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Moscow isn't representative for Russia and wasn't representative for the Soviet Union. The quality of living of a farmer in Ukraine or an oil-field worker in Tu

Moscow isn't representative for Russia and wasn't representative for the Soviet Union. The quality of living of a farmer in Ukraine or an oil-field worker in Turkmenistan would have been significantly lower.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
This needs to be repeated 100 times. People in Moscow and Sankt Petersburg to an extent were the elite and had much better living standards than those from smaller cities. Better loving, better education, better healthcare, less shortages, more access to goods.
- thesz 3y ago
  Compare New York or Washington and some random small town of USA. Repeat 100 times. Repeat that for other western countries. I had a chance to visit oil and gas production town in Siberia slightly north of Northern Polar circle not long ago after USSR collapse. I have to say the work and life conditions there were quite good, I spare you of long anecdote comparing Yugorsk with then contemporary Moscow.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
    > Repeat that for other western countries. Can I disagree? Having moved to a small town in south France after living in Marseille I can't say I miss the big city that much, on the contrary. Of course, there are some aspects like museums etc. but it's not like I was visiting them every day. The quality of my current apartment is superior to the one I had in the city. Sure, there will be exceptions, but overall I don't think your example holds for Western towns and cities.
    - kubb 3y ago
      true, in western europe small towns are often really nice
    - thesz 3y ago
      Of course you can disagree. You are disagreeing from the place with warm completely-non-continental-climate of southern France, which is exceptionally warm and mild even for France. Can I see your disagreement as an exception that supports general rule?
    - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
      >after living in Marseille I can't say I miss the big city that much Maybe it's not the big city you don't miss, it's just Marseille, because it's a shithole. There are also nicer big cities.
  - vostok 3y ago
    I think the material quality of life in important industrial cities like Norilsk was much higher than the provicnes in general.
  - VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
    I don't think the average small town in USA really ever suffered grocery stores with empty shelves which was extremely common throughout the former Soviet Union. If they even had a grocery store at all. The quality of living was significantly different.
    - thesz 3y ago
      There was a paradox noted by many: grocery stores were empty but fridges were full. This can mean exceptional efficiency of the system to deliver and distribute.
      - grugagag 3y ago
        Yeah, I heard about it, people waiting in queues overnight to get whatever they could put their hands on, needed or not, then stuffed into their fridges/freezers.
        thesz 3y ago
        That was at the end of USSR. Gorbachyov was such a successful leader. There were no such things happening in 1950-s, etc, up till late 1980-s. Yet, the situation was much like "empty shelves, full fridges" all through the USSR time I remember.
      - twoodfin 3y ago
        It can also mean inefficient hoarding due to unpredictable availability.
        thesz 3y ago
        The premise of cult classic USSR movie Guest From Future [1] is that a boy walks for a kefir with the bottles for exchange and then gets into time travel adventure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_from_the_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_from_the_Future Some products like sourcream and milk were sold into buyers' containers. Which reduced amount of thrash significantly, compared to the "predictable availability" of today's world.
