa.

hdre4hee5 6y ago
Ah yes, Good Faith Joseph Stalin. LOL jesus.
nickik 6y ago
> The October revolution was more of a right wing coup, which came after a true broad based revolution according to my interpretation of history. It was a coup from some socialist against others. Only an anarchist could call it 'right wing' and by that standard essentially 99.9% of history is 'right wing'. Seems kind of a useless way of using words. > the country did progress from an impoverished, illiterate state in 1917 to an advanced manufacturing state This is mostly nonsense. People regularly underestimate the Imperial economy. If you actually look at the Imperial economy and the war economy they had during the war, it was quite impressive. The efforts by socialist to call it some medieval economy is just plane nonsense. Growth during the last 30 years of Imperial was quite good, among the best in Europe. Arguably the Soviet economy was never as dynamic. And only the Stalin industrialization drives produced more industrial growth at a cost the Imperial government wouldn't pay. Check out this set of lectures on Imperial Russia, it includes a lot of insight on their economy and industry: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEETkM6vwQPHJHhXinsuQN7jahEjbUPPY https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEETkM6vwQPHJHhXinsuQ...
- 6y ago

holoduke 6y ago

Despite the Russian society reality is based on explicit corruption, fear and no respect for human rights, I do still find it much deeper than the US society. Focus on art, classical music, poetry and group/family values. The west, but in particular the US is so individualistic that there is hardly any inspiring cultural aspects. Nevertheless I'd rather live in the US than in the USSR or modern Russia.

baybal2 6y ago
> The west, but in particular the US is so individualistic that there is hardly any inspiring cultural aspects. I good saying I heard on that is "The West is 100% collectivist in its individualism." Ever noticed the hordes of "be different" seekers following every social trend in some times terrifying unison? I say, US is not a place where smart people have courage to dissent, being afraid to be booed, and outshouted by the "be different" collective
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Nonsense! The US used to have racism and inequality under the ancien régime, but now it is a workers' paradise, colourblind[1] and bountiful[2] for all. [1] And crown thy good with brotherhood... [2] Thine alabaster cities gleam... Why, I bet I could stand all day in front of the White House with a sign saying "Thank you, President Trump, for my happy childhood!" and no one would turn me away.

puranjay 6y ago

I'd traveled to St Petersburg, Moscow and Tashkent last year precisely to satiate this fascination. Stayed in an Airbnb in central Moscow in an old soviet-style apartment (most of which are now luxury apartments with BMWs parked out front). The biggest difference was their approach to public infrastructure. The metro stations in all three cities are absolutely gorgeous. The trains are old and creaky, but the stations look like palaces (which is exactly what they wanted to create - "palaces for the people").

zymhan 6y ago

I just can't get over the idea that it is a place that existed, but no longer does. Even though the physical place is still there, of course.

newsbinator 6y ago
It still exists in some ways and in some places. Here in Belarus you still get a sense of it.

protastus 6y ago

For me it's a combination of extraordinary achievements in scientific fields, a very distinctive art aesthetic and the promotion of an ascetic life. Even the well connected aristocracy lived plainly by western standards. I'm inspired by the ideal of success through sheer determination and ingenuity, against all odds. Having known folks who lived in the USSR and modern Russia, I recognize the romantic elements are the effect of powerful propaganda. In reality, people were burdened by not being able to meet basic needs and were afraid of their government. Engineering was done under the barrel of a gun. Romantic elements aside, I think we can all recognize the USSR was responsible for remarkable accomplishments, ranging from sublime to deeply horrifying.

Muromec 6y ago
>Engineering was done under the barrel of a gun. Good example is head of their space program — Sergey Korolev, who sent the men to space but wasn’t able to open his mouth properly because of the torture he went through in prison: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev And unfortunately not much has changed since except the fact that you could leave or at least move to Moscow fairly easily
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  even the propaganda gets recycled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_lYBxDLwz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_lYBxDLwz8 (on the other hand, lots of propaganda, as in the former FRY or Donetsk, doesn't exactly seem to be the recipe for peaceful change) I would've expected a swarthier Moldovan, but maybe she's supposed to have been sunburnt from working in the vines?

082349872349872 6y ago

I never knew much about the USSR as a kid. We grew up in fear of MAD, but the iron curtain meant that we didn't know, for instance, what kids TV shows were like on the other side, or what their music videos were like, or that they also liked Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins, the Three Musketeers ... or played with hula hoops and skateboards. (even getting TV shows from the UK, a western country, was hard, because they were on PAL. people used to "camera copy", running a VCR to a TV on one system, and videorecording that with a camera running the other system) So anyway, lately I've been taking full advantage of web standards to see what I had only been guessing about during the Cold War. (the kids shows are still useful; I've had enough greek that I already knew a good portion of cyrillic, but learned the rest from Khryusha, Stepashka, and Philya) Full props to all the ex-Warsaw Pact countries who changed their basic political systems without much violence. молодец!

markvdb 6y ago
Some childrens tv series did actually gain recognition on both sides of the Iron Curtain. One example I remember as a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colargol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colargol . Here's a sci-fi one that as far as I'm aware didn't make it across except as bootleg dubbed tapes: The mystery of the third planet (1981): - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0305861/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0305861/ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TAmISW76Rk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TAmISW76Rk
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  merci je wel! From the same book series: Guest from the future (1984) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086723/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086723/ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWGKZatqTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWGKZatqTU I think Julia's grandmother knows a thing or two because she's seen a thing or two? (Wikipedia claims brits and french got this one, but we never did)
- tailwagsthedog 6y ago
  "The mystery of the third planet" is [..] based on a children's science fiction novella "Alice's Travel" by Kir Bulychev [..], which made an even bigger impact with live action movie "Guest from the future" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhA8YyAn2fE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhA8YyAn2fE https://www.amazon.com/Guest-from-the-Future/dp/B07171ZTHP https://www.amazon.com/Guest-from-the-Future/dp/B07171ZTHP ), perfectly preserving that spirit of the passionate era that is now lost (for those with imageboard background, that's kind of soviet Bridge to Terabithia). From easy-going spirit, - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmB4DfG-3K4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmB4DfG-3K4 "Wow, a talking fish" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQ1B7-Miog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQ1B7-Miog "I will give you this star!" to late perestroyka era, - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnJbtbh4tDE Polygon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc "There Will Come Soft Rains" (Bradbury) these cartoons retell a story of an early Heinlein era turning into Orwell/Huxley state.

jacobush 6y ago

You will love the 80s movie Afghan - the Soviet Experience

pram 6y ago
Agreed 100% it’s an amazing documentary, especially the convoy section. Having been at Bagram myself (the same base the Soviet aircrew was at in the movie) I was also amused at how similar the experiences were.

Noughmad 6y ago

People are often fascinated by some aspects of those considered "enemies", even if for good reasons. Like Guy Fawkes and Che Guevara, almost nobody agrees with their idealogies, but they are both widely recognized as symbols of resistance. And similar fascination of Nazis is present as well, from their uniform design, scientific achievements, to their detailed record-keeping.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

Fascination with the enemy. Fascination with the horror of that day to day life.