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I will call this a "Elzin Effect": — When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake — Yes, that Boris Yeltsin. In 1989 the future first president of p

I will call this a "Elzin Effect": — When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake — Yes, that Boris Yeltsin. In 1989 the future first president of post-Soviet Russia visited Houston, and what most impressed him wasn’t NASA. — It was a Randall’s grocery store, where the Houston Chronicle saw him “nodding his head in amazement” at the fish, produce and frozen pudding pops: — “He commented that if the Soviet people, who often must wait in line for goods, saw U.S. supermarkets, ‘there would be a revolution.’ ” The Internet lets people experience pretty much the same, except do so while being on the other side of the public/government divide, and in fact, there are revolutions happening. What I myself believe that a lot of people in the West kind of realise how this work in basics, but only the people who grew in the unfree world will continue further to note that what matters even more is what he said later: — “Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said. Elzin was said to be almost crying from this realisation. He saw it's impossible to recover the control of the party when, in a few years, it will be not only him, but tens of thousands of other USSR's officials visiting USA. The later made themselves to feel that they look like clowns in eyes of people who been there, and saw this. These officials will forever stop believing in the power of CPSU, because they saw who really have all the wealth, power, and political potency in this world. Those officials will stop wanting to be high ranking functionaries, and will want to do business themselves in hopes of achieving even a tiny fraction of wealth they saw in the USA, or even drop everything, and move to the West themselves (A huge portion of Russian immigration to the Brighton Beach in early nineties were, in fact, families of Soviet officials, and other elites.) Above, was what the third man in the power vertical, in the second most powerful world country at the time said. Now, imagine how much will this crash the worldview of some "big guy" official in a small town, or a village in the third world, and how they will feel. They too will stop caring for their duties, cash out the treasury, and run. The Internet is equally potent in erasing the faith in the government of both the governed, and the ones doing governing.

