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I spent their summer in Russia in 1994. Our hosts were college-aged kids from local universities. And the overall sentiment was that they were not happy with the collapse of the USSR.
Economically for them it was a disaster.
One example they gave was that so many of their families have lost their jobs because their jobs were dependent on various raw materials coming from what was now liberated countries who no longer wanted to source material to the Russians. So factories lay empty and still.
The other complaint was that they had was that the gangs and mafia were basically taking control of everything. It was funny because one of the kids was the son of a local mafia boss. The difference in the material possessions he had versus everyone else was striking.
I wonder how these same people feel about this 20 years later. If now everything is figured out for them and they have a new, better life.
Traveling through Russia in 1994 just blew my mind. Because I couldn't believe that such a place was a superpower. They hadn't even figured out toilet paper.
On the flip side, my uncle has been in Prague since 1989. He went over there on some government program to teach the Czechs how to run a business once again. Today, 27 years later (Has it really been that long?), the city has become one of the most vibrant cities on the continent. In his travels to places such as Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic states, he's yet to encounter a soul who had a nice thing to say about the Russians given their brutal, exploitive, and soul-destroying occupation. To this day, he has friends who refuse to play Russian classical music.
And that's when the number of homeless children reached about 2 million - approximately the same as during the times of civil war and general collapse and chaos followed.
And those were the times when you traveled to Russia.
You need to be aware of these things I think, because American mass media will never tell you about it.
Could you explain the phenomenon of large groups of homeless children? I ran into that in Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur, which used to be part of the military-industrial complex, producing nuclear submarines, but all that came to a crashing halt very suddenly. To be honest, when I saw these kids going around during the day (they approached my little group of foreigners, out of curiosity, and partly hoping for a handout, of course), I didn't realize what it was I was seeing, for awhile.
Why were no state agencies looking after these kids? Were they actually homeless, or were they simply lacking parental supervision, due to parents who had fallen into unemployment and alcoholism? How could kids possibly survive winters (or even Autumn or Spring) in a harsh climate like Russia's, in a homeless state?
On the flip side, my uncle has been in Prague since 1989. He went over there on some government program to teach the Czechs how to run a business once again. Today, 27 years later (Has it really been that long?), the city has become one of the most vibrant cities on the continent. In his travels to places such as Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic states, he's yet to encounter a soul who had a nice thing to say about the Russians given their brutal, exploitive, and soul-destroying occupation. To this day, he has friends who refuse to play Russian classical music.
Oh, no doubt it was good for a huge number of people.
My parents spent a great deal of the 1990s and early 2000s in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (my dad helped them set up the oil economies and then subsequently worked closely with and for various international companies that came in).
Those countries have prospered and aren't looking back. I imagine much of the former eastern block feels similarly.
I used to think the collapse of the USSR was a great thing. However looking back with 20-20 hindsight (more or less), I now believe it wasn't so good for the world.
The Soviet army kept a lid on Islamic radicalism, empowered secular regimes in the Islamic states of the USSR, and was trying to maintain a secular Communist regime in Afghanistan until we made it our great cause to arm the Afghan rebels and turn it into Russia's Vietnam.
We gave those guys tons of weapons including state-of-the-art Stinger anti-aircraft weaponry that could shoot Soviet aircraft out of the sky, thus turning the tide of the war. Then our "friends" turned against us, calling themselves Al Qaeda and Taliban, and brought down the Twin Towers.
My thinking today is that Reagan should have taken a hard look at what a post-USSR world would be like, and instead of fighting them, he should have said to Brezhnev/Andropov/Chernenko/Gorbachev (the successive leaders between 1980 and 1985):
"You stop pointing your nukes at us, and we'll stop pointing our nukes at you. Let Germany reunite, and West Germany will pay you an extra $100 billion in war reparations. Get out of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, let them be independent states, and we'll pull our nukes out of Turkey and try to calm tensions in other flash points around the world such as the Korea DMZ. And when you pull back your SS20s from eastern Europe, we'll pull back our Pershing 2's."
This would have (perhaps) preserved the Soviet Union as a powerful central government, shedding the problematical European states which would have reduced tensions with NATO.
Instead, all we accomplished was to give the majority Muslim countries autonomy to spread their sick doctrine which is actually more dangerous than Communism.
Unanimously positive. Boy was it rotten in Eastern Europe pre-1990. Of course things didn't get better instantaneously. But they now have largely improved.
Could you explain the phenomenon of large groups of homeless children? I ran into that in Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur, which used to be part of the military-industrial complex, producing nuclear submarines, but all that came to a crashing halt very suddenly. To be honest, when I saw these kids going around during the day (they approached my little group of foreigners, out of curiosity, and partly hoping for a handout, of course), I didn't realize what it was I was seeing, for awhile.
