Adam Curtis’ most recent work, Traumazone, aims to capture some of the feeling of what it was like to go through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the “capitalism” that followed. I found it very powerful and helped me empathise better with those citizens and leaders. Watching Gorbechev and Yeltsin struggle and try their best to navigate the disaster. It’s quite different from his previous works. He doesn’t narrate. I personally think it’s a masterpiece in alternative documentary making.
Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
At ~5:45 in the supermarket video, what am I looking at? Is that a Soviet TV dinner? https://youtu.be/t8LtQhIQ2AE?t=345
The text says "kotlety" which are basically meatballs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutlet#Cuisines_of_Russia,_Ukr... . But I don't understand what I'm looking at either. Maybe it's the ground meat mix that you shape the cutlets yourself before frying? But what is the bread-looking half on the left side?
From visuals it looks like buckwheat with possibly two cutlets under bechamel sauce
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
If USSR escaped unscathed from WW2 and America had instead been nearly destroyed we'd probably be hearing the exact opposite.
It probably doesn't make sense to attribute it to communism, because Russia is doing the same damn throw human life into a meat grinder approach in the modern day despite no longer being nominally communist. But that poor outcome is definitely attributable to something in the neighborhood of communism, namely the more general totalitarianism, which communism was most certainly a gateway to. Having said that, I'm not…
>It probably doesn't make sense to attribute it to communism, because Russia is doing the same damn throw human life into a meat grinder approach in the modern day despite no longer being nominally communist.
Yeah, this is 100% about Russian borders, which are long, exposed, expensive to defend and present an existential threat on a (historically) fairly regular basis.
America's geography is pretty much the polar opposite, so it's hard to empathize.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
At ~5:45 in the supermarket video, what am I looking at? Is that a Soviet TV dinner? https://youtu.be/t8LtQhIQ2AE?t=345
The text says "kotlety" which are basically meatballs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutlet#Cuisines_of_Russia,_Ukr... . But I don't understand what I'm looking at either. Maybe it's the ground meat mix that you shape the cutlets yourself before frying? But what is the bread-looking half on the left side?
The right side is almost certainly buckwheat, known to Russians simply as “kasha.”
The left side is likely the cutlets themselves (the little brown outlines) surrounded by some (cold) white sauce that once heated turns more liquid.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's like, if you complained about the lack of consumer products in Cuba, how could you discuss that without bringing up the sanctions the US has placed on them for decades? Keep in mind Cuba is free to trade with 192+ countries all around the world. Easy to blame everything on the embargo, harder to take a long hard look at the systemic corruption, incompetence, generalized theft and human rights violations plagui…
> Keep in mind Cuba is free to trade with 192+ countries all around the world. Is that the case? I don't know a lot about how the blocade works but Wikipedia says "the United States has threatened to stop financial aid to other countries if they trade non-food items with Cuba" and "US-based companies, and companies that do business with the US, which trade in Cuba do so at the risk of US sanctions."
Just looking at Cuba-EU trade (so more for the second category):
> Cuba’s main export goods are agricultural products, beverages, tobacco and mineral fuels, for which there is no preferential trade regime.
> The main export goods from the EU to Cuba are food, chemicals products, plastics, basic metals and their manufactures, machinery, household appliances and transport equipment.
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/cuba/european-union-and-cuba_en?s...
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#56The author seems to believe that Yeltsin was a moron who thought that the most advanced capitalist country in history would possibly be comparable to a country that belonged to the Tsar less than one hundred years prior.
Well, maybe he was an idiot.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#57I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…
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You literally created this account as a throwaway to avoid having your "critique" associated with your HN main.
You must be a lot of fun at parties.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#58I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…
> Then he saw the bananas. He really wanted bananas. He wouldn't ask for bananas. So I grabbed a bunch and put them in the basket.
And then I told Andrei and Volodya about Banana Republics.
Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#59Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)
#60I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…
I grew up with a guy that had a similar experience escorting Russian people in Florida? Alabama? Somewhere in the south where we hid defectors until everything was straight. He was driving some guy around who thought it was a guided tour to Potemkin villages, so he pulled out a map and said pick a place.
They drove to whatever that town was and he said, pick a store. After a couple of hours, I think his mind was blown.
This was a fairly rural, poor part of the state. Later they went to Atlanta and the guy was gaga over... everything.