netsharc 6y ago
At least Yeltsin's (why Elzin?) observations are probably quite accurate. But nowadays it seems like people are getting mad based on partial information (sometimes just 140 characters) or lies and misinformation. For example the paranoia against Muslims is based on incorrect perceptions of how many Muslims there are: https://www.statista.com/statistics/952909/perceptions-on-religion-in-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/952909/perceptions-on-re... , and this on top of the perception that having Muslims in the community is a negative thing. Maybe it's also a lot of the "grass is greener on the other side" or "in the future". US voters heard Obama's message of hope and attached to it everything they wanted to be better in their lives. And the same with Trump's message of "Great Again".
- baybal2 6y ago
  The "Intellectuals" in the West think of commoners no better than CPSU members though of their "prole" chattels. I'd say common people are even better than them at making thought connections when things relate to daily life, and something obvious. I highly, highly doubt that you can make somebody truly "mad with 140 characters," Most proletarians who go on fuming these days are ones who genuinely are pissed off at something very obvious to them about the government, but that something is not that obvious to people up on the social ladder, who only see what is on the surface, like the calls to "burn those A, or B, or C on the stake."
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    > but that something is not that obvious to people up on the social ladder. I think that's a bit of simplification. The idea that people in charge cannot understand them it's as old as modern humanity (hence 5-6 thousands years old) I believe that a good part of that "being easily pissed" has been engineered by the same people you think are too up on the social ladder to understand. What bothers me is that most of those who are genuinely pissed are pissed about things that don't actually matter for them. What does it matter to the proletarians if a famous person (say an actor) says something pro or against Brexit (for example). You have your vote, you cast it and that's what really matters to your category: representation. Have you ever read the comments below some of these tweets? I do not think that kind of reaction is really genuine or has anything to do with the situation of working class in 2020. I could be wrong, but I think that that kind of knee jerk reaction has been fabricated. To make an extremely simplified example: in an episode of "the boys" (the TV show) one of the new character says to an old timer who's have more followers than her (the incumbent in the posted article) something on the line of "you have followers, I have soldiers" People up on the social ladder are up there also because they are good at exploiting human weaknesses and aren't afraid nor ashamed of doing it for their own personal gain.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > The idea that people in charge cannot understand them it's as old as modern humanity (hence 5-6 thousands years old) There isn't great evidence for authority structures that would justify the label "person in charge" 6 thousand years ago. History generally starts around 5 thousand years ago, with the development of writing. (Were there people in charge of other people 6 thousand years ago? Sure, it's not unlikely. But Çatalhüyük is a more or less urban area 9 thousand years ago; if we're going on what's likely, your estimate of 6 thousand years is much too low.)
vmception 6y ago
Yeah that’s cool I’m just here to collect transactions fees, you want that treasury going to a UBS in Switzerland or a Wells Fargo in USA
romanoderoma 6y ago
> and in fact, there are revolutions happening. it would be interesting to know who's benefiting from these revolutions it would also be interesting to understand if they really are revolutions or not I am more inclined to call them riots and I am afraid that a number of them are steered by people with very bad intentions Internet simply made propaganda easier and more effective, for the good but also for he bad p.s: It's a good story, but Yeltsin went to Texas less than two months before the Berlin wall was taken down, people in USSR already knew about supermarkets at that time. Especially in East Germany. That's not the reason why they teared the wall down. We in Italy knew about American malls and supermarkets, we had them but we usually didn't use them as much as we do today to buy groceries because our culture was based on local smaller shops selling fresh food.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > p.s: It's a good story, but Yeltsin went to Texas less than two months before the Berlin wall was taken down, people in USSR already knew about supermarkets at that time. Especially in East Germany. That's not the reason why they teared the wall down. I beg you thing otherwise. I spent my first 5 years of life, 1990-1995, with my mother shuttling in between a country which I would rather not name, and Russia, where my father lived until she was able to secure Russian citizenship, and a Russian birth certificate for me. People in early nineties Russia were going crazy from all novelties they saw for the first time in their lives. Either in 1995, or in 1996, the first Western (actually South Korean) supermarket in the town was JAMPACKED with people for months after opening despite it being quite a huge warehouse store style supermarket, and very far away from the city. People were making reservations to get into it. On the other hand, people previously in position of social prominence, affluence, and power were in a such deep shock for years on end, that some very literally died from starvation because they didn't know how the money are supposed to be earned from something that is not a government.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    I'm from Italy, my grandfather lived in Russia, during and soon after WWII. I wasn't saying that Russia in the 90s was an happy place like the cocaine driven USA of the 90s. Russia in the 90s was dealing with the ruins left by the regime. I know of people that died because they poisoned themselves with home made vodka. In Italy people were going crazy from all the novelties too, like any novelty people are attracted to them, you could see kids walking down the streets all dressed like Andre Agassi, all with the same haircut, even those that had no money to afford them, a friend of mine was caught many times stealing from the new mall that had recently opened in Rome. It might surprise you, but the first mall in Rome was opened in 1989. Not so long ago. It was fun at first, it soon became the most boring thing to do. The first Mc Donald's in Italy was opened in Piazza di Spagna (Spanish steps) in 1987, 40 years after their first opening in the US. The first Mc Donald's in Russia opened in 1990, not a lot of difference there. Ironically, probably thanks to the strong US military presence, Germany had its first Mc Donald's in 1971. There were people that saw one in Germany (probably agents from East Germany as well) 16 years before us. Of course the difference is we could travel to US, there was no restriction for us to go there. But on average people didn't know much about US culture up until the middle 80s. We actually knew USSR a lot better than the US of A, just as an example see the story of Togliattigrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolyatti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolyatti They mainly knew stories about their grandfathers who went to America between the two wars. Most of them never came back, the only read about it from letters. But what brought USSR down wasn't the discovery of the supermarkets, it was the war in Afghanistan that left the once powerful Eastern Block with no money and forced them to declare bankruptcy.
refurb 6y ago
