Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Soviet-Era Industrial Design

atlasobscura.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 134 posts

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#61

Post by mantas »

Viller239 wrote: post #51
_nalply wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows perhaps they will succeed after all? But not a tiniest bit in the way the communists envisioned! Inequality will be stopped from growing indefinitively because somewhere must be a limit. What if the one percent owning ninety nine percent of global wealth is not enough for them? When will the rest of the world stop being sheeple and how will they change this? I hope in a peaceful way. Communism is dead. It's…

>However the problems Communism tried to solve are real and as of today even more pressing than ever. How are they more pressing than ever? Are communities in more dire situation than let's say after or during first world war?

Thanks to computing, companies are getting more and more centralized into fewer hands. Automatisation introduces new challenges as well.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#62

Post by mantas »

krasin wrote: post #15
raquo wrote: post #14

I like that the pasta box indicates net weight at 13% humidity level . One can only wonder what led to this. https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/54191/image.j... Does anyone happen to know the meaning of "пояс" (belt) in the pricing scheme on the same box?

The prices were set by the government, but different parts of the Soviet Union had different prices ([1], in Russian) Belt 1: Moscow, Saint-Petersburg (named Leningrad at the time), republic capitals, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, closed cities ([2]). Those had lower prices, and more products available at the stores. Belt 3: Far North regions. Prices were higher, but so are the salaries. Belt 2: the rest of the Soviet…

Belt 1 had different tiers as well. Shopping on a trip to Moscow was pretty much a must.

Another parallel tier was special shops for nomenklatura.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#63

Post by mantas »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #19

It's a small nitpick but the Saturnas vacuum, the first product featured, was actually Lithuanian. The most obvious clue - the name is written in Latin alphabet, not Cyrillic. Of course, with centralized economy, most of these designs probably had to be approved by Moscow but it doesn't mean that it was the seat of all creativity and innovation.

Well, Lithuania was occupied and a part of Soviet sphere at the time. Although it's always nice when other parts of USSR get individual mentioning rather than just Soviet=Russian.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#64

Post by realusername »

mantas wrote: post #60
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think…

Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.

> Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy

That's easy to say now but no other country achieved that at that time. Especially not in a such a short time, it was an impressive feat.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#65

Post by Intermernet »

tjr225 wrote: post #26

As a huge synth geek the soviet era synthesizers are sought after and also produce unique sounds. Here's a comparison of Moog(US) and Polivoks(USSR): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbdyMP_CiIY Also! They look cool.

If you don't already know about them, check out the ANS synth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#66

Post by flohofwoe »

markvdb wrote: post #53
rdtsc wrote: post #37

Moscow Design Museum has some more examples too http://moscowdesignmuseum.ru/en/exhibitions/1/ . Those that grew up in Soviet Union will recognize familiar objects. I recognized the phones, the "basketball" game, and the portable checkers game. Well and of course the Moskvitch 408 car. I don't remember really thinking about design back then. Maybe because we didn't have many choices. You wanted a tape player you pick…

One thing always strikes me in terms of design when I'm in Latvia (USSR republic in 1940 and 1945-1990). It is how modular, repairable, and in that way "simple" things that have survived from the Soviet era look. Ingeniously built wooden ironing boards for example, the older generations of trams of Riga, the "Minsk" folding bicycles that you still see around very often, the trains (no new ones since 1991!), even many…

Good example of this are the Simson bikes from Eastern Germany, small 50cc motor cycles going up to 70 km/h. Their technical design is extremely simple, and they are being repaired and are in normal daily use all over the country (not just by nostalgia nerds or hipster city dwellers). Many owners are most likely younger than the bike they're riding.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#67

Post by AsyncAwait »

mantas wrote: post #60
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think…

Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.

So, you're saying that being first in space wasn't moving forward?

> Especially on electronics and computers.

I strongly suspect that was due to lack of resources for research, rather than lack of ability, as by the time there was a serious focus on these areas, the economy wasn't doing so well.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#68

Post by AsyncAwait »

mantas wrote: post #59
pnathan wrote: post #45

I always will wonder if, suppose we hadn't bothered with a "cold war" and the mutual antipathy & fear, the Soviet system would be ticking along well. So, I always find the bits of Soviet thought fascinating. In large part, I think it is because it is both modern and alien . A different road was taken and a different perspective was built in so many things. Even when I work with people who grew up in that world, they…

And if Soviets hadn't occupied a bunch of countries and oppressed their citizens. If there was no fear internally and massive surveillance. I'm super happy USSR went down and we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want.

> we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want

Agreed, surveillance, oppression are all terrible, but I highly doubt you can really choose any system you may want now, (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#69

Post by dghf »

euos wrote: post #49
pnathan wrote: post #45

I always will wonder if, suppose we hadn't bothered with a "cold war" and the mutual antipathy & fear, the Soviet system would be ticking along well. So, I always find the bits of Soviet thought fascinating. In large part, I think it is because it is both modern and alien . A different road was taken and a different perspective was built in so many things. Even when I work with people who grew up in that world, they…

Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. It primary goal was to serve as a resource base for spreading the fire all over the world. I just checked and it looks like English version of “the Internationale” is mild, the Russian lyrics explicitly state “this world of oppression we’ll reduce to rubble and will use that rubble to build our new world” - and I can guarantee you, USSR wa…

> Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution.

Communists in general may have, but did the Soviets? I thought Stalin's stance was socialism in one country, leading (at least in part) to the breach with Trotsky. And he deliberately crushed the incipient workers' revolution in republican Spain during the civil war.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#70

Post by mantas »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #67
mantas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.

So, you're saying that being first in space wasn't moving forward? > Especially on electronics and computers. I strongly suspect that was due to lack of resources for research, rather than lack of ability, as by the time there was a serious focus on these areas, the economy wasn't doing so well.

Computer research was more because Soviet elite didn't believe in computing. Thus resources were allocated differently. Sicne there was no free market, nobody took a stab on their own either.

"Economy" didn't mean shit in USSR. It was all about priorities. War in Afghanistan got plenty of resources in meantime. As well as aiding friendly regimes around the globe. Meanwhile citizens were having a hard time in their daily lives and civilian industry was falling behind.

If we're going to cherry pick, we could say that tsarist Russia was highly modern country since Medelev figured out the elements table. Yet it's accepted it was an agricultural country, falling behind and fast. USSR, aside from several areas where they threw all their resources, was falling behind too.

So yes, sending first human to space is sad when you can't provide adequate life to your own citizens. It's like saying that North Korea is catching up thanks to their ICBM programme progress :)

P.S. Germans/Nazis were the ones who got both USSR and USA into space.

Post reply on HN