I grew up in an ex-eastern bloc country, so I’m familiar with some of the aesthetics and even echoes of the Soviet mentality. The images fill me with despair. So much human potential wasted.
At times I think about how democracies, especially those plagued by winner-takes-all mechanics like presidential and semi-presidential republics, can pretend to be democratic while de facto being very authoritarian.
In the USSR, workers (in Soviets) voted their delegates and the delegates in turn elected the top hierarchy of the communist party.
So yes, the USSR was obviously an authoritarian regime controlled by a single party, but you still had to lobby and depend on getting elected by your party, whose delegates had to be first elected by the workers.
In modern Russia, Belarus, etc?
It's arguably even worse, the elected presidents and prime ministers de facto control the opposition which pretends to be an opposition, and real opposition faces either legal issues or direct threats.
And yet, you can pretend to be a democracy and tell your people its better than it was once, but is it really?
It's been 60 years now till the last parliamentary republic turned authoritarian, Sri Lanka. Every single other country to do so has always been a presidential or semi presidential republic. From the former Eastern Europe, to Asia, to Africa to South America.
We should now know that electing a single person to hold executive power is just non democratic and concentrates too much power in a single individual, but we keep falling in love with winner-takes-all elections and loving the idea of a single individual that doesn't need to win his own parties or PMs support every day can fix things quickly.
Picture 9 with 12 string electric guitar. Extremely rare instrument. Normal 6 string electric guitars were very average quality. Rock music was anyway not desired. Coming from the wrong place. Every piece of popular musicians was reviewed by state organs. Endless censorship everywhere.
More like: USSR propaganda in 100 photographs. One “man in space” vs millions of people devoid of plumbing and basic products, all living in a repressive orwellian society. The aftermath is still tangible: former satellite states are even after 30 years behind Western Europe economically, the former USSR republics are either marginalised, autocratic or in active war for their survival against their former colonial masters, and of course there’s Russia itself with its utmost lack of respect for its own citizens’ well being. So sure feel free to enjoy these photographs but don’t let them trick you into imagining USSR as some sort of utopia, because it was definitely way closer to an actual dystopia, and the world is now an actually better place because USSR is no more
What's going on with the photo of the children standing around a light wearing sunglasses? My first thought was tanning booth but surely they weren't tanning children?
I watched "Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone - What It Felt Like to Live Through The Collapse of Communism and Democracy" (7 episode documentary series) last year and can highly recommend it. It's not like any documentary I'd ever seen, there is no narration, very little "story" exactly, it's mostly a collection of footage spliced together (I believe it was all/mostly BBC footage, a lot of it seemed like b-roll-type stuff).
I found it absolutely fascinating. After the first episode I didn't think I'd watch anymore of it since it's very odd (how it's presented IMHO) but it kept drawing me back in.
Something I noticed in Star City was how well they managed to find the aesthetic from the time of the USSR.
A set designer can of course find pieces from the time, but I always find with shows made now it always feels retro rather than authentic, but in this show they managed to find some genuine time capsules.
It is a bit slow, atmospheric, very long. HyperNormalization or Bitter Lake are probably my go-to starting recommendations for classic Curtis, with a bit more velocity to them. But I'm very thankful for having such a visual history lesson in TraumaZone, for such a found-footage style walk through the years.
These are not just staged photos for propaganda; they are ordinary, everyday life captured in photographs. Life in the USSR was not that bad as it is written here in the comments. Education was free and quite good. Medicine was free. In good times, workers could even get housing (a house or apartment) for free. There were various free additional classes and clubs for children and youth. There were free exhibitions and museums. People in general were less nervous and more happy, even though they weren't very wealthy. But at least in Moscow, the life of an average city dweller was normal. There were bad aspects too, but overall, they are exaggerated in the West.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 6.2 ms ] threadI would find it fascinating if an author did a deep dive into the toy knock-offs in the USSR and how they came to be.
Oh wow, a blast from the past. Remember reading and re-reading it a lot when I was very young. Seems it is still printed and updated! You can see the 1988 edition in full here https://samoe-vazhnoe.blogspot.com/2014/03/mir-i-chelovek.ht...
In the USSR, workers (in Soviets) voted their delegates and the delegates in turn elected the top hierarchy of the communist party.
So yes, the USSR was obviously an authoritarian regime controlled by a single party, but you still had to lobby and depend on getting elected by your party, whose delegates had to be first elected by the workers.
In modern Russia, Belarus, etc?
It's arguably even worse, the elected presidents and prime ministers de facto control the opposition which pretends to be an opposition, and real opposition faces either legal issues or direct threats.
And yet, you can pretend to be a democracy and tell your people its better than it was once, but is it really?
It's been 60 years now till the last parliamentary republic turned authoritarian, Sri Lanka. Every single other country to do so has always been a presidential or semi presidential republic. From the former Eastern Europe, to Asia, to Africa to South America.
We should now know that electing a single person to hold executive power is just non democratic and concentrates too much power in a single individual, but we keep falling in love with winner-takes-all elections and loving the idea of a single individual that doesn't need to win his own parties or PMs support every day can fix things quickly.
Runner up, the inconsolable background pooper (towards the end), what a weird photo to take btw.
I guess Deng Xioping said it best - "I don't care if the cat is black, white or purple as long as it catches mice"
I found it absolutely fascinating. After the first episode I didn't think I'd watch anymore of it since it's very odd (how it's presented IMHO) but it kept drawing me back in.
A set designer can of course find pieces from the time, but I always find with shows made now it always feels retro rather than authentic, but in this show they managed to find some genuine time capsules.
It is a bit slow, atmospheric, very long. HyperNormalization or Bitter Lake are probably my go-to starting recommendations for classic Curtis, with a bit more velocity to them. But I'm very thankful for having such a visual history lesson in TraumaZone, for such a found-footage style walk through the years.