  - otherme123 3y ago
    If it was after USSR collapse, we are talking about different countries. Like comparing the Mao China, with millions starving, and the 90's China. Moscow after the USSR was just a city anyone could go, even the poor. During the USSR you couldn't travel freely, much less go to Moscow and look for a job. Getting a job in Moscow was a serious promotion.
    - thesz 3y ago
      The countries are mostly the same due to inertia and, frankly, there were no million excess deaths per year in USSR as there were throughout 90-s in Russia. The inertia of lifestyle is such a massive thing, you cannot overturn it overnight, you cannot change it completely even in ten years. During the USSR era you were able to travel freely. Even more freeer than today - you didn't even needed any passport to travel to huge distances, to Moscow or from it. You need one now. Most of my childhood friends were children of Moscow newcomers. Their parents went to Moscow, got a job and then got an apartment to live there.
      - lnsru 3y ago
        During the USSR era you were able to travel freely. <- that’s not true. The newcomers in moscow got job and then went to moscow. And got an apartment from the institution that offered the job. Going to moscow without a job would make you бомж (lowest caste of homeless) there.
      - stunpix 3y ago
        > During the USSR era you were able to travel freely. Even more freeer than today - you didn't even needed any passport to travel to huge distances, to Moscow or from it. You need one now. NO! This is a HUGE fallacy (if not a lie). A "kolkhoz people" (kolkhoz stands for "collective farm") had no passports at all till 1974 and they had NO right to leave their living territories without identity documents. Sort of a slavery. As of 1970 the "kolkhoz people" were ≈20% (or ≈50 millions) of the population. > Most of my childhood friends were children of Moscow newcomers. This explains. Moscow always was a sort of "another world" than the rest of USSR.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
This is still true today... eg. an average n-th generation parisian vs someone who lives in a small village in the south of france... their lifestyles, fashion choices, house design and access to "stuff" (culture,...) differ a lot. "The internet" is a great equalizer, where you don't have to travel half a day to paris to buy something not available elsewhere, but you can order it online, but otherwise a lot of other differences remain.
- nec4b 3y ago
  Living in a small village in France was/and still is different as day and night compared to a small village in Russia/Former Soviet union.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Even the poorest NUTS1 zones in continental France trend above 0.850 (ie. "Developed"/"First world"). Most Russian regions excluding the region around Moscow is above 0.800 but below 0.850 at the macro level (microlevel Caucasian Oblasts and Far Eastern Oblasts are around 0.750-0.800 but not too bad). By most standards, at a developmental level Russia is definetly developed, but then again it is roughly comparable to Turkiye or Thailand developmentally, so it is by most standards 15-20 years behind living standards in Western Europe, but none of this is too surprising tbh. If we're being honest, it is a country in the Middle Income Trap. It almost became a developed country (the gains before the Ukraine War began in 2014 were amazing and broke into the Developed category), but a decade of economic development was lost after the post-Crimea sanctions and the subsequent war from 2014-Present. Then again, a country like Russia has significantly narrowed the gap from a quality of life standpoint, but conversely, this also makes countries like Russia much more susceptible to a brain drain a la Poland or Czechia.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

