Das Leben der Anderen 2006 film is a gritty portrayal of how dreadful life could be inside the Soviet Block , and how anyone with half a brain was desperate to get out .
Das Leben der Anderen is movie from DDR , which is dead. Nowdays Russia is next level from that. Nowday's Putin Russia is like Nazi Germany in 1936. Triumph des willens :) (ohne Leni Riefenstahl :)
In USSR as we lived it was easier than now . I had work, I had plenty money for travelling and to educate my daughter. Yes there were less products in the shops, but they were not so “ extremely” bad as it used to describe them. Most of us went to market. Less spies . And of course we were young and most relatives were alive . Now you mostly can connect only by phone and extremely rare .
Thank you for your comment. I think I mentioned it before, many people (perhaps even myself included) tend to remember more positives than negatives from the past, which makes the past better than it actually was.
@@elvirabary there's this phrase I kept hearing "Happy Soviet Childhood." I haven't heard it recently but I heard it enough in the past couple of years. Then I think I made it through everybody who could have said it and I didn't hear it anymore. Like someone said lots of people thought that their childhood was happy just because they were children. If things were terrible, they didn't know it. Okay there was that one little kid who stood in the farmer's market and said "Grandpa why don't we get *another* pig?" Oops. He was quickly shushed. Thankfully no one got in trouble. Offhand I know three or four people who lived through the Soviet Union when they were young or in some cases just younger. One of them doesn't speak English and I don't speak Russian so... Not a lot of info there. One of them mostly wants to talk about where Russia is going now and how it's going back. But sometimes he tells us stories. The other one has lots of memorabilia and lots of stories and mostly talks about that. One lives in the US and the other fled Russia two years ago plus a couple months But he did live in the US for 9 years during and after college. It's all fascinating and scary. And So amazing that so many Americans think that the traditional values which Russia talks about are the same traditional values the US believes in. I guess propaganda still works. I still remember Ronald Reagan and his evil empire. He had the guts to say it. I remember Gorbachev and then I stopped watching the news and when I heard about people doing bad things I thought, oh I thought they changed! I guess they changed back. Gradually, like boiling a frog. Wherever you are, stay safe. I had a co-worker in the '80s in Boston who was from Poland and a boy that I liked whose family left there when he was seven. So I started reading books. There were not a lot of books at the library but there were at least three. I wish I could remember what that one in library binding was about or who it was by or anything at all. But it was all so long ago. Recently I found the obituary of my coworker. It was definitely her. I think she was like 30 years older than me when I knew her. Her life story in her obituary was fascinating. All the countries that she lived in before she moved to Boston. Actually she moved to the suburbs but she worked in Boston. It didn't occur to me to ask her anything and also I was too shy. And I think she left by the time she was 13, according to the obituary.
@@elvirabary Not really. I experienced a bit of the old regime in Eastern Germany, and the question it all comes down to is what a person really wanted out of life. The German reunion pretty much immediately decreased a lot of people's standard of living, and introduced new worries to their lifes. Sure, there was more opportunity now, too, but if you belonged to the group of people who felt they had made it all work for themselves before and now were laid off, you didn't care much for that. Life may not have been great under communism, but it sure was easier. The rules were clear, and when you played the game as the authorities wanted it, life didn't have a lot of uncertainties. Being fully responsible for oneself takes effort, and can feel stressful if you never really had to do it. That's where a lot of the frustration comes from.
@Volkbrecht That's a very insightful comment about life being easier under a totalitarian rule. I think there is a lot of truth to it. When many choices are made for the individual by the government, life could definitely seem easier. This would be especially true when there is nothing to compare your current life to. I would love to learn more about East Germany, it's such a fascinating case. In an experiment on a grand scale, where one nation was essential divided into two (East and West) and separated by a wall. It's like twins separated at birth. Comparing the two societies after 50 years of separation would be so interesting.
@pamelajaye Thank you for sharing your stories. I am truly amazed by the responses under my videos. In the last 2-3 days on TH-cam I read more cool, personal stories left as comments under my videos than I probably read in the 2-3 years on the Internet. The personal connections that are made between and a creator and the audience on TH-cam are truly astonishing and it is something I never expected to be honest. Thank you so much! P.S. I now live in Southern California, so I feel very blessed and safe - thank you for your thoughts!
Sounds a lot like working for a big American corporation, especially the bits about showing loyalty, making passionate speeches about nothing and quoting the boss.