This story reminds me of when the Soviets fought their way into Germany in 1945, and eventually Berlin. The Red Army soldiers saw the wealth that Germany possessed and it pissed them off even more. They thought "why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours?". The theory is that it was a contribution to the brutal treatment of Germans immediately before and after the end of the war (beyond the retribution for the German atrocities in the East).
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The theory is that it was a contribution to the brutal treatment of Germans immediately before and after the end of the war (beyond the retribution for the German atrocities in the East). IIRC, the Germans also treated Soviet POWs far more badly than they did Western POWs.
- watwut 6y ago
  Given how many villages were burned out as part of German expansion and ethnic cleansing, also given the nature of Stalin regime, it is quite unlikely that Russians needed to see German riches to get pissed and violent. The second world war in the East was brutal, even more brutal then the one on the West, which was super brutal anyway.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Agreed. That's why I said "pissed them off even more" and didn't say "that's why they were pissed".
    - watwut 6y ago
      To me this sounds more the the sort of thing foreigners tend to project on Eastern Europe (or whoever is outsider) then anything having anything to do with history or sociology. The story is generally unlikely to be "general sentiment" of Russian soldiers. Among other things, there was enough mandatory political propaganda targeted at soldiers for them to not ask questions like this all that much, not loud. > why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours? This question implies that soldiers assume the war was started because aggressor was poor and struggling, attacking out of no other choice. That gives quite a lot of benefit of doubt toward heavily demonized enemy in the war.
bonoboTP 6y ago
That Yeltsin story is a great anecdote but surely the Soviets did enough (and way more) spying to know basic and everyday facts about the US, like whether supermarket shelves are stocked. I mean, how much does it take to know this fact?
- kmeisthax 6y ago
  Most Soviet citizens weren't spies or diplomats and had no means or authorization to travel outside of the iron curtain. Pravda was never going to tell the masses about this and that was enough.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > I mean, how much does it take to know this fact? I believe nothing can dispel the disbelief people outside of ex-Union feel about what you point to, other than living through that surreal time, but it was really like this. Out of all Soviet defectors to the West, the biggest groups were: 1. diplomats, 2. spies, 3. military. All who were entitled to see that.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  1976 soviet TV docco about New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA Didn't see any supermarkets, closest I found in a quick scrub was a shopping bag at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA&t=1100 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA&t=1100 San Francisco supermarket in Little Italy getting plenty of deliveries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swdtgcaFess&t=1085 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swdtgcaFess&t=1085 California (1974) orchards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=445 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=445 and of course, the Mouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=1127 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=1127 Also no supermarkets along the 1976 Mississippi, but they did make it to the French Quarter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7xo7rtSwwI&t=1615 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7xo7rtSwwI&t=1615 Luxury shopping in Dallas (1978) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCQzMJd4kiM&t=1942 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCQzMJd4kiM&t=1942 No supermarkets in Pittsburg (1975) but for some reason they went to the unemployment lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgfq1isLUUI&t=1200 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgfq1isLUUI&t=1200 Los Angeles, with more Disneyland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmZMJvFVKiA&t=2725 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmZMJvFVKiA&t=2725 (and wide freeways with lots of cars) 1974 DC has plenty of monuments, white house, pentagon, protestors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy2fYVs5iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy2fYVs5iw (but the cars have changed in the intervening half century)
pydry 6y ago
Time magazine once bragged on its cover how the US helped Yeltsin win the election: https://off-guardian.org/2018/02/19/yanks-to-the-rescue-times-not-so-secret-story-of-how-american-advisers-helped-yeltsin-win-the-1996-presidential-election/ https://off-guardian.org/2018/02/19/yanks-to-the-rescue-time... He was essentially Russia's Trump although a) probably a lot more in America's pocket than vice versa and b) it's difficult to overstate how much Russia suffered under him. They suffered enormously in the 90s - quality of life and life expectancies declined enormously. Now, if you imagine an alcoholic Trump who has wreaked massive havoc on the economy, driving Americans into poverty going on a state visit to Russia and fawning over, for example, a caviar tasting... how would you interpret that?
- vmception 6y ago
  Most Americans I know that have spent more than a week in Western or Central Europe, want to be in Western or Central Europe. Not quite the same as Russia, but the concept being undermined is that USSR was a superpower that fell leaving only the US. When, at this point, most countries that were aligned with US offer better infrastructure and average-case opportunities for people, while dulling the best-case of rapid excess wealth attainment and practically nullifying the worst case of poverty, incarceration and marginalization which is a constant threat in the US. Without a millenium of geopolitical baggage, Americans don't really care which country in Europe and sample them all for an unparalleled combination of benefits.
  - pydry 6y ago
    >the concept being undermined is that USSR was a superpower If Time magazine is bragging about having installed the puppet president that came on a state visit to your supermarket I would have thought that concept was well and truly undermined already. I don't see how that supermarket having a fancy fish counter really contributes to that other than as a publicity stunt.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Brezhnev may have had the Trump eye: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/d2/5b/79d25b5058348a24e117bf9f3a761d29.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/d2/5b/79d25b5058348a24e117... I don't think Trump has ever been accused of wandering around Moscow blotto, but Putin certainly got a laugh when he claimed he was certain that, Trump's hotel having been in close proximity to the Bolshoi, the future POTUS, a family man, would undoubtedly have taken the opportunity to sample the culture of Russia instead of that of its girls of low social responsibility.
m463 6y ago
there was a similar sort of story (maybe was it in wired?) that american television was treated as a fantasy until the opening credits of some popular tv show maybe in the credits panned out to see thousands of unfaked homes, each with a swimming pool.
sergeykish 6y ago
Travel to Europe is still eye opening experience. People not stressed out, quite happy and relaxed. It feels safe, something that's not possible to buy. In west Ukraine a lot of people been there. I think that's what divided country. In no way I am going to support pro Russia policy once I've been to Europe. Citizens visiting prosperous neighbor country is worst enemy of authoritarian regime.

