If I want to learn more about life under communism in the USSR, where should I go?

[Anonymous]

Just to add, there is nothing comparable now to what life was in a different country some 30 years ago. So your best bet now are books and museums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slightly later period (1985-1999) but I highly recommend watching The Trauma Zone documentary (used to be on YouTube and hopefully still there)
Also remember that this period in history is highly politicized. Eastern Europe is trying to break free from their socialist past and their museums will certainly be politically exaggerated, just as it is now en Vogue in say Russia to romanticize the past. You need to get a balanced view by getting acquainted with both sides.
It’s sad that Russia is perceived as too dangerous/bad form to travel RN, but the Leningrad siege museum in St Pete would be totally worth visiting.

Perceived!

I'll pass on becoming another Brittney Griner, thanks.

Just don’t bring your drug paraphernalia and you’ll be ok I promise

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a Russian dad who grew up with the food lines. You could talk to him. Living history!

A lot of immigrants in the US are very biased about their homeland. They are either overly nostalgic or overly hateful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Belarus is the closest and is in many ways a relic, but it is not safe to go there. Maybe Serbia.

Why is it not safe? I mean sure don’t bring weed or loiter near classified factories or befriend KGB officers and ask them for your loans back. And these are Russia cases I am referring to as I don’t know any from Belarus. But otherwise nothing will happen to you in either country

Nonsense. You don’t have to be a spy for them to call you one. You could become a chip in their game.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not persuading you to travel there I am simply saying that I don’t know a single case of a foreigner arrested for just being a foreigner. Heck, even in N Korea you have to actually steal a poster to be detained.

US embassy there closed last year because of the Russian war in Ukraine, says don’t go due to other risks. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/belarus-travel-advisory.html

I still remember all the scary alerts about countries perceived as high covid risk, so what?
The embassy drastically cut its services because Russians banned their citizens from working there so they could not hire enough people to process the visas. I am not sure if it’s completely closed now, but even if it is - I know many foreigners with ties to the country or as organized tourists still travel there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check out Bald and Bankrupt youtube channel. He is into all this stuff, but not so much the museums, more the buildings and monuments.
I grew up In Soviet Union, but the most western part of it.
Every time somebody goes on and on how bad life was, I'm looking at them as if they are doing or saying it for attention. For my parents, grandparents, myself, my friends and most of my countrymen life was beautiful from 1945-1988.
There are a few museums left in the Baltics.The Baltics were also very eager to take everything down as fast as possible.

You are more of an exception in terms of your attitude. Many Soviet Jews came to the US as refugees/asylees and they have come to believe in their own stories they told to immigration authorities so they are happy to curse the old country and say how horrible it was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

I cannot comment on specifics, but my spouse grew up in the USSR. Fascinated about the comment regarding bias. My sense from him and his family is that since the 1970's, day to day life was not bad (we got some exaggeration about certain things in the states), but that the 'meta' issues were bad. They all played games like paying people off bc it was the only way to do/get things. There were times shortages were terrible, and the communists/Communist party/the socialist parties killed a lot of his family, number of years earlier. This was a common story. They also could not speak freely and had real concerns about neighbors turning each other in. He has not been back bc he was so grateful to escape.
But, issues under communism in the USSR were quite real. They also varies based on location.

I can’t say he is wrong but as always the devil is in the details.
I highly recommend he goes back to visit, unless it’s Ukraine of course (because of the war) or he is too scared to go to Russia or Belarus (I make it a point to not advocate for travel there if one is scared though I’ve gone a few times and it was great).
It’s changed a lot and many things are better than here now. I am still a big advocate of having a U.S. passport and being able to use the US as a base , but many emigres enjoy visiting and they have reasons

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

I cannot comment on specifics, but my spouse grew up in the USSR. Fascinated about the comment regarding bias. My sense from him and his family is that since the 1970's, day to day life was not bad (we got some exaggeration about certain things in the states), but that the 'meta' issues were bad. They all played games like paying people off bc it was the only way to do/get things. There were times shortages were terrible, and the communists/Communist party/the socialist parties killed a lot of his family, number of years earlier. This was a common story. They also could not speak freely and had real concerns about neighbors turning each other in. He has not been back bc he was so grateful to escape.
But, issues under communism in the USSR were quite real. They also varies based on location.

I'd say a bunch of my family being killed by the government would probably make my day to day life pretty bad!

Nah, it’s like having someone in your family who was killed in Vietnam or was a slave. Life generally goes on for most people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and of course you should go to Berlin I think.
Germany is not engulfed in all encompassing communism hatred like the Baltics or Poland so it will give you are less biased picture

I cannot comment on specifics, but my spouse grew up in the USSR. Fascinated about the comment regarding bias. My sense from him and his family is that since the 1970's, day to day life was not bad (we got some exaggeration about certain things in the states), but that the 'meta' issues were bad. They all played games like paying people off bc it was the only way to do/get things. There were times shortages were terrible, and the communists/Communist party/the socialist parties killed a lot of his family, number of years earlier. This was a common story. They also could not speak freely and had real concerns about neighbors turning each other in. He has not been back bc he was so grateful to escape.
But, issues under communism in the USSR were quite real. They also varies based on location.

