The Refuseniks | Hacker News Reader

The Refuseniks

saturdayeveningpost.com

108 pointswallflower17 comments

USSR, night, 4am, door bell ring in Rabinovich apartment.

Rabinovich : "Who is there?"

From outside of the door : "Just postmen. Rabinovich, would you agree that USSR is the best country in the world for people to live in?"

Rabinovich : "Yes, i agree."

From outside of the door: "Then why do you want to leave this best country?"

Rabinovich : "Because in the other country there are no postmen coming to your apartment at 4am."

Nice story, but as somebody who lived in 1982 in the USSR, I should note that there was no first class on flights between Moscow and Leningrad (St.Petersburg), incoming and outgoing international calls did not work in automatic mode - all calls were switched through operator, only Beriozka stores accepted foreign currency, GUM was local currency only.

Yeah, I was somewhat surprised by those. "Classes" on domestic flights in the USSR?! And yeah, GUM was (and still is) a department store for Soviet citizens - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUM_(department_store).

Actually I won't be surprised about classes, given that railway trains had up to 5 different classes of carriages.

No, long-distance trains had four classes: SV (two beds per cabin), Coupe (four beds per cabin), Platzkart (six beds per cabin) and Sitting (no beds, just benches). This classification goes back to Tzar (pre-revolution) times.

It has nothing to do with air transportation which has been developed in Soviet era, where everebody was equal.

edit: minor mistakes.

Weren't there also Soft ("мягкий", two posh beds per cabin)?

This is exactly SV ("спальный вагон").

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C...

Apparently it's a different thing:

https://www.ozon.travel/help/railway/preparation/trains/

As far as I understand, М has private bathroom but СВ doesn't. It's confusing but I'm sure I saw them sold at different prices.

Are we discussing 1982 or 2017? :-)

There were no bathtubs on the trains in 1980-s in Soviet Union...

Nor were there stuffed potatoes in street kiosks or kvas from wooden barrels.

I think the author mixed this up with his second visit. Not a big deal IMO.

There never had been kvas from wooden barrels in Moscow in 1982 or after. Kvas was sold from metal trailer tanks like this one: http://mtdata.ru/u22/photo30E5/20831353979-0/original.jpg till 90s and then it was gone (I left in early 2000s though I doubt wooden barrels with a cup on a chain appeared later).

Stuffed potato is not something Russians eat, least something so popular to be sold on the street. So, again, it was not sold in 1982 or later.

Blinchiki is something that could have been possibly sold since Russians do eat them. I've never seen them sold on the street myself but I cannot possibly say it's as ridiculous as stuffed potato.

He probably does not remember the details. It was long time ago and he was under a lot of stress

Ah! That seems to explain the name of this store then: http://www.berezkaboston.com/

Nice story, but the USSR has been gone for more than twenty years. What value does this add to HN’s audience, beyond stoking more russophobe hysteria? There are plenty of other awful things that could be covered - ranging from lynchings to police brutality...and all of this is largely irrelevant to the tech community.

So many downvotes but no explanation.

This story is important from both a historical as well as philosophical standpoint. Historical, so as to understand what those in the STEM field endured in the Soviet Union. Philosophical, in that there are those who thirst for knowledge and may not have the luxury others do of unlimited information (for a variety of reasons, whether that be logistical or political).

I hope this helps! Knowing history helps us prevent repeating it. Think of growing wiser as hacking yourself ;)

This article has nothing to do with russophobia. It just explains very clearly why we, Russians, lose the cold war. When you restrict knowledge exchange and set up artificial barriers between scientists you are going to fail the competition.

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