netsharc 6y ago

At least Yeltsin's (why Elzin?) observations are probably quite accurate. But nowadays it seems like people are getting mad based on partial information (sometimes just 140 characters) or lies and misinformation. For example the paranoia against Muslims is based on incorrect perceptions of how many Muslims there are: https://www.statista.com/statistics/952909/perceptions-on-religion-in-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/952909/perceptions-on-re... , and this on top of the perception that having Muslims in the community is a negative thing. Maybe it's also a lot of the "grass is greener on the other side" or "in the future". US voters heard Obama's message of hope and attached to it everything they wanted to be better in their lives. And the same with Trump's message of "Great Again".

baybal2 6y ago
The "Intellectuals" in the West think of commoners no better than CPSU members though of their "prole" chattels. I'd say common people are even better than them at making thought connections when things relate to daily life, and something obvious. I highly, highly doubt that you can make somebody truly "mad with 140 characters," Most proletarians who go on fuming these days are ones who genuinely are pissed off at something very obvious to them about the government, but that something is not that obvious to people up on the social ladder, who only see what is on the surface, like the calls to "burn those A, or B, or C on the stake."
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > but that something is not that obvious to people up on the social ladder. I think that's a bit of simplification. The idea that people in charge cannot understand them it's as old as modern humanity (hence 5-6 thousands years old) I believe that a good part of that "being easily pissed" has been engineered by the same people you think are too up on the social ladder to understand. What bothers me is that most of those who are genuinely pissed are pissed about things that don't actually matter for them. What does it matter to the proletarians if a famous person (say an actor) says something pro or against Brexit (for example). You have your vote, you cast it and that's what really matters to your category: representation. Have you ever read the comments below some of these tweets? I do not think that kind of reaction is really genuine or has anything to do with the situation of working class in 2020. I could be wrong, but I think that that kind of knee jerk reaction has been fabricated. To make an extremely simplified example: in an episode of "the boys" (the TV show) one of the new character says to an old timer who's have more followers than her (the incumbent in the posted article) something on the line of "you have followers, I have soldiers" People up on the social ladder are up there also because they are good at exploiting human weaknesses and aren't afraid nor ashamed of doing it for their own personal gain.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > The idea that people in charge cannot understand them it's as old as modern humanity (hence 5-6 thousands years old) There isn't great evidence for authority structures that would justify the label "person in charge" 6 thousand years ago. History generally starts around 5 thousand years ago, with the development of writing. (Were there people in charge of other people 6 thousand years ago? Sure, it's not unlikely. But Çatalhüyük is a more or less urban area 9 thousand years ago; if we're going on what's likely, your estimate of 6 thousand years is much too low.)

vmception 6y ago

Yeah that’s cool I’m just here to collect transactions fees, you want that treasury going to a UBS in Switzerland or a Wells Fargo in USA

romanoderoma 6y ago

> and in fact, there are revolutions happening. it would be interesting to know who's benefiting from these revolutions it would also be interesting to understand if they really are revolutions or not I am more inclined to call them riots and I am afraid that a number of them are steered by people with very bad intentions Internet simply made propaganda easier and more effective, for the good but also for he bad p.s: It's a good story, but Yeltsin went to Texas less than two months before the Berlin wall was taken down, people in USSR already knew about supermarkets at that time. Especially in East Germany. That's not the reason why they teared the wall down. We in Italy knew about American malls and supermarkets, we had them but we usually didn't use them as much as we do today to buy groceries because our culture was based on local smaller shops selling fresh food.

