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Comment by Jhsto | Hacker News Reader

For those interested, this particular kind of design is known as retrofuturism around the Internet. Reddit has a good subreddit on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/

I personally have once had these Sputnik razor blades: https://www.ebay.com/p/Sputnik-100-Double-Edge-Razor-Blades-...

In addition to being dirt cheap, I also found the branding funny. Somehow I felt like I am buying something not very good in terms of quality, but which does work (somehow) anyway. There were also pack called Lada's in there. I definitely felt like the Sputnik ones were better than the Lada's though.

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It's Ladas (a Greek athlete). Surprisingly Wikipedia has no entry for him but only for a village named after him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladas,_Messenia

I'm grinning. That does make much more sense.

No, it doesn't. It is not ladas, it's lada and it's from a type of ship - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%8C%D1%8F... You can see logo of lada and there is a ship there

Yep, also this type of ship is kinda very related to the place where the car was made. It’s a city residing on a big, big river - Volga and Lad’ya - the type of ship is a symbol associated with that city and the river. My hometown, lovely place :)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/%D0%9B%D...

You have no idea what are you talking about.

This is logo of the car - https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:Lada_Logo.jpeg, this is a monument for the ship type in the city near by to the factory - https://goo.gl/images/Dod837, this is a picture of the ship type from an artist - https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Nic... and last but not least, the wikipedia article about ship type in russian - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ладья_(судно). Greece, yeah.

I think when OP was mentioning ladas they were talking about razor blades, not cars.

Ok, in case you do not understand Russian: the picture I posted is the Soviet packaging of these razor blades, they are ones on top with the picture of a running man in style of ancient Greek paintings and inscription of "Ladas" (Ладас) in Russian. Fun fact - adding "s" at the end of the word makes no sense in Russian so it's not a form of "Lada" (Лада) but an entirely different word. Judging by the fact that Ladas is the name of an ancient Greek athlete, which is also spelled as Ладас in Russian and the picture of some Greek athlete on the packaging it's not a huge of leap to conclude that the blades are named, in fact, after the aforementioned athlete and not ships, cars or goddesses with different name.

>This is logo of the car

It's not about the car. It's about a totally different product -- razor blades.

VAZ, the manufacturer who produced Ladas was/is situated on the Volga river, and based on my understanding (I lived in a city nearby), the word Lada came from word Lad'ya which is a type of ship that sailed on Volga river. At least that's how I remember it.

They're talking about Ladas, i.e., razor blades, not Lada, i.e., the car manufacturer. Two different things, not in any way related.

Yeah. Sorry. I was wrong.

"Lada" has nothing with Greek.

It is a transliteration of Russian "Лада" - short form of "Ладная" - beautiful/harmonious.

Lada (Лада) is also a Slavic goddes of beauty, spring, fertility and family - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_(mythology)

Yes, this is why the razor blades are called Ладас in Russian and used to have a picture of a running man in style of antique Greek drawings.

They're talking about Ladas, i.e., razor blades, not Lada, i.e., the car manufacturer. Two different things, not in any way related.

Indeed:

https://www.amazon.com/Engraving-Sportsman-Spartan-Foot-Race...

http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Ancient/en/Athletes.htm...

Those are made in a Gillette factory that happens to be in Russia. Entirely unrelated to anything Soviet.

Interesting, I must have made the false assumption when I received the package and saw the Russian postage labels. Looking at some other eBay listings now, the connection to Gillette is apparent. Thanks for letting me know!

As a nerd interested in all things future and retro, thank you for sharing that subreddit. I will definitely check it out!

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