Cold War Soviet Block Countries

[erasure]

Originally Posted by rebel12

I don't think this is the case of nostalgy. I have Polish friends in Florida and I know from them that nobody really misses communism in Poland, which is reflected in how people vote. There is however certain element of nostalgia as this is when these people spent their youth. Nobody misses neing beat up by police or expelled for your views from communist university yet I think it is hard to forget where you were when you were 18.
For many it is also a kind of "black humor" and for other not much more than a prop since they are too young to remember these times.

Talk you to young Hungarians or Czechs: most of them don't believe that only 30 years ago Western music was banned from the radio and every newspaper, book or TV program was censored for political complacency with the system.
Realities of Soviet Block were after all so absurd that many young people today can't simply can't believe that they actually happened.

They were not too absurd for Russians, who were close to the brink of extinction during the WWII, when most of these European nations happened to side with Hitler's Germany, so that was their way to bring self-assurance that their word was going to be counted and no one will try again to remove them from the face of the world as a nation.
Crazy I know, but it happens. Every action brings forth the counter-action.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by rebel12

I am interested in first hand accounts of travel and expereince in Soviet Block countries by foreigners from the West. Anybody?

Nothing to see really. Was in the Eastern Territory a lot (DDR). Not much to see there. Worked in Berlin at the US Consulate occasionally. Spent a lot of time in the Berlin Museum, visited the Marienkirche, where Göring got married (Hitler was Best Man). Ate lunch in Karl Marx Platz.

I was in uniform (in accordance with the Treaty). Never got harassed. It took me a while to figure out what was missing -- car lots -- of any kind. No new car lots; no used car lots.

Shopping was different. Imagine something like CVS or Walgreens. The store is laid out in a square-U shape, with maybe 6 cash registers (two on each part of the "U"). Everything is behind the counter, and the stock-display-setup is duplicated for each cash register. You have this library like wooden book cases/shelves that are inset or recessed into the wall, and all of the products available for sale are displayed neatly on those shelves, behind the counter.

So you cannot touch anything. You tell the cashier what you want, or give them a list of things you want, and s/he goes into the back and gets it for you, rings you up and you're on your way. Romania, Hungaria and Czechoslovakia were exactly the same way.

In the Eastern Territory, I traveled to Potsdam once, but that was during the day, so nothing noticeable there.

I was in Czechoslovakia and Hungaria for Druzba '86, and being outside urban areas, I noticed it was freaking dark at night. No street lights. It wasn't lit up like the US was. Even in urban areas, street lights were few and far between, but then they didn't (and still don't) have crime like the US, so you always felt safe, even at night, and it wasn't unusual to see women walking alone.

No telephone/electric cables. A lot of the outlying villages had no electricity, no telephone service and many didn't have running water in homes either -- and that is still true for many areas in Eastern Europe today.

Very little highway/road traffic -- day or night -- didn't matter. I remember riding in a truck with an END TRAY radar (used with FROGs, SCUDs and the SS-12s - SCALEBOARD if I remember the NATO designation correctly), and seeing no vehicles and thinking how different it was from Germany and the Netherlands where vehicles are zipping in and out of your convoy on the Autobahns, and in the small towns and urban areas.

I went out in a BDRM one night (4-wheel recon vehicle) doing a recon with field artillery. We were surveying firing sites for one of the nuclear field artillery battalions. It was somewhere around Mateszalka (maybe an hour south of the Czech border) and it was flat and dark and no cars, trucks or nothing. Animals. Boar, deer, fox and hedgehogs everywhere.

I was assigned to the attache's office at US Embassy Mission Bucharesti. No problems there. Same as all the other countries, which had a depressingly dingy dirty look. I found out that was because they were still using leaded gasoline. Got stuck on courier duty for a couple of weeks. We'd drive across the bridge to the embassy mission in Sofia, and then take the ferry at Vindin and head to Bud-a-pest, then back to Bucharesti. Rustic. Very rustic. Horse drawn carts everywhere. And then the caravans of tigani. Lot of farming done by hand, at least on the smaller farms. We're talking horse and plow, sickles/scythes and that kind of thing. Herds of sheep and goat everywhere, even around and in the cities.

