No, I was living on the Moon during the Soviet era.

Yes, I have posted pictures of dachas. Were they nice? They were usual. My parents had a dacha, parents of my wife had a dacha, parents of my friends had dachas and we've spent a lot of good time there. Soviet medicine was also free (today you can choose between free and paid ones). What's wrong with that? This is just a fact and it doesn't change my attitude towards commies.

No, the life in the USSR was not miserable at all. We had free apartments (not luxurious but own), free land for dacha (not too large but free) our parents had paid vacations and were able to spend one month a year in Black Sea resorts etc. It was definitely not something like you can see in North Korea today. Almost all internal restrictions were compensated by Russian mentality - as we say "строгость закона компенсируется необязательностью его исполнения" (the law is strict but you don't have to obey) :)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...mmer_house.jpg
From Wikipedia: The family of a worker of the Krasny Khimik plant in Leningrad at their dacha house, 1981

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...jpasternak.jpg
From Wikipedia: Dacha of Boris Pasternak (a banned Soviet poet) in Peredelkino, near Moscow

So you can't say those people had a miserable life in Soviet Union. Not free, not luxurious, but not miserable for sure.

On the other hand, I didn't like the Communist Party, because of falsehood, propaganda and freedom restrictions. For example, why should I spend my vacations on Black Sea if I want to do it at Seychelles?

He was elected by the government (i didn't said he was elected by the people)...

It was all nice an cozy for (some) people in the USSR while it was a lot different for the people in the satellite states ;)

Sorry, didn't get it. What do you mean on satellite states?

and what did your parents do for a living that they could have a dacha PLUS one month a year at a Black Sea resort?

because I grew up in Canada, my friends were working class, middle class and some upper middle class. none of my friends parents owned a cottage, which is what we call a dacha,
and none of their parents got a month at a resort in a tropical place. The average American/Canadian gets less paid vacation than an average European. My working class friends families went on cheap summer vacations, a car trip to visit relatives somewhere in the same province. Middle class friends maybe their family would rent a cottage/cabin for a week or two or go on a car trip to an American or Canadian tourist city. Almost none of my friends parents took a holiday by plane in winter to a warm weather place like Florida. Today things are better, you can be lower middle class and live the way upper middle class did when I was a kid.

What I'm saying is that if you're telling me the average working Joe in the Soviet Union could have an apartment AND a dacha in the country PLUS a MONTH at a Black Sea resort and he had 100% job security - there are many people who were living in capitalist countries like the US and Canada who would have traded much of their 'freedom' for that life.

Capitalism really doesn't benefit the majority, they'd be better off under a communist/socialist system. But they delude themselves, with help from the rich, that the sky's the limit for them if they work hard and are smart. The top 1% do great and then another 20% do good, the rest - FAIL. The US and Canada are now socialist states, so whatever my point was lol ....... is moot. Communism is bad, socialism if you follow the progress of societies through history was inevitable.

I am not surprised honestly since Trump stated he'd do the same.

Nothing. My father was working as engineer and my mom was a teacher. We've got a free 3-bedroom apartments and free dacha. Also the company where my father has worked, was paying for our yearly family vacations at Black See (road tickets and hotel). In fact we were a very average family. For example, parents of my friends were cooks, so hay had a lot of goods (a bar with import drinks, Japanese audio recorders, video recorders etc).

Not a month actually (it was 20+ something days) and I wouldn't call Black Sea a tropical place. As about dacha, so my parents have a 3-level brick cottage. The ground level was a non-living and non-heated basement + 2 living two floors. We were using it during the Summer time only, because it was located in 40km away from our city - living there during a working weak was not a good idea :)

According to Wikipedia, 50% of Soviet families had a dacha. I guess other 50% were living in villages and had no need in a summer house, or they were too lazy to have a dacha (it was taking a lot of time for maintenance). Actually not every American today has a house like dachas that Soviet people used to spend their weekends or vacations at :)

I assume he means Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary etc

which were never supposed to be subjugated by the Soviet Union, Stalin was a fucking liar, he had agreed with Churchill and Roosevelt that when WWII ended those countries would be free to hold elections to choose their own paths.

Well an engineer and teacher are educated professionals. So I bet you lived better than a factory worker's family.

Road tickets? You mean for a bus? Did the average Soviet family own a car?

Unfortunately not. In soviet Union we had a very weird scale (it was called "уровниловка"). So a salary of an engender was the same as a salary of a plant worker (in the bast case). Teachers and medics had the most lowest salaries at all. So I lived in a very average family which was close to the low end.

I'm the one who would and who will. I can buy everything I want (apartments, a village house, a car, a ticket to a real tropical sea resort), but please let me decide what I want to do and where I want to go. Freedom is the most important thing in my life.

It IS inevitable. Take a look at Sweden.

