I was born in a communist country (which ceased to be communist ~2 years later) and I downvoted you for gross generalizations and incendiary statements that have little to do with communism as an economic system. Thanks for assuming.
As for incendiary, I don't know man. Is calling the Nazis really fucking bad incendiary? Is calling the Crusades utterly barbaric incendiary? Is calling the Genghis Khan not a nice guy incendiary?
That's the class and order of magnitude of horror we're dealing with here. So, you were 2 years old when an SSR started transitioning to a liberal democracy (or whatever the system is, I don't want to be assuming). Yes, "everyone educated" is a generalization, but it's true enough to be correct.
I do see people that are pro-Communist, but they tend to be the uneducated nationalists. They're the same kind of people that are pro-white power in the American South, neo-Nazis in Germany, and Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East. I don't think they're actually pro-Communist in terms of the economics, so much as they're in rage and want to cling on to any cause.
That's what I've actually seen with, y'know, walking around and talking to a lot of people and doing business and socializing with a lot of people across a lot of different classes. The people who are educated don't like communism. Pretty much all of them, from taxi drivers to entrepreneurs to professors to writers to journalists to construction workers to... everyone.
But again, I've liked your comments so you're welcome to express disagreement here if you want a discussion. I do think communism is really, really bad, and should get the same treatment as Nazism, slavery, the crusades, etc - because when it was implemented, it did equivalently large amounts of damage. (Actually, more damage, technically, than any of those)
When USSR started transitioning to a banana republic that has to import its bananas from Finland.
This is how it was in 90-s.
So, in addition to all your other nonsense, you're claiming that they grow bananas in Russia these days. Compare to FSB isn't spying, businessmen aren't extorted, etc... bananas being grown in Russia would be the most realistic of your claims about Russia so far.
And, there are several species of cold-hardy bananas: http://treesandshrubs.about.com/od/selection/tp/hardybanana....
So, growing bananas in Russia hardly seems like nonsense.
http://www.sochiclub.ru/sochiphotos/category/5-snow-in-sochi...
>So, growing bananas in Russia hardly seems like nonsense.
Well, the same thing was thought about corn in 60ies (state-wide corn enforcing campaign, 40+ years later still a source of countless jokes as you can force people to plant corn, yet you can't force corn to grow in that climate) and about putting monkeys into Siberia in 70s-80s (fortunately it was only a small pack of monkey that experiment was conducted on)
...
Your pictures are blocked at work for me, but Wikipedia shows pictures of both snowy mountains and lush sea-side vegetation in Sochi. Elevation as well as latitude affects growing conditions.
As far as growing corn in Russia or having monkeys in Siberia goes, they are entirely different matters as to whether or not it is possible to grow bananas in Russia.
Wikipedia reports that Sochi lies in a 8b/9a hardiness zone. The banana species I linked to can grow in hardiness zone 5. I maintain my position that it is possible to grow bananas in Russia.
Thank you for playing! Please try again.
you win as your logic's complexity is beyond my understanding considering that Iowa is in zone 5 and corn can be grown even in zones 2-4.
Here is a picture of a Musa Basjoo banana plant growing in Sochi: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Musa_basjooSochi1.JPG
The Musa Basjoo banana plant is growing in Sochi. Sochi is in Russia. Therefore, bananas can grow in Russia.
The whole banana discussion is missing the point.