Hello, Comrade Elvira! Your sage advice is not only useful for surviving in the USSR. As the Japanese say: "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
@@elvirabaryI was just about to ask the question of who those lovely paintings. Would you take the original painting's and make prints to sale? Interested!!
😮I think that you're a talented artist, as well as a talent wordsmith, Elvira. You might be able to make a useful income by selling some prints. If you want to get into more trouble, perhaps the Soviet paintings in the satirical style of Hogarth 😉
It sounds terribly oppressive, really frightening, I don't know how people managed to survive this system and rear children and keep smiling, the human spirit is a miraculous thing. Im interested in history and try to look at the world. Most of what I see is shocking. Democracy isn't perfect and these days is under attack in sinister ways, but at the end of the day it's the best. As I got older I saw the reality of the world, it's easy to fool yourself when you are young. 🙏🙏🙏
I was schooled by my Ukrainian engineering guru about USSR. "We read Pravda, and between the lines of Pravda". R.I.P. Leonid. (Oops) May his memory be a Blessing
Leftist, liberals and progressives (reformists) are not the same as the far authoritarian left, the socialists/marxists/communists. These are the true believers, the radicals, the revolutionary. They hate the left more than the right
Astounding bullet point preservation, Ms Bary. All the points made in this piece, I have seen/witness through connection of the same practice. If one self is a middle level to high level freemason, such privileges will make your life even better. Good job.👍
@elvirabary Here's a start Ms Bary. Look into the City of London where it has a lot churches connected to it in the square mile and the Grand lodge of England. Enjoy.
The defeat of Tsar Nicholas II was the worst thing to happen to Russia, the people had communism before the economy had a chance to industrialize and develop naturally.. Which then caused stagnation. Eastern Europe could have had a free economy like western Europe.. The Austrian economists said communism would collapse because without "price discovery" you could not have efficient allocation of (limited) resources.. A bureaucrat can not know exactly what should be produced, Prices signal to entrepreneurs what is in demand/ what should be produced.
Good point. Soviet regime wouldn't have survived if not for NEP (New Economic Policy), where some restrictions were lifted private economic activity was allowed in Soviet Union between 1921 and 1928.
Thank you for your comment. Technically, no one knows what Communism is like, as it's never really been implemented by any state. Even Soviet Union was at best a Socialist state.
@@elvirabaryThanks for that clarification which I have also heard before. How would you define North Korea? I was listening to someone who grew up there, on a TH-cam video this afternoon and it sounded even worse. Possibly not worse than Stalin, I'm not sure but worse than Russia is currently and I'd say maybe worse than the USSR. I don't know, the USSR went through various periods I hear. Even a bit of free market in the '60s. I keep forgetting the names of the people involved. There were two of them. I don't want to look them up at the moment. When everything happened in August of 1991 I totally missed it because we were having a hurricane in Boston. I actually had to look that up because I can't imagine how something that big could have been missed. Especially when they did an entire special on ABC News and it's on TH-cam and I watched it. And I always watched ABC News. But it's possible that since we were having a storm, we weren't having any national news but only local news. That sometimes happens in Florida when we have a hurricane. They just override the national network news. In the meantime there is a mouse in my bedroom and I hear it again so I guess I should go look for it though I really don't see the point because what can I do if I find it? The other day I blocked it into the bathroom and went to get somebody else and by the time someone came they couldn't find it. Real helpful guys. I wish it could spend the night in somebody else's bedroom.
Great question. Yes, it would be very useful, it would be the same as marrying into royal family in England for example. Possible, but most likely very difficult to do and not for mere mortals. :)
West is too general of a definition, even within Europe there are major differences. Look at Nordic countries vs Western Europe vs Easter Europe for example. Canada and US have major differences too in terms of how much the government controls. North Korea is probably the closest you can get to what USSR was like.
@@elvirabary when I was growing up in Denmark. Your media was covering different views. Our political parties had very different views. We were working towards something called near democracy. Now our media are dependent on government fonding, so they only cover one point of view. Now all political parties that are not totally mad. Are having the same view. And any kind of democracy that is based on the need and will of the people are deemed populistiske and dangerous. so we are of course not like the ussr yet. But your democracy are being eroted away. And after covid and the war in Ukraine. Things have really taken a turn to the worst. Now we are being told the most evil person in the world is Putin, and that the evil Russians horde is coming to kill us all. No nuance just black and white.
Actually, you're quite right! Georgian republic enjoyed special privileges in Soviet Union, most likely due to Stalin being Georgian and having a soft spot for his birthplace. In Georgia, there were less restriction on private enterprises, such as wine making for example, which resulted in Georgians being wealthier than the average Soviet citizen.