As Mutt wrote: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany etc.. which are (excluding eastern Germany) still suffering from the consequences of that regime.. (a lot shittier living standards then anywhere in western EU)

Do you mean those countries that were receiving Soviet natural resources (gas and oil) almost for free? I do understand that Soviets did restrict their freedoms, but did they rip off the economics of those countries? How many trains with gold were sent from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany etc to the Soviet Union? Please explain.

Because the Soviet Union didn't allow those countries to rebuild their war ravaged countries and economies on their own, they couldn't receive receive the money Western Europe got from the US via the Marshall Plan. They were 2nd class citizens in the Soviet empire, the Soviets took control of everything including their natural resources and sent them back the shittiest Soviet made products. They didn't get the Japanese electronics that your family got. They had to build the Berlin Wall because everybody in East Berlin was escaping to West Berlin where food, goods and money was flowing in from the West.

Everything you have written above is not true. My family had no Japanese electronics (please re-read my posts carefully). My mother has traveled to Poland and Czechoslovakia to buy products from Western Europe and Asia (shoes, clothes and even books(!!!) etc). Those guys lived a way better than Soviet Union citizens. Don't even try to argue about that with me. A trip to one of those countries was a pink dream for everybody here. As I said above, the Soviet Union was not a classic empire. It hasn't sucked resources from its "colonies". It has gave them its own resources for free. That's why all Soviet Union citizens had a dream to get a trip to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany etc and buy the things you could never find here.

P.S. Man, your knowledge about Soviet Union is a real weird...

P.P.S. My uncle has spent 3 years working in Mozambique (a country in Africa) to buy Japanese electronics in Berezka. It was absolutely impossible to buy them in a regular Soviet shop, even if you were a millionaire. That's one more reason why I hate commies.

I watched the news today few rockets were launched from the submarine as they say the same rockets can be used as nuke attack but it wont be.

Here is how it was working. In the Soviet Union import products were available in Berezka shops only. Those were selling them for a foreign currency which was forbidden in the USSR. The official rate of 1 dollar was less than 1 ruble, but there was no legal way to do such an exchange. Course there was a black market (Russians have never been a law-abiding nation) where you could buy 1 dollar for about 4 rubles. So if you wanted to buy a Japanese electronics in Berezka, you had to overpay its price in 5-6 times.

All cruise missiles which were launched from small ships in Caspian Sea and from strategic bombers TU-160 can be equipped with thermonuclear warheads up to 200 kilotons (about 14 Hiroshimas) each.

I'll let people from those countries whose parents have told them what life was like in a satellite Eastern Bloc country.

You're the weird one, you claim over and over you are anti-Communist and anti-Putin but you spend most of your time defending the Soviet Union and Putin's Russia.

And they all will confirm that citizens of Soviet Union were visiting their countries to buy the goods, not vice versa. That's not a kind of secret. Google is your friend :2 cents:

I'm not defending or blaming anybody or anything. I'm telling you the facts. We are living in the informational world, so everybody can check everything I say. What can I do if the English version of Wikipedia states that every 2nd Soviet family had a personal dacha (keep in mind that village people had no need in dachas and that lazy ones had no dachas too)? Does it mean that Wikipedia defends the Soviet Union? Maybe it's just an online which publish the facts only, but not defends or blames some particular political regime?

The same applies to Putin. I don't remember a single post where I have defended him or his politics personally. Do you? Russia is not Soviet Union and Russia is not Putin. Take it as is.

I'm actually beginning to admire Putin for his actions and words lately, I think what he says is never a threat, more a promise. The chances of ISIS being defeated once and for all has never been greater since Russia joined in. In some ways, the downing of the Russian plane is similar to Pearl Harbour, in getting Russia involved in the fight. If ISIS could do something similar to a Chinese plane it would hurry things along nicely, the fire power they have, then the man power to put boots on the ground would be in place and put an end to this horror for good. I could not care less what happens to President Assad and I hope Syria is never mentioned again on the news soon. It's always the Middle East, they have been the bane of the world since energy became god.

Are you serious? All of the valuable minerals in Czech Republic were basically stolen by the Soviet Union. If you steal all of our resources and then give some of them back, is that still considered free?

Which ones? You, free loaders have sucked out our oil almost for free. Google is your friend. How much did you pay for Soviet technologies? E.g. for Russian weapons? Did you pay a single ruble, crone (or whatever shit you had there) for a license to make and sell AK assault riffles? Why the USA have always paid for it, but you don't? You guys gout everything for free just because you were "friends". If I was a Soviet leader I would have 100 foes rather than a single "friend" like you.

