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Vacations in the Soviet Union

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Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#401

Post by CalChris »

penneallagricia wrote: post #296
CalChris wrote: post #224

I worked for Olivetti in Milan and Ivrea the mid/late 80s. In particular, that was before the wall came down. When I landed at Malpensa in Milan for the first time, I noticed there was an Aeroflot airliner parked on the tarmac. This seemed odd to me. Why would someone want to fly from Milan to the USSR? Olivetti was a massive (at the time) paternal Italian company. It had a department called Gestione Varie , miscella…

> I worked for Olivetti in Milan and Ivrea the mid/late 80s. Really interesting, you're the first I meet that has. Olivetti still has a stellar reputation in Italy, disliked by other enterpreneurs and (so they say) loved by his employees. What's sure is that the work conditions were really progressive and I think still unparalleled today, at least in Italy. Do you have any anecdote or interesting fact to share about…

The typewriter factory in Ivrea was ... a typewriter factory. Yeah, I worked on compilers but the building still built typewriters. I was there for a month before I was "allowed" to go to lunch by myself for fear of getting lost.

The main hotel in town, the Hotel La Serra, is shaped like a ... typewriter.

The Brigate Rosse was a threat when I was there and Adriano Olivetti was very afraid of them. You'd never see him. If you drove at night you were likely to be pulled over by the Carabinieri and have a machine gun stuck in your stomach while they figured out who you were. Everyone was on edge.

But it was a cool time. Ivrea was a company town and I think if I wanted to dial the Olivetti operator from my apartment I dialed 6. But taking a shower meant getting up at 4am so that there would be enough water pressure.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#402

Post by mannerheim »

ido wrote: post #371
mannerheim wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I have been to China many times visiting family and have never felt that western media has been particularly unfair in its portrayal. I would rather not ever go back while Xi is still in power if I can help it (unfortunately I may have to one or two more times for familial obligations) and would recommend against going to anyone on the fence. Don't get Brittney Griner'd.

Why Xi in particular, and do you have reason to believe his successor would be any better?

> Why Xi in particular

His rule has corresponded to a more authoritarian turn in China, especially in the last few years with his abolition of term limits. It was hardly a liberal country before, but the fact is it has gotten significantly worse, and I have no confidence of that situation improving as long as Xi is in power. I have no desire to end up like, say, Saad Ibrahim Almadi.

> do you have reason to believe his successor would be any better?

No. But it is the bare minimum.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#403

Post by Toutouxc »

weberer wrote: post #383
Toutouxc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my (pharyngeal) tonsil removed without anaesthesia, in 2001 I think, as a kid, in the Czech Republic. It didn't hurt at all, but I still remember the loud crunch of the cutting and the whole setup — I sat on one doctor's lap, he grabbed me with his arms around my whole body AND my arms, so I couldn't move at all, and a second doctor did the cutting. It only took a few seconds, there was a lot of blood, but I go…

>It didn't hurt at all Sounds like you got local anesthetics. You probably just didn't see the needle due to the angle.

Possible, but wow that must’ve been quick. The whole thing was over in a few seconds.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#404

Post by gdy »

silversmith wrote: post #267
gdy wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Forced ethnic mixing"

Yeah, I've heard you prefer not to mix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Estonia#Eston...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Latvia#Arajs_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Lithuania#Par...

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#405

Post by gdy »

thriftwy wrote: post #376
ido wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they meant the national identities like Ukranian, Georgian, Uzbek, etc.

This is what gets peddled across the world, but for the most part, Soviet Union eas busy creating those national identities. Sometimes it took a break when it became too inconvenient, only to resume it later. Soviet Union is who created these national states in the first place. There were no Georgia and no Uzbekistan before the USSR. In both cases there were a bunch of unaligned tribes or much smaller principalities…

You are right about national policy of the early Soviet Union which was promoting national identities of people of former Russian Empire [0] but you are definitely wrong about Georgia [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korenizatsiia

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Georgia

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#406

Post by [deleted] »

silversmith wrote: post #267
gdy wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#407

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

mannerheim wrote: post #399
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exhibit A of how the media in the US and Europe misrepresent China. The fact that you think this is how things were perfectly illustrates the problem. If zero-CoVID had really meant endless lockdowns, Chinese people wouldn't have put up with the policy for nearly 3 years. There were lockdowns in China, but they were limited in time, and before mid-2022, they were relatively rare (as in, nobody I knew was subj…

> endless lockdowns Didn't say that. It's a fact that some parts of China were locked down for months, and that people were going hungry because they couldn't get food. That was all over Chinese social media.

Some tiny border towns were. Long lockdowns of major cities were very rare: Shanghai (2 months), Xi'an (a few weeks), and then the list gets pretty thin. There were sporadic lockdowns, but nothing like what one would imagine if, say, CNN were one's only source of information.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#408

Post by mannerheim »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #407
mannerheim wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endless lockdowns Didn't say that. It's a fact that some parts of China were locked down for months, and that people were going hungry because they couldn't get food. That was all over Chinese social media.

Some tiny border towns were. Long lockdowns of major cities were very rare: Shanghai (2 months), Xi'an (a few weeks), and then the list gets pretty thin. There were sporadic lockdowns, but nothing like what one would imagine if, say, CNN were one's only source of information.

IOW nothing I said was wrong.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#409

Post by gwright »

gumballindie wrote: post #59
gwright wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is quite the stretch to think those situations are "a bit [a]like".

Two sides of the same coin. I know it’s difficult to see it while stuck inside the loop but corporate work is like soviet work with fancy iphones and the illusion of free choice (you can chose as long as the choice is right). The politburo is replaced by the board while the apparatus by management. Conformity and obedience are not just desired are actively encouraged. Spreading corporate propaganda and preventing wor…

All things are "the same" at some level of abstraction. But if you have to reach to a high level of abstraction to illustrate that the things are the same, I don't see that as a particularly insightful comparison. Sameness is a mundane observation at a high level of abstraction.

Sort of like just tossing your hands up and saying "life sucks" regardless of what "system" you are living under and then concluding all "systems" are "two sides of the same coin".

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#410

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

mannerheim wrote: post #408
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some tiny border towns were. Long lockdowns of major cities were very rare: Shanghai (2 months), Xi'an (a few weeks), and then the list gets pretty thin. There were sporadic lockdowns, but nothing like what one would imagine if, say, CNN were one's only source of information.

IOW nothing I said was wrong.

> 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.

That's the bailey, the wide-ranging generalization about China as dystopian hellhole that you want to make. When you get pushback, you retreat to the defensible motte of: Well, there were some lockdowns for limited time periods in some places in China. The second the coast is clear, you go back to occupying the bailey.

Motte-and-bailey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

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