For me СССР is better than this now because we would be equal, at that time people was more happy, not depressed and alcoholic like today? At that time I would get married. This life, it's not my world. I do not belong here. I feel like that.
I think lots of people have very favorable impression of the past and pessimistic of the present. For example, most people in US would say they fell less safe now than in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s. However according to all the statistics violent crime has been going down in US every single decade.
@elvirabary It's your opinion, I respect it, but my opinion US always was danger, a lot of psyhopats, but Yugoslavia, yes crimes was in any time, but we didn't have mass murders like today, child killed other children with gun in Serbia in school. We believe all this things came to us from west.
There are a lot of trolls / совок s who are regurgitating nostalgia and ultra-nationalist Russian propaganda myth about the past . . . . . . . . . . . . It is a disaster that 90 000 Ukrainians and 200 000 Russians have paid with their lives for this evil and disgusting ideology .
@@barbarcreighton6726 In UK in London you talking on street with phone, than guy come and fast steal your phone from hand. I saw in Germany q lot of people who left UK because there is danger.
I’m struck by how many of your tips work equally well in Washington DC. I suppose most bureaucracies are more alike than dissimilar. God save us from them all. Great channel.
Thanks! That's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. But I think at many levels bureaucracies are all the same, no matter what political system is like.
Thank your for your comment. What's interesting is that if you look above you'll see essentially this same type of a comment from another user but it's about the Democratic Party. It's curious that both sides (Democrats and Republicans) associate USSR with their opposition.
@elvirabary MAGA makes outrageous accessions about the Democratic party on the basis of accus your opponent of doing what you are doing. The democrats have flaws, but being fascist is not one of them. The MAGA Republican party is fascist. They know it's not right, so they accus the Democratic party of being fascist. You really should look up fascism.... then get very scared because you just asked for it.
I gave this a 'thumbs up' not because it made me smile but because it made me sad. This is true of so many organisations (all?).
Thanks for your support. I didn't realize how well these tips would resonate with many other organizations/societies.
my thoughts exactly. Thumbs up, but nothing to smile about.
Das Leben der Anderen 2006 film is a gritty portrayal of how dreadful life could be inside the Soviet Block , and how anyone with half a brain was desperate to get out .
Das Leben der Anderen is movie from DDR , which is dead.
Nowdays Russia is next level from that.
Nowday's Putin Russia is like Nazi Germany in 1936.
Triumph des willens :) (ohne Leni Riefenstahl :)
In USSR as we lived it was easier than now . I had work, I had plenty money for travelling and to educate my daughter. Yes there were less products in the shops, but they were not so “ extremely” bad as it used to describe them. Most of us went to market. Less spies . And of course we were young and most relatives were alive . Now you mostly can connect only by phone and extremely rare .
Thank you for your comment. I think I mentioned it before, many people (perhaps even myself included) tend to remember more positives than negatives from the past, which makes the past better than it actually was.
@@elvirabary there's this phrase I kept hearing "Happy Soviet Childhood." I haven't heard it recently but I heard it enough in the past couple of years. Then I think I made it through everybody who could have said it and I didn't hear it anymore. Like someone said lots of people thought that their childhood was happy just because they were children. If things were terrible, they didn't know it. Okay there was that one little kid who stood in the farmer's market and said "Grandpa why don't we get *another* pig?" Oops. He was quickly shushed. Thankfully no one got in trouble.
Offhand I know three or four people who lived through the Soviet Union when they were young or in some cases just younger. One of them doesn't speak English and I don't speak Russian so... Not a lot of info there. One of them mostly wants to talk about where Russia is going now and how it's going back. But sometimes he tells us stories. The other one has lots of memorabilia and lots of stories and mostly talks about that. One lives in the US and the other fled Russia two years ago plus a couple months But he did live in the US for 9 years during and after college. It's all fascinating and scary. And So amazing that so many Americans think that the traditional values which Russia talks about are the same traditional values the US believes in. I guess propaganda still works. I still remember Ronald Reagan and his evil empire. He had the guts to say it. I remember Gorbachev and then I stopped watching the news and when I heard about people doing bad things I thought, oh I thought they changed! I guess they changed back. Gradually, like boiling a frog.
Wherever you are, stay safe.