baybal2 6y ago
> p.s: It's a good story, but Yeltsin went to Texas less than two months before the Berlin wall was taken down, people in USSR already knew about supermarkets at that time. Especially in East Germany. That's not the reason why they teared the wall down. I beg you thing otherwise. I spent my first 5 years of life, 1990-1995, with my mother shuttling in between a country which I would rather not name, and Russia, where my father lived until she was able to secure Russian citizenship, and a Russian birth certificate for me. People in early nineties Russia were going crazy from all novelties they saw for the first time in their lives. Either in 1995, or in 1996, the first Western (actually South Korean) supermarket in the town was JAMPACKED with people for months after opening despite it being quite a huge warehouse store style supermarket, and very far away from the city. People were making reservations to get into it. On the other hand, people previously in position of social prominence, affluence, and power were in a such deep shock for years on end, that some very literally died from starvation because they didn't know how the money are supposed to be earned from something that is not a government.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  I'm from Italy, my grandfather lived in Russia, during and soon after WWII. I wasn't saying that Russia in the 90s was an happy place like the cocaine driven USA of the 90s. Russia in the 90s was dealing with the ruins left by the regime. I know of people that died because they poisoned themselves with home made vodka. In Italy people were going crazy from all the novelties too, like any novelty people are attracted to them, you could see kids walking down the streets all dressed like Andre Agassi, all with the same haircut, even those that had no money to afford them, a friend of mine was caught many times stealing from the new mall that had recently opened in Rome. It might surprise you, but the first mall in Rome was opened in 1989. Not so long ago. It was fun at first, it soon became the most boring thing to do. The first Mc Donald's in Italy was opened in Piazza di Spagna (Spanish steps) in 1987, 40 years after their first opening in the US. The first Mc Donald's in Russia opened in 1990, not a lot of difference there. Ironically, probably thanks to the strong US military presence, Germany had its first Mc Donald's in 1971. There were people that saw one in Germany (probably agents from East Germany as well) 16 years before us. Of course the difference is we could travel to US, there was no restriction for us to go there. But on average people didn't know much about US culture up until the middle 80s. We actually knew USSR a lot better than the US of A, just as an example see the story of Togliattigrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolyatti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolyatti They mainly knew stories about their grandfathers who went to America between the two wars. Most of them never came back, the only read about it from letters. But what brought USSR down wasn't the discovery of the supermarkets, it was the war in Afghanistan that left the once powerful Eastern Block with no money and forced them to declare bankruptcy.

refurb 6y ago

This story reminds me of when the Soviets fought their way into Germany in 1945, and eventually Berlin. The Red Army soldiers saw the wealth that Germany possessed and it pissed them off even more. They thought "why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours?". The theory is that it was a contribution to the brutal treatment of Germans immediately before and after the end of the war (beyond the retribution for the German atrocities in the East).

ardy42 6y ago
> The theory is that it was a contribution to the brutal treatment of Germans immediately before and after the end of the war (beyond the retribution for the German atrocities in the East). IIRC, the Germans also treated Soviet POWs far more badly than they did Western POWs.
watwut 6y ago
Given how many villages were burned out as part of German expansion and ethnic cleansing, also given the nature of Stalin regime, it is quite unlikely that Russians needed to see German riches to get pissed and violent. The second world war in the East was brutal, even more brutal then the one on the West, which was super brutal anyway.
- refurb 6y ago
  Agreed. That's why I said "pissed them off even more" and didn't say "that's why they were pissed".
  - watwut 6y ago
    To me this sounds more the the sort of thing foreigners tend to project on Eastern Europe (or whoever is outsider) then anything having anything to do with history or sociology. The story is generally unlikely to be "general sentiment" of Russian soldiers. Among other things, there was enough mandatory political propaganda targeted at soldiers for them to not ask questions like this all that much, not loud. > why would a country this rich invade a poor country like ours? This question implies that soldiers assume the war was started because aggressor was poor and struggling, attacking out of no other choice. That gives quite a lot of benefit of doubt toward heavily demonized enemy in the war.

bonoboTP 6y ago

That Yeltsin story is a great anecdote but surely the Soviets did enough (and way more) spying to know basic and everyday facts about the US, like whether supermarket shelves are stocked. I mean, how much does it take to know this fact?

