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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You digress… no one is suggesting you should go live in Russia. There are tons of countries where many people want to go emigrate yet we visit them all the time… including countries with zero tolerance for alcohol… not hash oil

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They don’t want you if you are a lowly tourist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

They only show the bad side (which there was)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

You are better off hiring a private guide and visiting real life tenements

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They don’t want you if you are a lowly tourist

Gretchen please stop trying to make "fetch" happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a museum, but this book captures life under communism:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Survived-Communism-Even-Laughed/dp/0060975407#:~:text=This%20essay%20collection%20from%20renowned,European%20women%20under%20Communist%20regimes.

Came to say the same thing. Now I want to re-read it!

[Anonymous]

I visited in 1984. I was sort of shocked to see that those propaganda paintings of workers were real. However, the graphics were not impressive compared to western advertising; naive looking and old fashioned to my eyes. I remember thinking that we probably did not need to fear them as much as we did then, in the sense that everything seemed so poor and the standard of living was low, or did they put all their money into weapons? They weren’t spending it on people’s lives. There were many disconcerting things. I was on a tour and felt like we were watched and also shown specific things to make an impression, but it was easy to observe others things around you. I felt uncomfortable the whole time. Ukraine was the nicest place I visited. When I flew back to London after the tour and rode in a taxi I was shocked by the colors all around, flags, bunting, ads. It felt so much more lively. I felt free and relieved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I visited in 1984. I was sort of shocked to see that those propaganda paintings of workers were real. However, the graphics were not impressive compared to western advertising; naive looking and old fashioned to my eyes. I remember thinking that we probably did not need to fear them as much as we did then, in the sense that everything seemed so poor and the standard of living was low, or did they put all their money into weapons? They weren’t spending it on people’s lives. There were many disconcerting things. I was on a tour and felt like we were watched and also shown specific things to make an impression, but it was easy to observe others things around you. I felt uncomfortable the whole time. Ukraine was the nicest place I visited. When I flew back to London after the tour and rode in a taxi I was shocked by the colors all around, flags, bunting, ads. It felt so much more lively. I felt free and relieved.

Congratulations, your impressions would fit right in at any museum of socialism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They don’t want you if you are a lowly tourist

Gretchen please stop trying to make "fetch" happen.

You are overestimating your importance in life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They don’t want you if you are a lowly tourist

Gretchen please stop trying to make "fetch" happen.

You are overestimating your importance in life

Too funny! That's essentially what PP is telling you. They don't stream "Mean Girls" in Russia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read a book, visit a museum. Not everything must be learned by travel. Save a tree.0

+1

[Anonymous]

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

Serbia was never part of the USSR.

I think your best bet would be Moldova or possibly Armenia but honestly the world has moved on. A documentary will give you a better picture.

[Anonymous]

I’d suggest Orwell’s 1984 and some of the books by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and Gulag Archipelago come to mind).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Well, same with our people who fled 1940s. The ones who came in 90s and after, were not really leaving because it was so bad there, but rather, to see the world once the barbwire was gone. We do have a big disconnect between the two generations.
Younger ones talk about lovely childhood while the older generation talk about how their families escaped and war horrors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d suggest Orwell’s 1984 and some of the books by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and Gulag Archipelago come to mind).

or Cancer Ward if you prefer fiction. Shows you the whole "game" that people had to play.