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Thursday was fish day in the USSR

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Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#41

Post by kayuri »

vodkapump wrote: post #36
tuukkah wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Did the USSR leaders know about the positive health effects of fish (vitamin D, fatty acids etc.) though, and if they did, why didn't they use that as an argument to convince people?

Come to think of it, they probably didn't. But a quick online search seems to show that the 70s was around when the world understood Vitamin D a lot more, so could be.

They definitely did, since they promoted fish oil consumption in their healthy lifestyle propaganda ads since 1950s and maybe even earlier.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#42

Post by rsynnott »

adrianmonk wrote: post #2

At first I wondered why bother. If there's a famine or a meat shortage, wouldn't people turn to other foods on their own? So it seemed unnecessary and superfluous. But I suppose there's another possible reason. If you can't give people what they want (meat), give them something else (fish) and try to convince them they do want it. If you can actually pull that off, then maybe it makes you look better and/or makes the…

> At first I wondered why bother. If there's a famine or a meat shortage, wouldn't people turn to other foods on their own?

In the early months of the Covid pandemic, most developed countries saw a toilet paper shortage. Not due to supply, but due to consumer behaviour.

If anything, a real or perceived shortage tends to cause consumers to behave less rationally, not more. Markets don’t self-regulate well in these circumstances.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#43

Post by boringg »

larsiusprime wrote: post #10
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was much more likely meant to mock the Christian tradition of eating fish (actually the point is, not eating meat, but then people naturally turned to fish) on Fridays (and for the hardcore ones also on Wednesdays). This same Christian tradition has become a bit of a joke nowadays since fish is now more of a luxury and is more expensive and less accessible than meat, which is now super common and much cheaper.

What you're describing is the modern post-vatican II Catholic fasting tradition. If one follows specifically the Russian Orthodox fasting rules strictly, you'd be approximately vegan for half of the year (every wednesday and friday, as well as lent, apostle's fast, dormition fast, nativity fast, a few others sprinkled in, etc). On a conventional strict fast day (other than e.g. Clean Monday in lent where you eat noth…

Has anyone done a study on the outcomes of people who follow that strict diet compared to the general populations. It would be mildly interesting.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#44

Post by FanaHOVA »

tuukkah wrote: post #3

I wonder if they got the idea of devoting a day of the week to a specific food item from the long and continuing custom of their Nordic neighbours: "Consumption of pea soup in Sweden and Finland dates back to at least the 13th century, and is traditionally served on Thursdays." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup

In Rome, we say gnocchi on Thursday, fish on Friday. I think the fish is related to religion (no meat on Friday), but the gnocchi is a bit random :)

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#45

Post by tut-urut-utut »

dsego wrote: post #31
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, food coupons. It wasn't so bad in yugoslavia, but we still had coupons for stuff like gasoline. We also had odd-even days, where you could only drive your car on odd or even days (depending on your licence plate - so every second day).

This odd-even thing always comes up as an example of how things were bad in socialism, yet everyone fails to mention the context of a global oil shortage and that other places had similar policies, like in the US for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd%E2%80%93even_rationing

Even (West) Germany had these odd-even driving restrictions at the same time, so definitely not related to communism.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#46

Post by tuukkah »

kayuri wrote: post #41
vodkapump wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come to think of it, they probably didn't. But a quick online search seems to show that the 70s was around when the world understood Vitamin D a lot more, so could be.

They definitely did, since they promoted fish oil consumption in their healthy lifestyle propaganda ads since 1950s and maybe even earlier.

Wow, that's a big omission in the article then.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#47

Post by baybal2 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #39
baybal2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These plants later produced a lot of tanks for WWII. That's a plainest myth every moderately educated schoolchild in Russia knows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Plant

I knew somebody will come, and post that there.

That particular factory stood semi idle for nearly a decade, and stood well in rank to showpiece Union's engineering like Moscow metro. It's nearly certain that the original factory built Albert Kahn only managed to make a few thousand units before accidents, a fire, breakdowns, and complete inadequacy of the fitting necessitated a complete rebuild (at the time, it was said to be "random, wrong, and sometimes completely unneeded equipment")

It was rebuilt, expanded, and retooled multiple times before they can manufacture even a "tin can" (as was called by Union's soldiers) T-26 tank.

And yes, the story of T-34 going to frontlines right from the assembly lines is a gross exaggeration.

No Americans had much of a role in USSR's alleged industrial proves on the eve, and during WW2 aside from Lend-lease, it was the fantastic, enormous resource expenditure which did.

The country remained largely agricultural until mid-late seventies.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#48

Post by throwaway0a5e »

baybal2 wrote: post #47
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd_Tractor_Plant

I knew somebody will come, and post that there. That particular factory stood semi idle for nearly a decade, and stood well in rank to showpiece Union's engineering like Moscow metro. It's nearly certain that the original factory built Albert Kahn only managed to make a few thousand units before accidents, a fire, breakdowns, and complete inadequacy of the fitting necessitated a complete rebuild (at the time, it was…

I'm sure they sucked and suffered from the typical incentive misalignment of ever other planned economy but the GP's point that the initial soviet industry was done with the help of foriegn specialists setting up domestic production of forign goods is very true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMO-F-15

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-AA

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#49

Post by Grustaf »

objectivetruth wrote: post #21
larsiusprime wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is the modern post-vatican II Catholic fasting tradition. If one follows specifically the Russian Orthodox fasting rules strictly, you'd be approximately vegan for half of the year (every wednesday and friday, as well as lent, apostle's fast, dormition fast, nativity fast, a few others sprinkled in, etc). On a conventional strict fast day (other than e.g. Clean Monday in lent where you eat noth…

From the article: > Another opinion holds that Thursday was chosen as a poke in the eye to Orthodox believers, since their fasting days are traditionally Wednesday and Friday (official doctrine did all it could to encourage atheism).

The choice of day was probably related to this, but as mentioned above, eating fish on Fridays is not an Orthodox tradition.

Re: Thursday was fish day in the USSR

#50

Post by antifa »

nanis wrote: post #25
gtm1260 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but if you turn up at the meat shop and can't get any, wouldn't you then go to __x food shop down the street__ and get something else instead?

> wouldn't you then go to __x food shop down the street__ A-hem. Command economies and central planning are interesting like that.

If there is a shortage, it doesn't matter if your market is "free" or if your economic planner is Sam Walton or Сталин or Bezos, you better hurry to next shop and hope they still have some, or hope you're rich enough to buy from scalpers, or hope there is enough supply for rationing.
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