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Vacations in the Soviet Union

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Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#261

Post by eitally »

californical wrote: post #37
ahelwer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prolonged periods of time spent without obligation to work for pay is one of the greatest luxuries you can have in this life. People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it. Sabbatical, basically, although even sabbatical often comes with obligations for self-improvement serving the company offering it. A lot of discourse on working hours revolves around decreasing the hours worked per week. I would also…

This is an interesting idea — there could be a sabbatical accrual of sorts. One way this could realistically work today (with a lot of kicking and screaming about how it’ll ruin the economy) is each year of work earns a month of sabbatical, and once you’ve earned at least 2 months you can exercise your sabbatical rights, given some notice. Companies could cap it at 6 months at a time so you don’t completely lose trac…

In Canada, there is the concept of sabbatical accrual (https://ett.ca/know-your-rights-self-funded-leave-plan/). When my wife & I were backpacking in Patagonia we met a Canadian teaching couple with their two children doing the same thing, except instead of one week (us) they were on a 6mo trip from the southern tip of South America up to Alaska.

Then, the same year, we were visiting family in Grenada and met a young family (teachers) with a 4yo on a 40' sailboat they were cruising around the Caribbean on.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#262

Post by lnsru »

thriftwy wrote: post #195
lnsru wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anesthetics were only for the higher caste kids of party members. Basically they had everything the westerners had :-) General population however had nothing.

This cannot be further from truth. High ranking party members had access to "special distribution" stores whose selection of goods available was inferior to what your local 7-11 offers (not to mention the modern Russian supermarket chains for that matter). They could get some of the things westerners had, but with extremely low bandwidth.

Lol. As a very high level party member you could murder anyone. And if the crowd wasn’t too big you could get fine with it. I am not talking about the poor souls who got party books just to get mid career promotion.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#263

Post by pierat »

The_Colonel wrote: post #114
kfrzcode wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 + 10 = one full calendar month (that's 6 business weeks) of work. You're asking for more than six weeks per year where you can just get paid for not working. Sure, there's plenty of holistic value-add to being a well rested, happy employee, but if the difference for your happiness and well-being is somewhere above having six weeks of paid vacation (plus assumed sick days as needed for actual sicknesses) and gettin…

Honestly, your suggestion that the desire for more time off must be caused by some mental problem is pretty rude. I also don't understand why is it such a mystery that people might want to pursue other interests than just work and that requires time off work. Here in Europe, 20+10 is the bare minimum, with most people getting more and still striving for more.

My current job, with 20 days PTO plus federal holidays is what I get per year.

If I get sick, it comes out of the 20 day pool. If I want a vacation, comes out of the 20 day pool.

At least, thankfully, I'm a remote worker, so I won't be infecting the whole office. But I still have 'come to work' sick this year. There are more than a few obnoxious cold bugs going around. And still, COVID.

And from what I understand, most European Union countries get unlimited sick leave, and 4-6 weeks of vacation both.

I also want to live and enjoy being with my SO, and doing fun stuff together. I do not live to work. I work because I have to because the threat of homelessness and destitution is the ever-present threat.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#264

Post by aslfjiasf »

gdy wrote: post #219
jtbayly wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haga has a flagged comment pointing out the purpose of this policy, and I can't figure out why it is flagged, so I'll just quote what the article says: "It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. They were all part of a collective and that umbrella united them. In the Soviet Union, after all, the collective—not the family—was the most important social…

That's just sovietophobic fiction. I remember the slogan "Family is the unit of society" and childless people had to pay a special tax. Also infidelity in marriage was frowned upon and could negatively affect the career.

This has changed from early Soviet Union to late Soviet Union.

Early Soviet Union was much more radical and utopian, with ideas almost like in Plato's republic with the goal to getting to the point where the state rather than the parents would be raising children.

This was later abolished in the 30's and 40's and more traditional family values were encouraged.

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

https://www.jstor.org/stable/351982

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#265

Post by int_19h »

whitemary wrote: post #241
obscurette wrote: post #233

I lived half of my life in Soviet Union and would say that this article is simplification with sources more from instate propaganda than from reality. The article basically describes russian upper middle class (yes, there were classes within soviet society) after WWII. Most of people couldn't even dream about Sochi. Soviet Union was huge and differences between regions, classes, nationalities etc were very much there…

> there were classes within soviet society Karl Marx's definition of communism was literally "a classless society"

Soviet Union never claimed to actually be communist - it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, after all. Communism was supposed to be that thing that'll eventually happen after you had socialism for long enough for the "new type" of people to emerge. The Soviet joke about it went, "communism is like the horizon: an imaginary line that is always the same distance away as you walk towards it".

