[Carioca]

On the scale that the CIA said the average citizen of the USSR ate better than their counterpart in the US[1], while still having a lot of science and engineering going on. Material conditions in the USSR improved dramatically after WW2. A lot more than, say, here in Brazil, where we never had a communist regime though we did have a US-backed dictatorship

[1]: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R0006014...

[chrysler]

CIA notoriously overestimated the USSR by assuming competence within (what seemed to them) reasonable bounds. Bananas were luxury items and this sad thing was the most popular ice cream, fondly remembered to this day, because there was nothing better: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Plombir_...

In some select border regions that could pick up foreign TV channels (Karelia and Estonia), authorities told that the grocery stores shown in commercials were a CIA psyop. Soviet citizens up to to the highest levels of party elite were deeply shaken when they could finally travel and experience them in person: https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...

Imagine coming from that pathetic ice cream and suddenly seeing huge shelves full of everything you can imagine, and not only ice cream, but all other categories too. That was a tremendous cultural shock to anyone who had grown up in the USSR, beyond wildest imagination.

The idea that US and USSR were equals or even anything near it is totally absurd. You can see the same tradition continue in how Russia's potential in Ukraine was ridiculously overestimated, and how mundane things like toilet bowls and washing machines are deemed by Russian soldiers and officers as worthy of looting.

[Carioca]

The choice of bananas as a benchmark seems really bad given that the US invaded and supported coups throughout Latin America specifically to keep the price of bananas low.

> The idea that US and USSR were equals or even anything near it is totally absurd

That's not what I said. I said the material conditions of the population improved markedly more in the USSR than here in Latin America following WW2

[chrysler]

Bananas have a symbol status, given how mundane they are in countries that are open to international trade and how infamously difficult they were to get back then (among many other similarly mundane products). In mid-1950s, USSR imported 2000 tons, and by mid-1980s, peaked at around 80 000 tons. Present-day Russia has half the population, but imports 1 500 000 tons.

It's beyond imagination to westerners I've spoken to that people used to queue for hours on the rare occasions when bananas were available, and that most people lived to their 30s and 40s without ever tasting a banana (despite wanting to).

Statistics glance over this "human experience" side of things when making comparisons.

[muxator]

I do not know why you were downvoted.

[notdang]

In the defense of the "plombir" ice cream, I still think that there is no better ice cream. Plombir is still made in that region and whenever I go back there, I eat it in industrial quantities. I could not find anything close to Plombir in the western world.

[bitcurious]

“Sweet Cream” is the closest to plombir, fyi, if you can find it locally made. Otherwise look for an Eastern European grocery - most carry a few varieties of plombir, though not the best brands.

[archagon]

“Creme brulee” variant was even better! I think it was plombir made with “toasted milk”.

[mrcode007]

The “sad thing” was so good it made its way to other countries outside of the USSR and is to this day served in many places. I can confirm from the first hand experience that it has no equals in the western world.

[chrysler]

Stockholm syndrome. My father swears by rock hard toffee candy, because that's how they were by the time they reached his local store. Modern iteration that stays soft as intended and melts in mouth is blasphemy according to him.

[notdang]

No,in this case it's different, the ice cream is still made in the ex-URSS countries and you can still try it and you can still not find anything like this outside.

[mongol]

Where can I go to have one, today? What makes it special?

[lnsru]

Every Lidl has it in Europe I guess. Here in random Lidl on Adria shore it’s being sold by Monolith group (some Eastern Europe company shell) and made in some far far away ex-soviet country. Nothing special, but nostalgia. On other hand other products in the same freezer were not better.

[mongol]

Lidl, great, I will check it out

[notdang]

It's a basic ice cream without any artificially added flavors, even without the vanilla flavor. It's dense and soft.

The special part for me is that it's basic, vanilla how it's called in the US, but even without vanilla. However it's hard to explain to someone who grew with all the ice cream having some sort of added flavour.

[mongol]

I think I get it. If it has natural ingredients, such as plain cream, egg, sugar, could be nice.

[stunpix]

Sorry, but plombir isn’t USSR’s achievement at all. The “plombir” in USSR first appeared in 1937 produced by using US equipment after Stalin has visited USA and tasted the ice cream there. No ice cream was there prior to that. Next, the plombir’s name and recipe were “borrowed” (as many things in USSR) from French dessert “glace plombières”.

[thriftwy]

I'm pretty sure Russian Empire had ice cream. Google for long reads online - ubiquotous in late XIX century.

[fennecfoxy]

Yeah, idk why everyone's trying to say the SU was so great when the dissolution of the SU happened after Boris Yeltsin went into an American supermarket in Houston and "Yeltsin admitted the visit made a profound impression on him. It cemented his growing view that the Soviet state-run economic system had left the Russian people far behind Americans, forcing them into a much lower standard of living."

Pretty much every time someone pipes up who lived through the SU era themselves, they set the record straight that people weren't really having a great time.

[paganel]

My parents’ house has two NATO air bases in a 100-kms radius (one of them very often mentioned on US news because it’s very close to Ukraine and it has US soldiers stationed there), and yet said house doesn’t have indoor plumbing and I do my stuff while visiting them in a hole dug up at the back of the garden. What’s nice is that while I’m doing it I have a splendid view over a Danube branch and over the Dobruja hills, beats navigating social media on my phone.

[thriftwy]

I was very surprised when I learned people in faraway Russian north villages in the middle of nowhere install plumbing to have a warm WC.

Whereas previously I saw people in much more accessible places (albeit, warmer on average) content with having outhouse over a hole.

I hope your parents do at least have a wooden outhouse over that hole.

[paganel]

Yeah, they have the wooden outhouse, otherwise it would have been quite difficult.

What I can say about the hole is that it is more conducive to getting out faster whatever needs to go out, it seems like a more natural position.

[thriftwy]

Ours had a stool over that hole, leading to less natural position but more comfort - you could re-read that newspaper before using it.

[playing_colours]

My grandpa worked as an engineer at one of the freezer-warehouses where they also produced ice-cream. It was end of 80s - mid 90s in USSR. He brought a lot of it home, and my fridge was always filled with 1-3 sorts of it. Sweet childhood time :)

[adrian_b]

During the years after WW2, the USSR has stolen huge amounts from East Germany and from the other East European countries, in various forms, from factories moved tool by tool from Germany to Russia, to huge bogus war reparations paid by other countries, to mixed companies owned by USSR and the local states, supposedly for cooperation in agricultural production, mining operations or forest exploitation, where the Soviets contributed nothing, except some general manager to oversee the local workers, but they took most or all of the production, exactly like it was done in the past in the colonies of the "imperialists" that the Soviets loved to criticize.

So there is no wonder that "Material conditions in the USSR improved dramatically after WW2".

However, after 1960 the flow of stolen valuables from the occupied countries has progressively dried and eventually the internal corruption made impossible to maintain the previous material conditions of USSR, much less improve them.

[fennecfoxy]

Yup, they took a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenacher_Motorenwerk including a whole BMW factory!

They kept making cars with the BMW logo until BMW sued them, so they renamed it "Eisenacher Motorenwerk".

[thriftwy]

Do you claim that Soviets has actually moved that factory someplace else; or are you blaming that factory for continuing to be where it was built, producing stuff it was built to produce, likely paying wages to the same people who worked there from the start?

I know that Soviet Union has took e.g. Opel manufacturing line as reparations to form Moskvitch plant, but that's a different story.