Why were no state agencies looking after these kids? Were they actually homeless, or were they simply lacking parental supervision, due to parents who had fallen into unemployment and alcoholism? How could kids possibly survive winters (or even Autumn or Spring) in a harsh climate like Russia's, in a homeless state?
"State agencies?" What "state agencies" Ruth? There was no state to speak of at that time, it was dream of the "liberals" to come true. You know how some staunch Republicans in this country love the mantra of "no-government-intervention-private-initiative-only" thing? So it was *liberal" paradise back then; Gaidar and Co, supported by American *economic advisors* were explaining to Russian population day and night that the main problem of Russia was the "absence of free market system," so "the free market system" it was. The factory is not profitable? ( i.e. doesn't bring the immediate revenues in dollars to its *new owners?*) Close it, close them all. And the thousands ( no, millions of people) thrown out on the streets is no consideration, because.. because it's all about the "private initiative," remember? Sure enough all these people could start their own businesses overnight, couldn't they? And if you keep in mind that the "free market" dictated at that point that money were more secure and profitable for those on top in Western banks on private accounts, you can imagine the general situation in the country. So these children were among the first victims of the "market economy" in Russia - all two million of them.
Some of them were actually homeless, sleeping in the railway stations, in the building lounges ( a.k.a подъезды) or in the cellars of the hi-raises; some had relatives or friends where they could crash for the night. Some kids were placed in orphanages (sometimes by parents who couldn't afford to feed them any longer,) or by the *state,* and the older ones were running away from them, since you can understand what stage they were in, those orphanages in that kind of *state.* Children abuse was wide-spread at that time, and when Americans came to adopt these children, that's when they discovered how bad the damage was in many of them.
Oh, no doubt it was good for a huge number of people.
My parents spent a great deal of the 1990s and early 2000s in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (my dad helped them set up the oil economies and then subsequently worked closely with and for various international companies that came in). Those countries have prospered and aren't looking back. I imagine much of the former eastern block feels similarly.
Right, right - Kazakhstan, the nomads land, where Russians built the infrastructure ( oil industry including) from a scratch, but what's about the neighboring Tadjikistan; why it's not "prospering" and indeed IS looking back with longing?
Not enough of "freedom and democracy" or oil I wonder?
I used to think the collapse of the USSR was a great thing. However looking back with 20-20 hindsight (more or less), I now believe it wasn't so good for the world.
The Soviet army kept a lid on Islamic radicalism, empowered secular regimes in the Islamic states of the USSR, and was trying to maintain a secular Communist regime in Afghanistan until we made it our great cause to arm the Afghan rebels and turn it into Russia's Vietnam.
We gave those guys tons of weapons including state-of-the-art Stinger anti-aircraft weaponry that could shoot Soviet aircraft out of the sky, thus turning the tide of the war. Then our "friends" turned against us, calling themselves Al Qaeda and Taliban, and brought down the Twin Towers.
My thinking today is that Reagan should have taken a hard look at what a post-USSR world would be like, and instead of fighting them, he should have said to Brezhnev/Andropov/Chernenko/Gorbachev (the successive leaders between 1980 and 1985):
"You stop pointing your nukes at us, and we'll stop pointing our nukes at you. Let Germany reunite, and West Germany will pay you an extra $100 billion in war reparations. Get out of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, let them be independent states, and we'll pull our nukes out of Turkey and try to calm tensions in other flash points around the world such as the Korea DMZ. And when you pull back your SS20s from eastern Europe, we'll pull back our Pershing 2's."
This would have (perhaps) preserved the Soviet Union as a powerful central government, shedding the problematical European states which would have reduced tensions with NATO.
Instead, all we accomplished was to give the majority Muslim countries autonomy to spread their sick doctrine which is actually more dangerous than Communism.
They kept a lid on everyone and everything. A big, soul crushing heavy handed lid. Radical Islam was a byproduct of massive suppression of all religions. They suppressed free thought and speech...people spoke with caution in their own collective homes. They suppressed homosexuals. They suppressed agriculture. The Gulag, Siberian work camps etc.
For what....they didn't know best and they had brilliant minds. No government should have that much power over its populace. It's going to take a few generations for that sickness to get churned out of there, but maybe Russia will recover.
They kept a lid on everyone and everything. A big, soul crushing heavy handed lid. Radical Islam was a byproduct of massive suppression of all religions. They suppressed free thought and speech...people spoke with caution in their own collective homes. They suppressed homosexuals. They suppressed agriculture. The Gulag, Siberian work camps etc.
For what....they didn't know best and they had brilliant minds. No government should have that much power over its populace. It's going to take a few generations for that sickness to get churned out of there, but maybe Russia will recover.
Yep, a big, soul crushing heavy handed lid - right there)))
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