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Both articles were citing Russia’s Federal Statistics Service. I agree that you can find pretty much any narrative and most of the news sources are not very obj

Both articles were citing Russia’s Federal Statistics Service. I agree that you can find pretty much any narrative and most of the news sources are not very objective. However, in my mind, automatic rejection of "the news" is almost the opposite problem, which is at least as big as the false narrative issue. I have no solutions to offer for any of these problems, but maybe we can at least agree that Russian Federal Statistics Service numbers give us a rough estimate. Trusting your "own empirical evidence", rejecting "the news" is the bubble that I have been talking about. At least to me it looks like a bubble. And I am not saying that I don't live in a bubble, because I do. It takes effort and time to learn all the different sides of the argument, collect facts, etc. so it not possible to do it for all the issues. On the other hand, I completely agree there are good reasons not to trust "the news" blindly or even Russian State Statistics. We need to have some sort of middle way were we do not dismiss arguments just because they are in "the news", but at the same time take a critical look. "Russia begins where asphalt roads end" :) there are always some truth in jokes. "never seen indoor plumbing" could be an exaggeration, but my intuition (my "own empirical evidence" if you will) tells me that the gist of it is true. I have been to Russia and seen Moscow in all of its fanciness. However, further away from Moscow, Saint Petersburg the picture is quite bleak. But that's just my 2 cents. [some edits were made for style and grammar]

foverzar 4y ago
I'm not rejecting the news, I largely reject superficiality and attempts to interpret statistics outside of domain knowledge and analysis of calculation methodics (oh the poor souls tasked with rigorously counting something in Russia) > "Russia begins where asphalt roads ends" :) there are always some truth in jokes. There is also some joke in jokes :) St Peters may be bleak, but the culture of outside decorum really tells us nothing of the culture of basic utilities. People may not have city-like central services in rural wilder areas, but claiming that they had never seen plumbing is just super dumb. It's not 15th century, how would one even operate their house without plumbing, c'mon.
- hmm0101 4y ago
  Sorry, I did not mean that Saint Petersburg is bleak (quite the opposite). I meant that the further away you go from these big cities, the worse everything looks. I don't quite understand what you mean by superficial attempts. If their stats say that 10-20% do not have indoor plumbing then that what do you think they mean? (https://web.archive.org/web/20210630123627/http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/jil-f/jkh43.doc https://web.archive.org/web/20210630123627/http://www.gks.ru...) Russia is huge... if you go to a village that is far away from any larger city, you'll see a lot of stuff - even stranger than not having indoor plumbing. If you can, I suggest travel to non-touristy areas, far away from large cities and see it for yourself :) Then report back and prove us wrong ;)
  - sidibe 4y ago
    I just happened to watch this video from today https://youtu.be/dLCc60VDArM https://youtu.be/dLCc60VDArM of a guy interviewing Russians in a village. Development of their village is not the topic but they are all carrying around or filling buckets of water or drunk, and no paved roads to be seen.
    - hmm0101 4y ago
      This looks familiar... I was born in the 80s in the Soviet Union. Don't remember much of the 80s, but I remember the 90s well. Going to a village or smaller town to visit friends/relatives looked exactly like that video. It was very simple: there were water wells, we would fetch some water for cooking/cleaning/taking a bath and then there were outhouses. The sewage in outhouses was never treated. You would just put some sawdust on it and that was it. I do not think much has changed. Russian urbanization is around 75%, some regions much less than that. So I still do not think that it was wrong for "labster" to state that 'many citizens of the “republics” have never seen indoor plumbing'.
    - foverzar 4y ago
      > and no paved roads to be seen. It's like the first thing you see in this video. Define "paved road", if a road with asphalt pavement (albeit old) is not a "paved road".

foverzar 4y ago

I'm not rejecting the news, I largely reject superficiality and attempts to interpret statistics outside of domain knowledge and analysis of calculation methodics (oh the poor souls tasked with rigorously counting something in Russia) > "Russia begins where asphalt roads ends" :) there are always some truth in jokes. There is also some joke in jokes :) St Peters may be bleak, but the culture of outside decorum really tells us nothing of the culture of basic utilities. People may not have city-like central services in rural wilder areas, but claiming that they had never seen plumbing is just super dumb. It's not 15th century, how would one even operate their house without plumbing, c'mon.

hmm0101 4y ago
Sorry, I did not mean that Saint Petersburg is bleak (quite the opposite). I meant that the further away you go from these big cities, the worse everything looks. I don't quite understand what you mean by superficial attempts. If their stats say that 10-20% do not have indoor plumbing then that what do you think they mean? (https://web.archive.org/web/20210630123627/http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/jil-f/jkh43.doc https://web.archive.org/web/20210630123627/http://www.gks.ru...) Russia is huge... if you go to a village that is far away from any larger city, you'll see a lot of stuff - even stranger than not having indoor plumbing. If you can, I suggest travel to non-touristy areas, far away from large cities and see it for yourself :) Then report back and prove us wrong ;)
- sidibe 4y ago
  I just happened to watch this video from today https://youtu.be/dLCc60VDArM https://youtu.be/dLCc60VDArM of a guy interviewing Russians in a village. Development of their village is not the topic but they are all carrying around or filling buckets of water or drunk, and no paved roads to be seen.
  - hmm0101 4y ago
    This looks familiar... I was born in the 80s in the Soviet Union. Don't remember much of the 80s, but I remember the 90s well. Going to a village or smaller town to visit friends/relatives looked exactly like that video. It was very simple: there were water wells, we would fetch some water for cooking/cleaning/taking a bath and then there were outhouses. The sewage in outhouses was never treated. You would just put some sawdust on it and that was it. I do not think much has changed. Russian urbanization is around 75%, some regions much less than that. So I still do not think that it was wrong for "labster" to state that 'many citizens of the “republics” have never seen indoor plumbing'.
  - foverzar 4y ago
    > and no paved roads to be seen. It's like the first thing you see in this video. Define "paved road", if a road with asphalt pavement (albeit old) is not a "paved road".