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On June 22 residents of Voronezh found their local billboards featuring an ominous, but familiar face: Comrade Stalin “Victory will be ours!” reads a slogan in large white letters below a large picture of the vozhd. The question, curious residents asked, was why Comrade Stalin’s visage was once again taking such a prominent public space, and more importantly, who put it there?
According to Kommersant, the Stalin billboards are part of a campaign by the Communist Party to commemorate the 130th birthday of the generalissimo. Sergei Rudakov, a KPRF regional deputy, told the daily that his party wanted “to remind every resident about the great person and his achievements. The billboards, which were designed by three advertising companies, cost 8,000 rubles apiece.
Not everyone was happy to see Stalin dotting the skyline. Most of all, Voronezh’s city administration, which ordered that the billboards be taken down because, according to the law, “the contents of posters are not regarded as either commercial or social advertisements, are not directed toward a charitable or a socially useful purpose, maintain the interests of the state, and there are not objects of advertisement on the billboard.”
“In my opinion,” KPRF regional secretary Andrei Rogatnev told Kommersant, “If you follow the principle of the lack of objects of advertisement on billboards, then it is necessary to remove the posters where Vladimir Putin is presenting [Voronezh] mayor Sergei Koliukh with a certificate conferring Voronezh as the “City of Military Glory.”
Well, double standards hold in Voronezh. The city administration has demanded that the billboards be taken down, and if they aren’t, it will revoke the licenses of billboard companies who put them up.
Khabar: I read enough of cyberpunk already. But it’s not the problem of technology, but of bad management — something I don’t get
Well, the Buran technology turned out to be useless after all compared to rockets. Americans still waste billions on this junk. Who cares? People will think out something in the future.:)
Khabar: do you believe so? There are physical limitations on chemical rocket engines. Roughly speaking, liquid H2 + O2 has the best specific impulse possible. 400 seconds is the best you can achieve.
Technology of chemical rocket engines has reached its end already in 1960s.
But what else can one speak of?..
“..when I referred to the Soviet Union, I meant the country of 1970s”
Evgeny,
The USSR was in irreversible decline by 1970-s. Starting at 1970, if you wish, there was not a single positive thing being done by the Soviet State, and the whole atmosphere was of waste, shortages and impending doom. The single prevailing cultural trend you so care about, was aping the latest West fashions. Believe me, I lived through it all.
candide: 1960s and 70s were the time to implement market economy, evading dependency of Soviet economy on exported oil. It’s sad that existing chances were wasted.
Candide: As a former Soviet citizen may be you would enjoy this piece of fiction:
http://apervushin.narod.ru/book/Zvezda/zvezda01.htm
Perhaps, if SU had reasonable leadership that time, such scenario could be possible..
Khabar: Actually, NASA has some promising space programs, including creation of a new generation of rocket engines. But it’s unlikely that during the next 100 years there would be another option for Earth surface-Space flight but the use of chemical rocket engines.
Remember, that NASA had the NERVA project, and how did it end. I’m afraid, ecologists wouldn’t allow the use of nuclear engines for a launch from Earth.
I think “Evgeny” (and perhaps “Khabar”) are parodies made up by La Russophobe (or some other Russia-hater) to make Russians look stupidly homophobic and parochial.
That’s right, I don’t share the culture of megapolis and physicists often live in small towns where gays are absent as species. Have you ever been outside of MKAD?
Sorry, if we don’t fit into your Dem-Rep dichotomy.
Actually I had negative experience with gays.
When I graduated from school, I joined a group practicing martial arts. It’s been rumoured that its leader was gay, but I thought it were mere rumours. Soon after I started to practice karatee with that group, I missed a couple of classes and the leader of the group suggested me to practice the part I missed with him at his home.
I was ready to do that, but luckily when I shared my plans with my friends they explained me, a naive boy that time, what was the actual risk of that for me. And so I refused of any further contacts with that group and its leader.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - -
I do not have anything against gays, as long as they don’t have any plans regarding me.
p.s. That happened when I moved from a small town where I studied in a school to a big one to study in an univ.
With respect to the aping of the West in Soviet Union of the 70s and 80s, I wonder whether this strong distate for the West among many of today’s Russians is a reaction to what often was indeed a crass, tacky and laughable aping of the West.
As I wrote before, in my experience Russians are much more brand conscious than Americans: they pay more attention to brand names–whether a particular article of clothing or some gadget is of an “in” or “cool” brand. I’m talking in generalities, of course. There are plenty of Americans who pay attention to such silly things, but I was always struck that, paradoxically, Soviets/Russians were more prone to it. Perhaps some of the Russians who are rightfully disgusted by this mistakenly think that this sort of behavior epitomizes the West or that in the West such behavior is even more pronounced that what they see in, say, Moscow.
Kolya: Read Pelevin to understand the situation with brands. That’s exactly what he depicted in his “Generation P” and “Empire V”.
Nikolai, you are talking about mazhory or (the same) upper middle class (Moscow scale) you meet in the US.
Summing up, Stalin was right in more ways and predictions than one can imagine.
Kolya: I’ve just opened Gorchev’s book, and his “To become mad” (“Сойти с ума”) is exactly what you are asking about.
Indeed, “Весь нынешний мир устроен таким образом, чтобы человек как можно быстрее сошёл с ума.”
Read it here, pages 70-71:
http://www.litru.ru/index.html?book=10405&page=70
Actually, Gorchev is a witful person. E.g., look pages 57-58 at the same resource, about M.S. Gorbachev.