Over all, people were really friendly, whether I was in or out of uniform. Some Romanians seemed to be a bit apprehensive, but I think that's because they thought I was a spy -- for the Romanian government, not the US. I could already speak Romanian, but they were confused because I was a foreigner, and then couple of people told me I had a bit of an "accent" which might have led some to believe I really was an American and not a spy.

Hard life for them. I was behind a desk all day, and then didn't leave the city, but when I was the courier, I could see that outside of Bucharesti things were very different. That was pretty much the same for all of those countries, meaning outside of the "for show city" (usually the capitol) where most of the foreigners were. Black & White TV programming only -- color costs money and so do color TV sets; limited programming, maybe a few hours a day. I got to watch Ceausescu, uh, "hunting" bear up in the Apuseni. In Black & White. Limited electricity -- a few hours in the morning, and a few hours in the evening and that's it -- outside of Bucharesti (which had electricity 24/7).

Lots of people queuing up, for whatever at stores and shops.

Men would have loved it. No such thing as "shopping." A girlfriend found that out the hard way in Berlin. If you go into a store, and you see something, and it is your size and it fits and you like it -- you buy it right then. No such thing as shopping around to see if other stores have it cheaper or on sale or something, because everything was the same price everywhere.

She drug me round 2 or 3 other stores, and by the time we got back to the first store that had what she liked, it was gone -- nothing left in her size. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen.
Anyway, it made shopping really easy - and fun even if you're a guy.

All of the newer buildings (the ones that weren't greater than 100 years old) had this really ugly grey government look to them. They were like some of the buildings from the 1970s you see in inner cities, like parking garages, fire stations, police stations and such.

Roads/bridges were in really bad shape. Can't remember where I was, but I was driving and the pavement just ended. Gravel/dirt for about 12-15 miles and then pavement again. That might have been Romania. We went out for a week driving around looking to see if any units were fielding new equipment.

I don't think Slavs ever got the hang of brewing beer. They had good beer in Hungaria and Romania, but I think that's because it was brewed by ethnic Germans who had lived there for centuries. Same with Czechoslovakia where you had the "bohemians." The other crap was like carbonated soju, except without so much formaldehyde.

I got a lot of photos, especially from Berlin. If I ever buy a scanner, I get some of them up.

Ironing curtains...


Mircea

[rebel12]

Originally Posted by erasure

They were not too absurd for Russians, who were close to the brink of extinction during the WWII, when most of these European nations happened to side with Hitler's Germany, so that was their way to bring self-assurance that their word was going to be counted and no one will try again to remove them from the face of the world as a nation.

Which countries? Has Poland sided with Germany? Has Czechoslovakia sided with Germany? Let me remind you that second war started when Soviet Union sided with Germany and attacked Poland and later Finland and Romania. You are teaching rather revisionist version of history here, Erasure.

[rebel12]

Originally Posted by Mircea

Nothing to see really. Was in the Eastern Territory a lot (DDR). Not much to see there. Worked in Berlin at the US Consulate occasionally. Spent a lot of time in the Berlin Museum, visited the Marienkirche, where Göring got married (Hitler was Best Man). Ate lunch in Karl Marx Platz.

I was in uniform (in accordance with the Treaty). Never got harassed. It took me a while to figure out what was missing -- car lots -- of any kind. No new car lots; no used car lots.

Shopping was different. Imagine something like CVS or Walgreens. The store is laid out in a square-U shape, with maybe 6 cash registers (two on each part of the "U"). Everything is behind the counter, and the stock-display-setup is duplicated for each cash register. You have this library like wooden book cases/shelves that are inset or recessed into the wall, and all of the products available for sale are displayed neatly on those shelves, behind the counter.

So you cannot touch anything. You tell the cashier what you want, or give them a list of things you want, and s/he goes into the back and gets it for you, rings you up and you're on your way. Romania, Hungaria and Czechoslovakia were exactly the same way.

In the Eastern Territory, I traveled to Potsdam once, but that was during the day, so nothing noticeable there.

I was in Czechoslovakia and Hungaria for Druzba '86, and being outside urban areas, I noticed it was freaking dark at night. No street lights. It wasn't lit up like the US was. Even in urban areas, street lights were few and far between, but then they didn't (and still don't) have crime like the US, so you always felt safe, even at night, and it wasn't unusual to see women walking alone.

