[throwlaplace]

do you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there

>One chain belonged to the Vneshposyltorg (Foreign Mail Order Trade) and was intended for Soviet citizens who received some income in foreign currency. Some of them were forced to sell their currency for ruble-denominated Vneshposyltorg checks, while others never laid their hands on foreign currency, receiving their pay from Western sources in Vneshposyltorg checks via Soviet intermediaries (which, again, allowed the foreign currency to stay in Soviet government hands). The checks were to be used to purchase goods in the Vneshposyltorg Beriozkas.

but like i said feel free to keep perpetuating these bad faith interpretations

[m0zg]

I grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться".

My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but impossible for a regular Ivan to acquire due to the aforementioned illegality of foreign currency). 99.999% of soviet citizens _did not_ receive income in "foreign currency", and by definition "invalutny ruble" could only be bought with foreign currency. Or just handed out to a party apparatchik through other mechanisms. Those folks weren't suffering at all, best everyone else could tell.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB...

[082349872349872]

Out of curiosity, ребята, three questions about Иван Васильевич меняет профессию: (a) which currency would Shurik have used when buying transistors (~45 minutes)? I'm assuming he would've used regular rubles if he'd managed to find them in a shop, but since he was buying from a dubious looking source (Бери шинель?) would he have needed other currency? (b) when Иван Грозный discovers the elevator (~24 minutes), is his sign of the cross period, or anachronistic? (c) as for the pen Милославский gives to the ambassador (~1 hour) ... were those available for rubles?

[m0zg]

Haven't watched it in decades, so thanks for time references. The currency question is easy: in the USSR there was nothing other than Soviet Rubles. There was no other currency, dubious source or not, especially for a ботаник from a НИИ like Shurik. The thief scene here (https://youtu.be/a50qT9bW2Qo?t=856) shows what I assume are government bonds, not currency. My parents never had those and I've never seen them in person. Showing any kind of illegal currency manipulation was out of the question in a movie like this.

Sign of the blessing cross does not look too authentic to me, but orthodox blessing _is_ given with three closed fingers IIRC (I'm not a person of faith myself), to signify Trinity, as far as I understand.

The pen was likely brought from abroad, as were some other stolen items. Soviet government would not allow such a frivolity to be manufactured.

[082349872349872]

You're right; they're bonds. compare https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iXcD4yjnYag... Шпак богач...

[082349872349872]

Мерси боку !

[throwlaplace]

i grew up in the soviet union too. даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это. so my point still stands.

[emmelaich]

When were you born? What decade?

The most strenuous, impassioned diatribes against the Soviet system come from older people, and from the non-Russian satellite soviet states.

[throwlaplace]

I was born in the 80s in Moldova. Other guy in here is much younger than me.

[m0zg]

> коммунизм не был идеальным (communism wasn't ideal)

Understatement of the century, quite literally.

[throwlaplace]

bruh. is the RF better or worse now? how are those term limits working out for you? was the west better or worse during the years 1932-33 during the famine (the same years that the US hit peak unemployment)? were the pogroms and the gulag better or worse than jim crow and segregation and racism? was state owned means of production better or worse than the gilded age?

like you're sitting here glibly dismissing something that's more nuanced than either yours or my hottake. what are you trying to accomplish?

edit: also how come you translated mine but not yours? and also why didn't you translate all the way?

>даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это

translation: even if we agree that communism wasn't ideal that doesn't mean beriozkas prove it.

[pnako]

There is a pretty simple test one can use to figure out which way to run a country is actually preferred by people:

Some countries put border with barb wires, walls, armed guards, etc. to keep people out. Other countries did that to keep people in.

[throwlaplace]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

[emmelaich]

I'd guarantee that people in the depression in the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Argentina were better off than Russians up to around 50s.

Hell, Australia in the 1890s was richer than most of the world in the 1950s

[derrick_jensen]

State owned production and distribution. The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods.

[throwlaplace]

>The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods.

wonderful! so then you must understand why these stores were orthogonal to communism right?

[derrick_jensen]

Google's definition of socialism

"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."

Private enterprise isn't the community. I'll admit that the state isn't the only way these things can organize, but it is probably the most common (excluding groups like the Mennonites)