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re: USSR grocery store footage
Posted on 11/21/21 at 5:26 pm to wickowick
Posted on 11/21/21 at 5:26 pm to wickowick
quote:
I was part of a true exchange program with Russia in '93. A Russian student came and stayed with me for a month and I went and stayed with him. We stopped at the grocery store one day when he was staying with us and he was flabbergasted with the grocery stores.
Every student in America needs to be a part of a foreign exchange program. It should be required.
0
Posted on 11/21/21 at 5:33 pm to Contra
USSR broke up in 1991.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 5:40 pm to Contra
No wonder this dude was awestruck by a USA grocery
Posted on 11/21/21 at 5:44 pm to Contra
A news nugget from the halcyon days when we unfortunately were suffering from the tragic delusion that the communist threat to this nation had been defeated:
When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Texas
Boris Yeltsin’s wide-eyed trip to a Clear Lake Texas grocery store....
....It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.
At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location.
The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.
Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”
“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.
Yeltsin asked customers about what they were buying and how much it cost, later asking the store manager if one needed a special education to manage a store. In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops.
Shoppers and employees stopped him to shake his hand and say hello. In 1989, not everyone was carrying a phone and camera in their pocket so Yeltsin “selfies” weren’t a thing yet.
The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.
About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.
In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism.
“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”
When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Texas
Boris Yeltsin’s wide-eyed trip to a Clear Lake Texas grocery store....
....It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.
At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location.
The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.
Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”
“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.
Yeltsin asked customers about what they were buying and how much it cost, later asking the store manager if one needed a special education to manage a store. In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops.
Shoppers and employees stopped him to shake his hand and say hello. In 1989, not everyone was carrying a phone and camera in their pocket so Yeltsin “selfies” weren’t a thing yet.
The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.
About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.
In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism.
“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”
This post was edited on 11/21/21 at 6:14 pm
Posted on 11/21/21 at 5:51 pm to Stealth Matrix
quote:
Great minds think alike!
But the salient point that the plenty and abundance that we American citizens have come to accept as a birthright is not a fortuitous accident of history can never be repeated enough.
This post was edited on 11/21/21 at 5:52 pm
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:00 pm to phaz
quote:
neither do the off the stratosphere right policies many of our cities in the US have adopted.
Examples please?
oops meant left, typing a wee bit fast.
neither do the off the stratosphere right policies many of our cities in the US have adopted.
Examples please?
oops meant left, typing a wee bit fast.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:06 pm to trinidadtiger
How many African-Russians did you see? Probably had something to do with safety.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:06 pm to Contra
quote:
USSR grocery store footage
...from 1990
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:21 pm to wickowick
Got a little story for you...
The Bolshoi ballet had some relationship with A&M. They flew into Houston and got over the jet lag a few days in College Station before kicking off their US tour.
So as a college kid in the early '90s, you could see the Bolshoi in Rudder for $15. They were a couple hundred bucks at the major tour stops.
The point of the story is that they took some of the dancers to the grocery and the mall. The dancers felt sorry for the Americans since they obviously had no money. They had concluded that the shelves were full because the people had no money to buy anything.
The Bolshoi ballet had some relationship with A&M. They flew into Houston and got over the jet lag a few days in College Station before kicking off their US tour.
So as a college kid in the early '90s, you could see the Bolshoi in Rudder for $15. They were a couple hundred bucks at the major tour stops.
The point of the story is that they took some of the dancers to the grocery and the mall. The dancers felt sorry for the Americans since they obviously had no money. They had concluded that the shelves were full because the people had no money to buy anything.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:25 pm to Contra
I come here for good discussion and info that I won’t find most other places. This OP is misleading and adds noise that interferes with the legitimate posts. Please post less out of context threads.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:28 pm to TerryDawg03
What makes the video "out of context"?
If you read the thread there was a quite interesting convo about the waning days of communism in the USSR and the shortages associated with a failed economic system...all through the lense of the grocery.
If you read the thread there was a quite interesting convo about the waning days of communism in the USSR and the shortages associated with a failed economic system...all through the lense of the grocery.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 6:46 pm to Contra
quote:
USSR grocery store footage
I have said for quite some time that until you go to Walmart and there isn't anything there (or Amazon stops showing up at the door)... party on. One day it won't be just toilet paper.
Posted on 11/21/21 at 8:42 pm to Contra
That's a funny joke but where's is their Publix?
Posted on 11/21/21 at 9:09 pm to Contra
Recall the 1984 film, Moscow on the Hudson, when Robin Williams' character defected and made his first visit to a US supermarket:
Coffee Coffee Coffee
Coffee Coffee Coffee
Posted on 11/21/21 at 9:22 pm to Contra
Sweet abacus
Posted on 11/22/21 at 9:20 am to blueridgeTiger
I haven't seen this flick.
Thanks
Thanks
Posted on 11/22/21 at 10:04 am to Auburn1968
quote:
In the USSR, if Russian's saw a line they would get in it even not knowing what was at the other end because they knew it would be something they needed or at least something that they could trade for something they needed.
True, and I recently found out that some people grew produce and sold it on the black market to avoid govt price controls. The govt knew about it but decided to ignore them because of starvation issues.
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