I had a co-worker in the '80s in Boston who was from Poland and a boy that I liked whose family left there when he was seven. So I started reading books. There were not a lot of books at the library but there were at least three. I wish I could remember what that one in library binding was about or who it was by or anything at all. But it was all so long ago. Recently I found the obituary of my coworker. It was definitely her. I think she was like 30 years older than me when I knew her. Her life story in her obituary was fascinating. All the countries that she lived in before she moved to Boston. Actually she moved to the suburbs but she worked in Boston. It didn't occur to me to ask her anything and also I was too shy. And I think she left by the time she was 13, according to the obituary.
@@elvirabary Not really. I experienced a bit of the old regime in Eastern Germany, and the question it all comes down to is what a person really wanted out of life. The German reunion pretty much immediately decreased a lot of people's standard of living, and introduced new worries to their lifes. Sure, there was more opportunity now, too, but if you belonged to the group of people who felt they had made it all work for themselves before and now were laid off, you didn't care much for that.
Life may not have been great under communism, but it sure was easier. The rules were clear, and when you played the game as the authorities wanted it, life didn't have a lot of uncertainties. Being fully responsible for oneself takes effort, and can feel stressful if you never really had to do it. That's where a lot of the frustration comes from.
@Volkbrecht That's a very insightful comment about life being easier under a totalitarian rule. I think there is a lot of truth to it. When many choices are made for the individual by the government, life could definitely seem easier. This would be especially true when there is nothing to compare your current life to.
I would love to learn more about East Germany, it's such a fascinating case. In an experiment on a grand scale, where one nation was essential divided into two (East and West) and separated by a wall. It's like twins separated at birth. Comparing the two societies after 50 years of separation would be so interesting.
@pamelajaye Thank you for sharing your stories. I am truly amazed by the responses under my videos. In the last 2-3 days on TH-cam I read more cool, personal stories left as comments under my videos than I probably read in the 2-3 years on the Internet.
The personal connections that are made between and a creator and the audience on TH-cam are truly astonishing and it is something I never expected to be honest. Thank you so much!
P.S. I now live in Southern California, so I feel very blessed and safe - thank you for your thoughts!
Good Day. Once Again, very interesting, and not too surprising.
Thank You & Merry Christmas.
Thank you and Merry Christmas to you as well.
Great advice really under any authoritarian/totalitarian regime ❤
That's a good point, I didn't actually think of other regimes, but you're right!
Sounds a lot like working for a big American corporation, especially the bits about showing loyalty, making passionate speeches about nothing and quoting the boss.
Dictatorships with a pervasive bureaucracy incentivise the same defensive behaviors
My mom grew up in the SU and shes been mentioning how she sees similarities now in the US to how things were like there
How would you know considering you're jobless
Hello, Comrade Elvira! Your sage advice is not only useful for surviving in the USSR. As the Japanese say: "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
Love the paintings - who are the artists ?
Thanks for noticing! All those are my own creations. :)
@@elvirabaryI was just about to ask the question of who those lovely paintings.
Would you take the original painting's and make prints to sale?
Interested!!
@@elvirabary Very Nice.
😮I think that you're a talented artist, as well as a talent wordsmith, Elvira.
You might be able to make a useful income by selling some prints.
If you want to get into more trouble, perhaps the Soviet paintings in the satirical style of Hogarth 😉
@@Daytona2 OMG, "Soviet Hogarth" is a hysterical idea!
It sounds terribly oppressive, really frightening, I don't know how people managed to survive this system and rear children and keep smiling, the human spirit is a miraculous thing. Im interested in history and try to look at the world. Most of what I see is shocking. Democracy isn't perfect and these days is under attack in sinister ways, but at the end of the day it's the best. As I got older I saw the reality of the world, it's easy to fool yourself when you are young. 🙏🙏🙏
Excellent and insightful comment, thank you!
❤
I was schooled by my Ukrainian engineering guru about USSR. "We read Pravda, and between the lines of Pravda". R.I.P. Leonid. (Oops) May his memory be a Blessing
Thank you, Elvira Bary. It is important to understand the psychology of Leftists, socialiists, and "progressives."
You're welcome!
Leftist, liberals and progressives (reformists) are not the same as the far authoritarian left, the socialists/marxists/communists. These are the true believers, the radicals, the revolutionary. They hate the left more than the right
Astounding bullet point preservation, Ms Bary. All the points made in this piece, I have seen/witness through connection of the same practice.
If one self is a middle level to high level freemason, such privileges will make your life even better.
Good job.👍
Thanks for your support! I've actually researched freemasons for a book before, it's a fascinating organization.