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#266

Post by iudqnolq »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #117
samstave wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much amazing beauty in the world, including the largest country on the planet, Russia - and then especially areas in China, which I would LOVE to visit, but the governments of each country kinda suck, so its not a place I'll likely go (imagine mtn biking through some of the amazing landscapes of either) With that said, I'd love to hear Lex Fridman's opinion on all of this.

It's not difficult to visit China (except that you'll probably have to apply for a visa, but Chinese people have to do that to visit Western countries too). You won't experience much about the government while there. Police aren't really that present in public. Border control is like any other country. The only issue you're likely to run into is the Great Firewall, for which you can just install a VPN before arriving…

.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#267

Post by silversmith »

gdy wrote: post #219
jtbayly wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haga has a flagged comment pointing out the purpose of this policy, and I can't figure out why it is flagged, so I'll just quote what the article says: "It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. They were all part of a collective and that umbrella united them. In the Soviet Union, after all, the collective—not the family—was the most important social…

That's just sovietophobic fiction. I remember the slogan "Family is the unit of society" and childless people had to pay a special tax. Also infidelity in marriage was frowned upon and could negatively affect the career.

From the "I remember" I assume you lived through it. Were you per chance from "proper" soviet union, aka Moscow / Petrograd area? Because allegiance to the state and nothing else was the ideal in the "less correct" regions such as Baltics. It "got better" as time wore on, but especially after the occupation, every attempt was made to erode anything and everything else people might gather around. Forced ethnic mixing with deportations to faraway regions to dillute national identity. Pioneer movement and schoolwork that taught you to think of the union first, family second. Heck, even open encouragement to rat out your parents for "un-soviet" behavior.

It might be sovietophobic in the sense we would rather not have it repeat, to put mildly. But for the occupied regions, it was far from fiction.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#268

Post by MSFT_Edging »

> "In the Soviet Union, the government regulated almost every aspect of life. Censors decided which books could be published. Comedians had to submit material for approval before they could step behind a mic. Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles."

Its amazing how the author feels the need to parrot these hysterics in order to write an article about how Soviet workers generally had far more leisure time and opportunity compared to western contemporaries.

Imagine starting an article about sockhops in the 50's with:

>"In the United States, the government regulated racial boundaries with strict enforcement. Slavery was over but vagrancy charges were regularly used to traffic southern blacks to northern coal mines to work for no pay in dangerous conditions. Entertainers were getting called in front of the Anti-American Activities Committees for donating to civil rights bail funds. Failing to support the war in Korea could have you black listed from any real career.

> But you had dance halls"

Absolutely insane.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#269

Post by rospaya »

izacus wrote: post #123
atemerev wrote: post #3

The Soviet economy was somewhat surreal and it is difficult to explain it well to the Western audience. Including vacations, vacation tickets («путёвки»), summer camps, sanatoriums and the like. I still remember some parts though, so if you are interested in how it worked, I can answer your questions. Most definitely it wasn't all that rosy.

Interesting thing that was common in, at least Yugoslavia, was for companies to own bungalows and vacation houses near the sea and then allow workers to use them for a time for vacations. Didn't think it strange at the time.

This lasted well into the 90s. Nowadays there's no cheap vacation for anyone, not just the working class.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#270

Post by mannerheim »

janalsncm wrote: post #196
catiopatio wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you learn a lot about how illiberal governments treat foreign visitors from wealthy western countries, and how they leverage their power to control what you as a tourist see and hear. The first country you list is the DPRK, who are famed for carefully stage-managing any visit by western tourists. If you want an honest view of those places, you have to speak with people who aren’t risking their lives or livelihood…

North Korea is an exception, since it’s pretty hard to talk to actual locals. Having lived in one of those illiberal countries for a while (China) I could clearly see how the US media distorted everything, reduced Chinese people to a monolith, downplayed or simply ignored all of the genuinely good things happening, and took every opportunity to highlight the negatives. It is to the point where every positive, interes…

Maybe you should have gone to China last year or the year before to enjoy the authentic Chinese experience of living in a cage without food because grocery shopping was verboten.
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