Magnitogorsk, Russia's steel city | Hacker News Reader

Magnitogorsk, Russia's steel city

theguardian.com

76 pointsl33tbro22 comments

As a russian I just want to note 2 things: 1. russian women are rarely so awful looking, even in small cities; 2. notice ugly house on photo #7 (Sotsgorod) - people in Russia often spend 20 years of their lives just to buy small box in ugly house like this, to own it and call it "home". Most of russians don't even consider renting.

I thought the Sotsgorod photo looked surprisingly Western European! Reminds me of the apartment a friend lives in in Copenhagen. Maybe a more recent paint-job on the Danish version, but otherwise similar architecture.

To add more context:

Many people inherit flats since most of apartments are owned, therefore your grannies and uncles are all proud owners. If there's nothing to inherit, you're screwed.

People do rent, but since apartments are all individually owned, you need to rent from single apartment owner at market price and cater to your landlord individual quirks.

Many of those buildings are near their official expiry date and it's kind non-obvious what happens when they begin to crumble.

Even inherited flats are often very old or located in abandoned cities. And also it means young families have to live with parents, and it's just the worst part.

Yes, they have certainly focused on what seem like the most negative parts to accentuate their point.

I don't understand the meaning of "Magnitogorsk has yet to confront its controversial past". What exactly does the author mean ? How can a city to confront it's past ? When can we say a city confronted it's past ? Are there known cities which confronted their past ?

I think it's about ecological consequences.

To me it looks like you could accuse anything and anybody of not confronting their past.. because even if somehow you "confront your past", it's hard to prove you really did. So it looks like a perfect accusation: easy to throw on someone, hard to disprove. When an article starts this way.. well never mind (it's already too much waste of time).

This was a pretty negatively slanted article. Here's the TripAdvisor page for it if you actually want to see normal tourist photos of the place:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g298541-Magnitogo...

I don't know.. now every time I see smiling skiers posing, I can't help but ask myself, did they really confront their past ?

I've never bursted out loud with laughter from a HN comment. Thanks for that on this morning

"Are there known cities which confronted their past ?"

Yes, absolutely - Berlin is the canonical example. The site of the wall isn't paved over or hidden, it's a line of bricks that runs right through the city, with several museums and memorials along its length.

The site of the Fuhrerbunker is marked with a sign, despite now being a carpark.

The memorial to the murdered jews of Europe stands as a chilling, disorienting reminder.

There are brass plaques, the famous 'stumbling stones' in places where individual jews were persecuted, marking their names, dates of birth, death and eventual fate (if it was known).

In contrast, Russia's soviet history is often glossed over or lionized.

Whereas Germany's Nazi past seems overly dramatised. I'm sure many young Germans these days are sick of being constantly reminded and made to feel guilty for their forefathers sins.

Having lived in Germany for a few years now, most young Germans acknowledge the nazis as part of the history, and see them as a cautionary tale of how easily extremism can derail an otherwise advanced country.

Any extreme position is therefore regarded with a high degree of skepticism. I think that's pretty healthy.

Anecdotal of course, but .. Having lived in both the USA and German, as an outsider (Australian), I can honestly say that I think most German youth are quite okay with their own understanding of their history, and that in fact it gives them an awareness of the dangers of politics, and moreover of the dangers of The People themselves, in the modern context, in granting their leadership heinous powers for which they, The People, then fail to take responsibility.

Many German friends I made, expressed the desire that they not - for example - see what happened in Germany, happen in the United States of America. A concern I, of course, share.

Andersonville, Georgia, USA was the site of a terrible POW camp during the American Civil War. Brutal, awful place. Today, there is a big memorial park there and the town is direct about it. That's confronting history, or at least acknowledging, not denying it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_National_Histo...

>How can a city to confront it's past ?

It could start by not actively preventing discussion about it.

"The administration of one district barred Vasilyev from speaking with descendants there..."

Confront in this sense mean to 'face up to' something. 'To accept having to deal with something unpleasant'. Barring investigation of something is failing to accept having to deal with it.

I'm not sure what confronting one's past looks like, but I think this comment is what confronting bullshit looks like. :)

Magnitka https://vimeo.com/12317623 is a beautiful sequence of scenes shot in Magnitogorsk by Sasha Aleksandrov

Stunning video. I don't know if it's the setting or the fast forward but the whole thing looked like a video game to me. One that I'd definitely play by the way.

If you'd like to learn more, this is a good book on Magnitogorsk during the Gorbachev years.

http://www.amazon.com/Steeltown-USSR-Soviet-Society-Gorbache...

It's really heartrending to read - all that talent and natural resources wasted just to say they met their planned quota.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/53.4033/59.0103

OSM for curious city peekers

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