No telephone/electric cables. A lot of the outlying villages had no electricity, no telephone service and many didn't have running water in homes either -- and that is still true for many areas in Eastern Europe today.

Very little highway/road traffic -- day or night -- didn't matter. I remember riding in a truck with an END TRAY radar (used with FROGs, SCUDs and the SS-12s - SCALEBOARD if I remember the NATO designation correctly), and seeing no vehicles and thinking how different it was from Germany and the Netherlands where vehicles are zipping in and out of your convoy on the Autobahns, and in the small towns and urban areas.

I went out in a BDRM one night (4-wheel recon vehicle) doing a recon with field artillery. We were surveying firing sites for one of the nuclear field artillery battalions. It was somewhere around Mateszalka (maybe an hour south of the Czech border) and it was flat and dark and no cars, trucks or nothing. Animals. Boar, deer, fox and hedgehogs everywhere.

I was assigned to the attache's office at US Embassy Mission Bucharesti. No problems there. Same as all the other countries, which had a depressingly dingy dirty look. I found out that was because they were still using leaded gasoline. Got stuck on courier duty for a couple of weeks. We'd drive across the bridge to the embassy mission in Sofia, and then take the ferry at Vindin and head to Bud-a-pest, then back to Bucharesti. Rustic. Very rustic. Horse drawn carts everywhere. And then the caravans of tigani. Lot of farming done by hand, at least on the smaller farms. We're talking horse and plow, sickles/scythes and that kind of thing. Herds of sheep and goat everywhere, even around and in the cities.

Over all, people were really friendly, whether I was in or out of uniform. Some Romanians seemed to be a bit apprehensive, but I think that's because they thought I was a spy -- for the Romanian government, not the US. I could already speak Romanian, but they were confused because I was a foreigner, and then couple of people told me I had a bit of an "accent" which might have led some to believe I really was an American and not a spy.

Hard life for them. I was behind a desk all day, and then didn't leave the city, but when I was the courier, I could see that outside of Bucharesti things were very different. That was pretty much the same for all of those countries, meaning outside of the "for show city" (usually the capitol) where most of the foreigners were. Black & White TV programming only -- color costs money and so do color TV sets; limited programming, maybe a few hours a day. I got to watch Ceausescu, uh, "hunting" bear up in the Apuseni. In Black & White. Limited electricity -- a few hours in the morning, and a few hours in the evening and that's it -- outside of Bucharesti (which had electricity 24/7).

Lots of people queuing up, for whatever at stores and shops.

Men would have loved it. No such thing as "shopping." A girlfriend found that out the hard way in Berlin. If you go into a store, and you see something, and it is your size and it fits and you like it -- you buy it right then. No such thing as shopping around to see if other stores have it cheaper or on sale or something, because everything was the same price everywhere.

She drug me round 2 or 3 other stores, and by the time we got back to the first store that had what she liked, it was gone -- nothing left in her size. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen.
Anyway, it made shopping really easy - and fun even if you're a guy.

All of the newer buildings (the ones that weren't greater than 100 years old) had this really ugly grey government look to them. They were like some of the buildings from the 1970s you see in inner cities, like parking garages, fire stations, police stations and such.

Roads/bridges were in really bad shape. Can't remember where I was, but I was driving and the pavement just ended. Gravel/dirt for about 12-15 miles and then pavement again. That might have been Romania. We went out for a week driving around looking to see if any units were fielding new equipment.

I don't think Slavs ever got the hang of brewing beer. They had good beer in Hungaria and Romania, but I think that's because it was brewed by ethnic Germans who had lived there for centuries. Same with Czechoslovakia where you had the "bohemians." The other crap was like carbonated soju, except without so much formaldehyde.

I got a lot of photos, especially from Berlin. If I ever buy a scanner, I get some of them up.

Ironing curtains...


Mircea

Mircea, thanks so much! That's what I was looking for.
I hope you scan the pictures and upload them on the internet so they preserved. Did you ever noticed how different were attituted of soldiers on both side of Iron Curtain. East German soldiers seemed to never smile, they seemed more like prison guards than soldiers.