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Belarus’s Soviet Economy

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Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#91

Post by jotm »

l1g2d5 wrote: post #55
stevesimmons wrote: post #26

I had my second trip to Minsk last week to work with a local IT company. I was very impressed with the technical skills of the people there. Belarus and Minsk are advanced in many ways (metro with trains every 2 minutes), electric busses (powered by capacitors, not batteries), mobile phone (MTS shop at the airport sells a $9 SIM with unlimited data for a month), Yandex taxis beats Uber, etc, etc. The main downside I…

> The main downside I noticed was meals based on meat and potatoes, not many vegetables. Do you realize where belarus is? It gets cold in belarus. Meat and potatoes are food that can be grown locally. Also, it is environmentally devastating to transport all the vegetables all over the world like we currently do. Look at how much globalism has damaged the environment, not to mention the problems with climate change. M…

I'll add to that, people in that region eat plenty of vegetables and fruit... during summer and autumn. But fast/street food is mostly meat, potatoes, cheese, anything that can be sold all year round.

That reminds me of British mushy peas, even served at expensive restaurants, which no one outside the UK seems to like heh

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#92

Post by qaq »

zkid18 wrote: post #40
stevesimmons wrote: post #26

I had my second trip to Minsk last week to work with a local IT company. I was very impressed with the technical skills of the people there. Belarus and Minsk are advanced in many ways (metro with trains every 2 minutes), electric busses (powered by capacitors, not batteries), mobile phone (MTS shop at the airport sells a $9 SIM with unlimited data for a month), Yandex taxis beats Uber, etc, etc. The main downside I…

Minsk is a great city indeed. IT is pretty strong, many startups evolved recently (Wannaby, OneSoil, MSQRD (aq. by Facebook), Fabby (aq. by Google), PandaDoc) Sorry for the meals - Belarusians love their potatoes. There are some 300+ dishes recorded in Belarus - that it came to be considered the core of the national cuisine. P.S. Not quite related to the meals, but Belarus bans use of plastic plates in restaurants re…

They don't just have startups EPAM, Wargaming are multi-billion companies

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#93

Post by jacobush »

netcan wrote: post #79

We're now a full generation since the west "won the cold war" and I think it's just now that our "wartime" mentalities we're ready to think past simple binary communism-x-capitalism binaries. For example, "privatisation." In Russia & parts of the west, privatisation was a major 90s policy. But like everything else, details can outweigh labels. One privatisation is not like another. There's a massive difference betwee…

The privatisation in post Soviet Russia was even worse than you tell. It was fraud, theft and deception.

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#94

Post by konart »

pound wrote: post #44
m0zg wrote: post #34

>> Rolled over through the centuries with Moscow's wars with other parts of Europe What a profoundly backward perspective. It's the other way around. Belarus was a part of the Russian Empire. So much a part of it, in fact, that the long form of the title of the Russian monarch contained its name. You can't "roll over" something you already own. It wasn't Russia's wars with European states that repeatedly fucked up Be…

It was only temporary part of russian empire (for about a century), with every attempt to fight it drowned in blood. During that time russia tried to exterminate any self-identity, forbidding to even have a name and calling it "north-western area". To get an idea of what was happening in that region historically you may read about Great Duchy of Lithuania Another point to consider: much of the Rus (Ruth) that russia…

>Another point to consider: much of the Rus (Ruth) that russia claims to be descendent of is modern Ukraine and Belarus lands, and historically they were figthing most of the time with moscow armies.

Russia claims to be descendent of many things, from vikings to Byzantine Empire, from slavic tribes to mongols. Russia is a mix of many things, where Kiev and Kievan Rus is just one of the main starting points. Not to mention that Kiev became the capital only ofter Oleg captured it after leaving Novgorod. Not to mention that any fights between Moscow and whatever entity you are talking about have happened centuries later.

And even if we are talking about geography only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27#/media/File:Prin...

here is the map of the Kievan Rus (1054-1132). Lands of the modern Ukraine and Belarus take less than a half of the territories as can be clearly seen. Even considering that this is a 'flat' map.

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#95

Post by dep_b »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #81
dep_b wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the backlash they got after opening up the borders with Bulgaria and especially Romania it would be political suicide to open up for Albania.

Why was the backlash for Romania greater than the one for Bulgaria?

Lots of organized begging and pickpocketing in European cities by people from Romania, apart from the usual complaints that most European European countries got.

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#96

Post by arcturus17 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #81
dep_b wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the backlash they got after opening up the borders with Bulgaria and especially Romania it would be political suicide to open up for Albania.

Why was the backlash for Romania greater than the one for Bulgaria?

Not GP but in Spain we have ton of Romanians, and it’s one of the most popular “blame the immigrant” targets. You can see how that becomes a political problem.

(I don’t agree with those views, I’ve been to the country a couple times and I think the culture and the people are beautiful)

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#97

Post by timwaagh »

sparkling wrote: post #12

I had the chance to visit Belarus last year for a extended period. The capital, Minsk, is by far the cleanest and safest place i have seen anywhere. Putting aside the human right issues, i think the president there has run the country quite well given the circumstances and the post-soviet situation he inherited. Mostly staying out of conflicts, keeping a balance between the big brother to the east and the western Eur…

It seems you cannot voice a political opinion here outside the mainstream without being at risk for getting downvotes. Have upvote from Sacha.

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#98

Post by jogundas »

lnsru wrote: post #74
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also be curious the effect of EU funding - I know Estonia received hundreds of millions if not billions over the years on development and I'd guess it's much the same for Latvia/Lithuania as well

Look at Germany. It’s a better experiment. Former democratic part got billions from westerners and didn’t evolve far. They got basically new infrastructure build from western money, but people left former communistic paradise. Salary gap is still huge. That’s why Tesla picked location there and not in the western part of the country.

A much more nuanced story can be told about Germany, see eg https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/10/31/germans-still-do... .

When it comes to the Tesla factory, it will be right outside Berlin https://www.dw.com/en/tesla-factory-outside-berlin-to-cost-4... .

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#99

Post by sam_lowry_ »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #81
dep_b wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the backlash they got after opening up the borders with Bulgaria and especially Romania it would be political suicide to open up for Albania.

Why was the backlash for Romania greater than the one for Bulgaria?

Romania is bigger

Re: Belarus’s Soviet Economy

#100

Post by grussergraph »

rayiner wrote: post #8

The former soviet states are a great natural experiment in economics. Countries that liberalized their economies, like Estonia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Latvia (the "mostly free" countries here: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking ) have grown much faster than countries that retained socialism and central planning, like Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. See: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/17…

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