This does not sound like good day to day life!

Nah, it’s like today you can’t say that you don’t want to send your kid to a school full of poor and uneducated families, or that you don’t want to vaccinate your child against covid. You won’t be thrown in jail but cancel culture is real.
Most people just kept to themselves and they were fine. In the 1970s and later nobody really believed in socialism anymore but they just didn’t think about it. It’s like lgbtq or trans issues today - people think it’s bull but they keep their mouths shut not to be ostracized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends what you want to learn.

The USSR of the 40s and 50s was different from USSR of 60s and 70s, and those were different of those of the 1980s.

Living in the USSR was not the same for all. The life and privilege of a political party member or a director of storage facility (a very lucrative job at its time due to constant deficits and access to goods) in Moscow, was very different from that of a farmer some even 200-300km away, was different from the experience of a Crimean Tatar in their exile in Kazakhstan, different from life in Baltic states. Living in USSR was also very different from Eastern Europe where the standards were higher and overall, life was considered much better than in USSR.

You could visit the former USSR: Baltic states, Georgia, Central Asia, Moldova. Estonia has communism is prison museum about victims of communism. There is museum of communism in Prague. I am sure there are others.

Incidentally, have you been to the https://victimsofcommunism.org/ museum here in DC?

This is a very good post except most of those museums are pretty biased. But it’s good to visit them if you are going in with an open mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slightly later period (1985-1999) but I highly recommend watching The Trauma Zone documentary (used to be on YouTube and hopefully still there)
Also remember that this period in history is highly politicized. Eastern Europe is trying to break free from their socialist past and their museums will certainly be politically exaggerated, just as it is now en Vogue in say Russia to romanticize the past. You need to get a balanced view by getting acquainted with both sides.
It’s sad that Russia is perceived as too dangerous/bad form to travel RN, but the Leningrad siege museum in St Pete would be totally worth visiting.

Perceived!

I'll pass on becoming another Brittney Griner, thanks.

Just don’t bring your drug paraphernalia and you’ll be ok I promise

Ah yes 9.yesr jail sentence for...under 1 gram of hash oil. Very reasonable place. I am good with avoiding, and I have never used any drugs in my life. My rule is, if people are fleeing by the hundreds of thousands by hook or crook, I will go elsewhere. I do feel bad for many Russians because they don't necessarily fully support the current regime, but reality is that many do, and until they don't, things won't change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slightly later period (1985-1999) but I highly recommend watching The Trauma Zone documentary (used to be on YouTube and hopefully still there)
Also remember that this period in history is highly politicized. Eastern Europe is trying to break free from their socialist past and their museums will certainly be politically exaggerated, just as it is now en Vogue in say Russia to romanticize the past. You need to get a balanced view by getting acquainted with both sides.
It’s sad that Russia is perceived as too dangerous/bad form to travel RN, but the Leningrad siege museum in St Pete would be totally worth visiting.

Perceived!

I'll pass on becoming another Brittney Griner, thanks.

Just don’t bring your drug paraphernalia and you’ll be ok I promise

LOL. If the Russian authorities want to, they’ll “find” all sorts of paraphernalia on you.

[Anonymous]

Don’t you have any Russian or Eastern European friends? See if you can talk to their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends what you want to learn.

The USSR of the 40s and 50s was different from USSR of 60s and 70s, and those were different of those of the 1980s.

Living in the USSR was not the same for all. The life and privilege of a political party member or a director of storage facility (a very lucrative job at its time due to constant deficits and access to goods) in Moscow, was very different from that of a farmer some even 200-300km away, was different from the experience of a Crimean Tatar in their exile in Kazakhstan, different from life in Baltic states. Living in USSR was also very different from Eastern Europe where the standards were higher and overall, life was considered much better than in USSR.

You could visit the former USSR: Baltic states, Georgia, Central Asia, Moldova. Estonia has communism is prison museum about victims of communism. There is museum of communism in Prague. I am sure there are others.

Incidentally, have you been to the https://victimsofcommunism.org/ museum here in DC?

This is a very good post except most of those museums are pretty biased. But it’s good to visit them if you are going in with an open mind.

In what way do you think they are biased pp?

[Anonymous]

Potsdam, East Germany. An interesting place with lots of nostalgia.

[Anonymous]

NP with a question: I really enjoy photoessays and stories about the subdivided gilded age apartments that were communal apartments during communism and still exist in some places, as well as the new, then-modern apartment blocks built at the height of communism.

Not that I am going to be able to visit anytime soon, but is there anything similar to NYC’s tenement museum but in Russia or Eastern Europe?