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Comment by zeroth32 | Hacker News Reader

It is BS. Mid level family could import computer from west. Soviet countries manufactured several 8 bit Atari clones, HP programmable calculators....

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I was a teenager in a typical Russian "mid-level family" back then, and there wasn't a single tangible opportunity around to import a computer from the west. Amiga and Commodore were things that I only heard about. An original imported ZX Spectrum was a status symbol -- though the homemade clones were gaining widespread popularity. There were clones of Nintendo systems (Dendy), but I wasn't (and still isn't) aware of any Atari clones. All Atari systems I've seen -- and I've seen plenty in my wild and reckless youth -- were original.

Can you back that with any numbers? Coming from a large soviet city of the era I wouldn't agree with this statement. People that had western computers I knew were usually children of party officials, prosecutors. The situation changed a lot from early '90.

I am from Czechoslovakia, not excatly soviet union

These days anything in the Warsaw Pact gets lazily lumped in with "Soviet," which is really inaccurate. Dresden and Leningrad were starkly different places.

As someone from a middle class soviet family born in early 1980s in a middle-size town the first time I've seen a western computer at home was only after USSR collapse (likely around 1995). It probably was a PC with i486 (or Cyrix clone of i486). During my school years (90s) only two or three my classmates had a computer at home and it were some Z80 clones produced either in the USSR/exUSSR or in the Eastern Block (in 90s PC were already available, but not affordable).

I know some soviet companies were able to procure western computers even in 1980s but for ordinary people it was out of reach until early 1990s or late 1980s at best (at least outside Moscow).

> Mid level family could import computer from west

In USSR mid level families didn't have legal access to imported goods.

But there was illegal access...

That would have been an std::exception.

The whole USSR existed thanks to free black market that was unoficially allowed (yet somehow controlled) by the state.

My uncle spent time in prison for selling imported goods.

Are we discussing the same USSR?

That makes him kind of a social hero. My respect to him.

That's a common misconception. The main barrier was that the soviet currency wasn't exchangeable and possession of the types that were (so e.g. USD) was illegal without official permission.

There was a chain of stores in the Soviet Union named Bierozka with western goods you could buy with USD - officially for tourists and workers from abroad.

Of course there was a flourishing currency exchange black market, but it was tolerated because it enabled the citizens to get rid of their foreign currency - something which the state wanted.

It's not true. There were official import channels. Not many consumer goods were imported but some were. Secondly, there were shops where travelers (sailors, pilots, etc) could sell the goods they bought abroad. Thirdly, soviet people worked abroad, e.g. building plants, factories, power stations. These people were paid in special kinds of checks and they could buy foreign goods in a network of special shops (Berezka). I know this because friends of my mom worked on building some powerplant in Egypt (I don't remember exactly, but it was Middle East I think) and bought many things with those checks.

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