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Vacations in the Soviet Union

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Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#321

Post by badpun »

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…

> US media distorted everything, reduced Chinese people to a monolith, downplayed or simply ignored all of the genuinely good things happening

The media I follow generally acknowledge that Chinese adopting capitalism led to the greatest increase of standard of living in entire human history (in terms of how quick it was and how many people were affected). That's not downplaying.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#322

Post by FpUser »

tsukikage wrote: post #119
FpUser wrote: post #97

>"The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it" Utter bullshit. I was able to travel to every part of USSR (except of course restricted areas and abroad) during my vacation time without any problems. USSR had gobbles of big problems and general lack of freedom but vacations were not part. As a matter of fact I spent…

The article focuses on early/mid century, less on the 80s/90s. It doesn’t mention dacha villages either.

You might include 70s as well. I do not have personal experience on how it was before.

As for "focuses" - then it is not an article but a piece of propaganda. Hence it has a deserved place in a trash.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#323

Post by ejb999 »

r00fus wrote: post #150
californical wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean, lots of things we could do but don't because of who actually runs this country. The US is an oligarchy by most definitions.

what is stopping you from doing this?

Is there a law that says you can't start a company and provide your employees with 6 months paid time off?

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#324

Post by thriftwy »

saiya-jin wrote: post #249
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…

Yeah as somebody coming from former Czechoslovakia, it was hard for us to travel too, even in 80s. My parents were forbidden to travel to the sea to former Yugoslavia for example, since it was neutral country that one could use to escape to Austria. Heck, even travel to very much communist Poland nearby was very hard, special approvals from apparatchiks were required and those were only granted to regime-friendly fol…

> freedom from often horrible and incompetent central Russian management.

Russia does just fine without most of those pieces, whereas the pieces struggle to be viable.

The management was not 'Russian', by the way. It came proportionally from all of the Soviet republics, more or less. When the Union collapsed, they mostly stayed in Moscow.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#325

Post by DubiousPusher »

quacked wrote: post #239
DubiousPusher wrote: post #62

This is great. I've been interested in understanding how the Soviet economy worked for a long time. I've found only a handful of articles like this one. Unless you're willing to delve into hardcore economic academic papers (I am not) it's hard to get an actual informed perspective. Most Googling around will basically return you the rote response that it basically didn't work. Which, despite the many issues with the S…

> Which, despite the many issues with the Soviet economy, is obviously not true. The first thing I hear from any ex-Soviet who grew up in the USSR is how their lives were impacted by the constant shortages and censorship of issues with the supply chain. There's a classic joke from the USSR that goes: "Comrade, aren't you excited for when the USA finally falls?" "No, who will we buy our grain from?" Another one: "Isn'…

Well, the country septupled its GDP over the 70 years of Soviet rule. For a time, between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of WWII it was one of the fastest growing economies in world history. While facing terrible famine and hunger before WWII, the Soviet Union largely ended starvation by the mid-late century. The Soviet government managed to extend the benefits of sanitation, healthcare and electrification to tens of millions of the people living under its power.

To me, while we might see many many problems within the Soviet economy and see many ways it could have been better, it is clearly not an economy that "didn't work". And by some measures, we can even say it "worked" better than the post Soviet economy.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#326

Post by badpun »

Koshkin wrote: post #273
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…

> Most of people couldn't even dream about Sochi. That's not true. Not to idealize anything, there were people, of course, who were poorer than average for one reason or another, but once in a while an average person could actually afford a vacation in Sochi and other areas around Black Sea. (The quality of accommodation is another question, of course.) Also, union members (i.e. pretty much everyone) were occasionall…

Idk about Soviet Union, but in Communist Poland, the farmers didn't even get basic health care and pension until 1970s (that was still probably around 40-50% of population by then), not to mention luxuries like state-provided vacations.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#327

Post by FpUser »

cpursley wrote: post #229
FpUser wrote: post #97

>"The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it" Utter bullshit. I was able to travel to every part of USSR (except of course restricted areas and abroad) during my vacation time without any problems. USSR had gobbles of big problems and general lack of freedom but vacations were not part. As a matter of fact I spent…

Yep, my wife grew up in the USSR and enjoyed more and longer vacations (up to two months, and at least one) than we ever did as an upper middle class American family. Disclosure: this is no endorsement of the Soviet-style systems. But my wife had a much better childhood then the anti-Soviet would have you believe.

>"this is no endorsement of the Soviet-style systems."

You do not have to apologize for confirming that not everything about USSR (late USSR in particular) was mothers eating their kids for breakfast. People with more than 2 brain cells should understand that the world is not binary. And those who do not should go back to school as the education in their country (whatever that be) had definitely failed them.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#328

Post by cpursley »

FpUser wrote: post #327
cpursley wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, my wife grew up in the USSR and enjoyed more and longer vacations (up to two months, and at least one) than we ever did as an upper middle class American family. Disclosure: this is no endorsement of the Soviet-style systems. But my wife had a much better childhood then the anti-Soviet would have you believe.

>"this is no endorsement of the Soviet-style systems." You do not have to apologize for confirming that not everything about USSR (late USSR in particular) was mothers eating their kids for breakfast. People with more than 2 brain cells should understand that the world is not binary. And those who do not should go back to school as the education in their country (whatever that be) had definitely failed them.

Unfortunately on HN you do, the majority of the people here live in coastal American echo-chambers.

If you mention anything here that could portray any aspect at all of the Russians (any era) as positive (or even just neutral but factual), you'll be eaten alive with down-voters.

Including this very (my) comment.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#329

Post by FpUser »

cpursley wrote: post #328
FpUser wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"this is no endorsement of the Soviet-style systems." You do not have to apologize for confirming that not everything about USSR (late USSR in particular) was mothers eating their kids for breakfast. People with more than 2 brain cells should understand that the world is not binary. And those who do not should go back to school as the education in their country (whatever that be) had definitely failed them.

Unfortunately on HN you do, the majority of the people here live in coastal American echo-chambers. If you mention anything here that could portray any aspect at all of the Russians (any era) as positive (or even just neutral but factual), you'll be eaten alive with down-voters. Including this very (my) comment.

Not completely true but there is definitely some degree of it here. Some of it I think is propaganda machine doing the job, some of it is lack of critical thinking, some - intolerance to the opposite opinions and we probably have healthy dose of Ukrainians here who are understandably in no mood to let anything non negative slide.

As for downvotes themselves - I personally do not give rat's ass about those. In large part those are "I do not like you" type of reaction. So fucking be it. I am not being paid for karma. Personally I did not downvote single post however I feel about content / poster.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#330

Post by pavel_lishin »

Aaronstotle wrote: post #11
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.

My grandparents and my father grew up in the Soviet Union. I always find it fascinating hearing about my grandparent's childhood and what it was like to grow up there. One anecdote for not all rosy: My father is permanently traumatized because he had to get his tonsils removed when he was young and they didn't give him any anesthetics.

I had teeth pulled as a child, and other dental work done, without anesthetics.

Going to the dentist now is ... challenging.

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