I couldn't have said it better myself :2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

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

At the same time, at the war's end, the Soviet Union adopted a "plunder policy" of physically transporting and relocating east European industrial assets to the Soviet Union.[136] Eastern Bloc states were required to provide coal, industrial equipment, technology, rolling stock and other resources to reconstruct the Soviet Union.[137] Between 1945 and 1953, the Soviets received a net transfer of resources from the rest of the Eastern Bloc under this policy of roughly $14 billion, an amount comparable to the net transfer from the United States to western Europe in the Marshall Plan.[137][138] "Reparations" included the dismantling of railways in Poland and Romanian reparations to the Soviets between 1944 and 1948 valued at $1.8 billion concurrent with the domination of SovRoms.[135]

In addition, the Soviets re-organised enterprises as joint-stock companies in which the Soviets possessed the controlling interest.[138][139] Using that control vehicle, several enterprises were required to sell products at below world prices to the Soviets, such as uranium mines in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, coal mines in Poland, and oil wells in Romania.[140]

...

So thanks to USSR the whole eastern bloc went bankrupt morally, economically etc, and its still at least 20 years behind western EU

Only an idiot would compare a price of raw (non-enriched) Uranium and coal to a natural gas and oil. I would repeat it again: only an idiot. Google for "Druzhba" pipeline.

But Russia exports too ...

Exporting terrorists from Chechnya and Dagestan to the Islamic Terrorist State and the factional Syrian Rebels then bombing them :upsidedow

If there is any truth in this:
Russia Is Sending Jihadis to Join ISIS - The Daily Beast


Talk about an Evil Plan ...

Is that some secret? Putin has said that about 2000 of Russian citizens from Caucasus are fighting for ISIS and he has used that "fact" as an official excuse for the military intervention operation in Syria.

P.S. As far as I know, the Chechen Spetsnaz which is controlled by Putin is fighting against ISIS as an Assad's alley. I know that Western propaganda pains a different picture but Chechens are the most dedicated to Putin nation. It's the place where he has the biggest % of support. For example, his lowest support rate is in Moscow.

Obviously, you didn’t read the article -- it clams that the local agents? of the FSB in those republics arranged their journey. Get rid of them (the separatists or terrorists) then bomb the shit out of them.

Why should I read it? I know the things from inside (if you forgot, I live in Russia). As Kadyrov said, those Chechens are waiting for Putin's order to go into Syria or Afghanistan and fight ISIS. Allahu Akbar?

I'll dumb it down -- it's a long article:


Western propaganda -- maybe ....

I didn't get it. What is the news there? A "news" that Russian citizens (mostly Chechens) are fighting for Assad? This is not a secret. On the other hand, some are fighting for ISIS and that's not a secret too. The difference is that ones on ISIS side are outlaws here (if you want I will explain it in details), while those who fight for Assad are doing it almost officially.

You have the name of that Russian newspaper and the reporter's name.

Translate that paragraph into Russian and get back with me.

First her pic in google search:thumbsup as you say "Western propaganda - maybe..."

http://image.newsru.com/pict/id/larg...0309091836.gif

About newspaper Novaya Gazeta...plz to use google translate and read more about
https://traditio.wiki/Новая_газета

Yeah such great friends. When we tried to topple the Soviet puppets the first time you guys sent tanks. The same thing happened with Poland and Hungary as well. Thanks friend...

I didn't send a single tank to you, idiot. I wasn't even born then.

I forgot to mention one more way to spend a weekend in Soviet Union. It's was called turbaza - an outdoor family camp. Those very not luxurious (I'd say they were spartan), but their main advantage was nature. For example, a company where my father was working for had a turbaza near the river. Everything was free there: free house, free breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also if you want to take a boat, you just take it for as many hours as you want - everything was owned by the company.

It was like this:

http://arina-tour.ru/lenoblast/baza_...Da/foto/02.jpg

http://mezhvodnoe.info/community/dow...le.php?id=1255

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/...5eeacf7c_o.jpg

http://www.mpzflame.ru/wp-content/up.../09/house2.jpg

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/oleg_...3_original.jpg

http://katalogturbaz.ru/sites/defaul...7/872/9195.jpg

http://katalogturbaz.ru/sites/defaul...voljanka_1.jpg

If that picture is propaganda any picture with Putin is propaganda also -- same erroneous logic. Discredit the source? That's just too easy ... Did you read her original article in Russian that the article I quoted referred to? No.

Google says?
I guess journalism is a dangerous business in Russia if you don't work for RT (bla bla bla)

Go on Putin. Evaporate them.

Not that much dangerous than in the USA. The problem is that mos of "journalists" here are cheap whores. They won't prefer to take money from Putin for propaganda and bullshit instead of doing the real work. That's why a "journalist" and a "whore" are synonyms in Russia (I'm not kidding now). These are the most paid Russian cock-suscking whores:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y0KCXrN79GQ/hqdefault.jpg

http://infokava.com/uploads/posts/20...26_kiselev.jpg

http://www.russiapost.su/wp-content/...13/10/6668.jpg

http://www.peoples.ru/tv/brilev/brilev_01.jpg

http://slon.ru/images3/213/900000/46...jpg?1362051983

http://www.dv-reclama.ru/download/20...ndr_gordon.jpg

Look at their faces. They all are fags that polish Putin's ass with their tongues 24/7.