kmeisthax 6y ago
Most Soviet citizens weren't spies or diplomats and had no means or authorization to travel outside of the iron curtain. Pravda was never going to tell the masses about this and that was enough.
baybal2 6y ago
> I mean, how much does it take to know this fact? I believe nothing can dispel the disbelief people outside of ex-Union feel about what you point to, other than living through that surreal time, but it was really like this. Out of all Soviet defectors to the West, the biggest groups were: 1. diplomats, 2. spies, 3. military. All who were entitled to see that.
082349872349872 6y ago
1976 soviet TV docco about New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA Didn't see any supermarkets, closest I found in a quick scrub was a shopping bag at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA&t=1100 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2_olezbbA&t=1100 San Francisco supermarket in Little Italy getting plenty of deliveries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swdtgcaFess&t=1085 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swdtgcaFess&t=1085 California (1974) orchards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=445 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=445 and of course, the Mouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=1127 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytE_RDrsmMg&t=1127 Also no supermarkets along the 1976 Mississippi, but they did make it to the French Quarter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7xo7rtSwwI&t=1615 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7xo7rtSwwI&t=1615 Luxury shopping in Dallas (1978) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCQzMJd4kiM&t=1942 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCQzMJd4kiM&t=1942 No supermarkets in Pittsburg (1975) but for some reason they went to the unemployment lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgfq1isLUUI&t=1200 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgfq1isLUUI&t=1200 Los Angeles, with more Disneyland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmZMJvFVKiA&t=2725 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmZMJvFVKiA&t=2725 (and wide freeways with lots of cars) 1974 DC has plenty of monuments, white house, pentagon, protestors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy2fYVs5iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy2fYVs5iw (but the cars have changed in the intervening half century)

pydry 6y ago

Time magazine once bragged on its cover how the US helped Yeltsin win the election: https://off-guardian.org/2018/02/19/yanks-to-the-rescue-times-not-so-secret-story-of-how-american-advisers-helped-yeltsin-win-the-1996-presidential-election/ https://off-guardian.org/2018/02/19/yanks-to-the-rescue-time... He was essentially Russia's Trump although a) probably a lot more in America's pocket than vice versa and b) it's difficult to overstate how much Russia suffered under him. They suffered enormously in the 90s - quality of life and life expectancies declined enormously. Now, if you imagine an alcoholic Trump who has wreaked massive havoc on the economy, driving Americans into poverty going on a state visit to Russia and fawning over, for example, a caviar tasting... how would you interpret that?

vmception 6y ago
Most Americans I know that have spent more than a week in Western or Central Europe, want to be in Western or Central Europe. Not quite the same as Russia, but the concept being undermined is that USSR was a superpower that fell leaving only the US. When, at this point, most countries that were aligned with US offer better infrastructure and average-case opportunities for people, while dulling the best-case of rapid excess wealth attainment and practically nullifying the worst case of poverty, incarceration and marginalization which is a constant threat in the US. Without a millenium of geopolitical baggage, Americans don't really care which country in Europe and sample them all for an unparalleled combination of benefits.
- pydry 6y ago
  >the concept being undermined is that USSR was a superpower If Time magazine is bragging about having installed the puppet president that came on a state visit to your supermarket I would have thought that concept was well and truly undermined already. I don't see how that supermarket having a fancy fish counter really contributes to that other than as a publicity stunt.
082349872349872 6y ago
Brezhnev may have had the Trump eye: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/d2/5b/79d25b5058348a24e117bf9f3a761d29.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/d2/5b/79d25b5058348a24e117... I don't think Trump has ever been accused of wandering around Moscow blotto, but Putin certainly got a laugh when he claimed he was certain that, Trump's hotel having been in close proximity to the Bolshoi, the future POTUS, a family man, would undoubtedly have taken the opportunity to sample the culture of Russia instead of that of its girls of low social responsibility.

m463 6y ago

there was a similar sort of story (maybe was it in wired?) that american television was treated as a fantasy until the opening credits of some popular tv show maybe in the credits panned out to see thousands of unfaked homes, each with a swimming pool.

sergeykish 6y ago

Travel to Europe is still eye opening experience. People not stressed out, quite happy and relaxed. It feels safe, something that's not possible to buy. In west Ukraine a lot of people been there. I think that's what divided country. In no way I am going to support pro Russia policy once I've been to Europe. Citizens visiting prosperous neighbor country is worst enemy of authoritarian regime.