As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union (during a later period), I found it really interesting to look at this photographs.
One thing worth pointing out: Moscow was very different from the rest of the country. It had better housing and infrastructure, the shops were stocked far better than elsewhere in the country, it had more grandiose architecture and richer cultural life and so on.
In many is ways it was the country's showcase city.
"Potemkin village" - a fake propaganda narrative, created by Saxony's embassy clerk Helbig. He conveniently told that story in Hamburg, a decade later after the trip (which he wasn't a part of).
Charles-Joseph de Ligne (who has been part of said journey) regarded such tales as preposterous.
So, the same as any big urban center anywhere has better infrastructure and cultural life compared to villages and rural areas? Or was it particularly pronounced in the USSR?
It's very different, varies country by country. In UK everything is concentrated in London, in France most is concentrated in Paris but to a lower degree, there is no pronounced hyper-center of everything in Spain - Madrid is top #1 but Barcelona is close 2nd and there is a lot of business and a lot of stuff going on in Santander, Valencia, Alicante, and so on. In Italy Rome and Milan are about equal. In Germany there is totally nothing resembling a dominating city at all. In US it's mostly coasts vs flyover states, hyper-centers do exist by they specialise by industry - everything about tech is in the Valley, everything about pharma is in Philadelphia, and so on - but in Russia, Moscow is a hyper-center of everything, of every industry.
If you are in software startup field and not in the Valley you don't know what you are doing.
If you are in Russia and not in Moscow, you don't know what you are doing - regardless of what exactly are you trying to do.
Reminds me of the old Soviet joke of somebody going to the butcher and asking if they have fish. The butcher responds we only have no meat here, you need to go to the fish shop if you want no fish.
"It becomes evident that the parade was a carefully choreographed spectacle, designed to showcase the Soviet Union’s ideology and power to the world."
Ah yes, everyone known that in a TRUE democracy parades are spontaneously occurring events, self organizing to show the country's weaknesses and the population's biases.
Seriously tho, what does this mean, has anyone ever been to a parade and concluded it was neither coreographed, planned, or meant give a positive image ?
How do you determine people's enthusiasm is planned and orchestrated by looking at them ?
Are all parades proof the country is actually the torture Truman show or just the countries you're being payed to spy on ?
It unveils the stark contrast between the carefully constructed façade
presented by the Soviet authorities and the harsh realities experienced by
ordinary citizens.
I guess without examples of the "carefully constructed façade" its difficult to understand if there is a contrast. To me, the photos just look like ordinary 1950s street scenes. Waiting at Walgreens the other day I spent the time examining the store's decorative antique photos; aside from differences in culture and subject area, so many details of vehicles, building construction, clothing styles are remarkably similar.
Interesting and sad to see the ratio of women to men doing hard manual work in these photos, even road repairs are done by women. It's mind boggling how devastating the war was for the country.
Lots of contention here around the narrative. The original link should be removed and replaced with the original source that has what’s seems to be accurate and different narratives for the pictures. The linked site seems to simply steal what is a pretty nice coverage of the archive.
"According to Smith, after Manhoff’s wife died he was asked to check the home of a former official for valuable memorabilia."
I wonder how much valuable memorabilia is just getting thrown away because no one thought to check for it.
Here's your nudge to ask your older relatives about their memorabilia, and record conversations with them while they are still alive.
If you want to put the info online somewhere to increase the chance that it's useful to someone someday, you could try a free genealogy website like familysearch.org or wikitree.com
The most striking thing about it, is that no matter how sorry do most of those people look, a good half of them represent Soviet 1% ers. And virtually all of them, top 20%. Vast majority of population wore homemade clothes, lived in villages with no documents (literally having no right to have an ID issued, which was necessary for all things except working in their kolkhos they were attached to), and could be jailed simply for leaving their village without a written order, at will.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 58.3 ms ] threadOne thing worth pointing out: Moscow was very different from the rest of the country. It had better housing and infrastructure, the shops were stocked far better than elsewhere in the country, it had more grandiose architecture and richer cultural life and so on.
In many is ways it was the country's showcase city.
Charles-Joseph de Ligne (who has been part of said journey) regarded such tales as preposterous.
If you are in software startup field and not in the Valley you don't know what you are doing.
If you are in Russia and not in Moscow, you don't know what you are doing - regardless of what exactly are you trying to do.
> MEAT. FISH.
That's some Edward Bernays-level trickery right there. /s
Ah yes, everyone known that in a TRUE democracy parades are spontaneously occurring events, self organizing to show the country's weaknesses and the population's biases.
Seriously tho, what does this mean, has anyone ever been to a parade and concluded it was neither coreographed, planned, or meant give a positive image ?
How do you determine people's enthusiasm is planned and orchestrated by looking at them ?
Are all parades proof the country is actually the torture Truman show or just the countries you're being payed to spy on ?
https://www.rferl.org/a/the-manhoff-archive/28359558.html
I wonder how much valuable memorabilia is just getting thrown away because no one thought to check for it.
Here's your nudge to ask your older relatives about their memorabilia, and record conversations with them while they are still alive.
If you want to put the info online somewhere to increase the chance that it's useful to someone someday, you could try a free genealogy website like familysearch.org or wikitree.com