This needs to be repeated 100 times. People in Moscow and Sankt Petersburg to an extent were the elite and had much better living standards than those from smaller cities. Better loving, better education, better healthcare, less shortages, more access to goods.

thesz 3y ago
Compare New York or Washington and some random small town of USA. Repeat 100 times. Repeat that for other western countries. I had a chance to visit oil and gas production town in Siberia slightly north of Northern Polar circle not long ago after USSR collapse. I have to say the work and life conditions there were quite good, I spare you of long anecdote comparing Yugorsk with then contemporary Moscow.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
  > Repeat that for other western countries. Can I disagree? Having moved to a small town in south France after living in Marseille I can't say I miss the big city that much, on the contrary. Of course, there are some aspects like museums etc. but it's not like I was visiting them every day. The quality of my current apartment is superior to the one I had in the city. Sure, there will be exceptions, but overall I don't think your example holds for Western towns and cities.
  - kubb 3y ago
    true, in western europe small towns are often really nice
  - thesz 3y ago
    Of course you can disagree. You are disagreeing from the place with warm completely-non-continental-climate of southern France, which is exceptionally warm and mild even for France. Can I see your disagreement as an exception that supports general rule?
  - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    >after living in Marseille I can't say I miss the big city that much Maybe it's not the big city you don't miss, it's just Marseille, because it's a shithole. There are also nicer big cities.
- vostok 3y ago
  I think the material quality of life in important industrial cities like Norilsk was much higher than the provicnes in general.
- VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
  I don't think the average small town in USA really ever suffered grocery stores with empty shelves which was extremely common throughout the former Soviet Union. If they even had a grocery store at all. The quality of living was significantly different.
  - thesz 3y ago
    There was a paradox noted by many: grocery stores were empty but fridges were full. This can mean exceptional efficiency of the system to deliver and distribute.
    - grugagag 3y ago
      Yeah, I heard about it, people waiting in queues overnight to get whatever they could put their hands on, needed or not, then stuffed into their fridges/freezers.
      - thesz 3y ago
        That was at the end of USSR. Gorbachyov was such a successful leader. There were no such things happening in 1950-s, etc, up till late 1980-s. Yet, the situation was much like "empty shelves, full fridges" all through the USSR time I remember.
    - twoodfin 3y ago
      It can also mean inefficient hoarding due to unpredictable availability.
      - thesz 3y ago
        The premise of cult classic USSR movie Guest From Future [1] is that a boy walks for a kefir with the bottles for exchange and then gets into time travel adventure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_from_the_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_from_the_Future Some products like sourcream and milk were sold into buyers' containers. Which reduced amount of thrash significantly, compared to the "predictable availability" of today's world.
- otherme123 3y ago
  If it was after USSR collapse, we are talking about different countries. Like comparing the Mao China, with millions starving, and the 90's China. Moscow after the USSR was just a city anyone could go, even the poor. During the USSR you couldn't travel freely, much less go to Moscow and look for a job. Getting a job in Moscow was a serious promotion.
  - thesz 3y ago
    The countries are mostly the same due to inertia and, frankly, there were no million excess deaths per year in USSR as there were throughout 90-s in Russia. The inertia of lifestyle is such a massive thing, you cannot overturn it overnight, you cannot change it completely even in ten years. During the USSR era you were able to travel freely. Even more freeer than today - you didn't even needed any passport to travel to huge distances, to Moscow or from it. You need one now. Most of my childhood friends were children of Moscow newcomers. Their parents went to Moscow, got a job and then got an apartment to live there.
    - lnsru 3y ago
      During the USSR era you were able to travel freely. <- that’s not true. The newcomers in moscow got job and then went to moscow. And got an apartment from the institution that offered the job. Going to moscow without a job would make you бомж (lowest caste of homeless) there.
    - stunpix 3y ago
      > During the USSR era you were able to travel freely. Even more freeer than today - you didn't even needed any passport to travel to huge distances, to Moscow or from it. You need one now. NO! This is a HUGE fallacy (if not a lie). A "kolkhoz people" (kolkhoz stands for "collective farm") had no passports at all till 1974 and they had NO right to leave their living territories without identity documents. Sort of a slavery. As of 1970 the "kolkhoz people" were ≈20% (or ≈50 millions) of the population. > Most of my childhood friends were children of Moscow newcomers. This explains. Moscow always was a sort of "another world" than the rest of USSR.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

This is still true today... eg. an average n-th generation parisian vs someone who lives in a small village in the south of france... their lifestyles, fashion choices, house design and access to "stuff" (culture,...) differ a lot. "The internet" is a great equalizer, where you don't have to travel half a day to paris to buy something not available elsewhere, but you can order it online, but otherwise a lot of other differences remain.

nec4b 3y ago
Living in a small village in France was/and still is different as day and night compared to a small village in Russia/Former Soviet union.
alephnerd 3y ago
Even the poorest NUTS1 zones in continental France trend above 0.850 (ie. "Developed"/"First world"). Most Russian regions excluding the region around Moscow is above 0.800 but below 0.850 at the macro level (microlevel Caucasian Oblasts and Far Eastern Oblasts are around 0.750-0.800 but not too bad). By most standards, at a developmental level Russia is definetly developed, but then again it is roughly comparable to Turkiye or Thailand developmentally, so it is by most standards 15-20 years behind living standards in Western Europe, but none of this is too surprising tbh. If we're being honest, it is a country in the Middle Income Trap. It almost became a developed country (the gains before the Ukraine War began in 2014 were amazing and broke into the Developed category), but a decade of economic development was lost after the post-Crimea sanctions and the subsequent war from 2014-Present. Then again, a country like Russia has significantly narrowed the gap from a quality of life standpoint, but conversely, this also makes countries like Russia much more susceptible to a brain drain a la Poland or Czechia.