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Yeah as somebody coming from former Czechoslovakia, it was hard for us to travel too, even in 80s. My parents were forbidden to travel to the sea to former Yugo

Yeah as somebody coming from former Czechoslovakia, it was hard for us to travel too, even in 80s. My parents were forbidden to travel to the sea to former Yugoslavia for example, since it was neutral country that one could use to escape to Austria. Heck, even travel to very much communist Poland nearby was very hard, special approvals from apparatchiks were required and those were only granted to regime-friendly folks. Not unlike current China for example. But Soviet union from my late grandparents tales was different reality, they used chewing gums and other stuff we considered common as currency much more sought-after by locals than rubles. It makes sense regime didn't want for people tt discover massive discrepancies between various parts of eastern bloc. As whole world saw few years after, mighty soviet union was actually pretty fragile mosaic with pieces desperately wanting freedom from often horrible and incompetent central Russian management. One of the reason why eastern part of EU is not so happy with uber-centralization in Brussel - we saw what level of inefficiency such approach brings.

thriftwy 3y ago
> freedom from often horrible and incompetent central Russian management. Russia does just fine without most of those pieces, whereas the pieces struggle to be viable. The management was not 'Russian', by the way. It came proportionally from all of the Soviet republics, more or less. When the Union collapsed, they mostly stayed in Moscow.
DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
> Heck, even travel to very much communist Poland nearby was very hard, special approvals from apparatchiks were required and those were only granted to regime-friendly folks. Not unlike current China for example. You don't need any special approval to leave China nowadays, and haven't for a few decades. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people vacation abroad.

thriftwy 3y ago

> freedom from often horrible and incompetent central Russian management. Russia does just fine without most of those pieces, whereas the pieces struggle to be viable. The management was not 'Russian', by the way. It came proportionally from all of the Soviet republics, more or less. When the Union collapsed, they mostly stayed in Moscow.

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago

> Heck, even travel to very much communist Poland nearby was very hard, special approvals from apparatchiks were required and those were only granted to regime-friendly folks. Not unlike current China for example. You don't need any special approval to leave China nowadays, and haven't for a few decades. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people vacation abroad.