@elvirabary Here's a start Ms Bary. Look into the City of London where it has a lot churches connected to it in the square mile and the Grand lodge of England.
Enjoy.
I think Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn didn't listen to these good points. He paid a price but was influential 😮
The defeat of Tsar Nicholas II was the worst thing to happen to Russia, the people had communism before the economy had a chance to industrialize and develop naturally.. Which then caused stagnation. Eastern Europe could have had a free economy like western Europe..
The Austrian economists said communism would collapse because without "price discovery" you could not have efficient allocation of (limited) resources.. A bureaucrat can not know exactly what should be produced, Prices signal to entrepreneurs what is in demand/ what should be produced.
Good point. Soviet regime wouldn't have survived if not for NEP (New Economic Policy), where some restrictions were lifted private economic activity was allowed in Soviet Union between 1921 and 1928.
There was no 'Nicholas III'.
The last Russian monarch was Nicholas 2nd.
You don't know what you are talking about.
in soviet russia life hacks you.
Your videos should be shown in schools here
prision tattoos!
I lived almost 31 year under Soviet Union and now I live under democracy.
No big difference.
Communism was even better in many ways.
Thank you for your comment. Technically, no one knows what Communism is like, as it's never really been implemented by any state. Even Soviet Union was at best a Socialist state.
@@elvirabaryThanks for that clarification which I have also heard before. How would you define North Korea? I was listening to someone who grew up there, on a TH-cam video this afternoon and it sounded even worse. Possibly not worse than Stalin, I'm not sure but worse than Russia is currently and I'd say maybe worse than the USSR. I don't know, the USSR went through various periods I hear. Even a bit of free market in the '60s. I keep forgetting the names of the people involved. There were two of them. I don't want to look them up at the moment. When everything happened in August of 1991 I totally missed it because we were having a hurricane in Boston. I actually had to look that up because I can't imagine how something that big could have been missed. Especially when they did an entire special on ABC News and it's on TH-cam and I watched it. And I always watched ABC News. But it's possible that since we were having a storm, we weren't having any national news but only local news. That sometimes happens in Florida when we have a hurricane. They just override the national network news. In the meantime there is a mouse in my bedroom and I hear it again so I guess I should go look for it though I really don't see the point because what can I do if I find it? The other day I blocked it into the bathroom and went to get somebody else and by the time someone came they couldn't find it. Real helpful guys. I wish it could spend the night in somebody else's bedroom.
What about relationships ? Could your marriage into the family of a party official be useful ?
Great question. Yes, it would be very useful, it would be the same as marrying into royal family in England for example. Possible, but most likely very difficult to do and not for mere mortals. :)
In the vest we are not the ussr yet. But post covid 19, we are getting more and more like the ussr
Seriously, it's not even close.
West is too general of a definition, even within Europe there are major differences. Look at Nordic countries vs Western Europe vs Easter Europe for example. Canada and US have major differences too in terms of how much the government controls. North Korea is probably the closest you can get to what USSR was like.
In the USA you mean?
@@elvirabary when I was growing up in Denmark. Your media was covering different views. Our political parties had very different views. We were working towards something called near democracy. Now our media are dependent on government fonding, so they only cover one point of view. Now all political parties that are not totally mad. Are having the same view. And any kind of democracy that is based on the need and will of the people are deemed populistiske and dangerous. so we are of course not like the ussr yet. But your democracy are being eroted away. And after covid and the war in Ukraine. Things have really taken a turn to the worst. Now we are being told the most evil person in the world is Putin, and that the evil Russians horde is coming to kill us all. No nuance just black and white.
Best tip for surviving the SovietUnion: be Georgian
Actually, you're quite right! Georgian republic enjoyed special privileges in Soviet Union, most likely due to Stalin being Georgian and having a soft spot for his birthplace. In Georgia, there were less restriction on private enterprises, such as wine making for example, which resulted in Georgians being wealthier than the average Soviet citizen.
For me СССР is better than this now because we would be equal, at that time people was more happy, not depressed and alcoholic like today? At that time I would get married. This life, it's not my world. I do not belong here. I feel like that.
I think lots of people have very favorable impression of the past and pessimistic of the present. For example, most people in US would say they fell less safe now than in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s. However according to all the statistics violent crime has been going down in US every single decade.
@elvirabary It's your opinion, I respect it, but my opinion US always was danger, a lot of psyhopats, but Yugoslavia, yes crimes was in any time, but we didn't have mass murders like today, child killed other children with gun in Serbia in school. We believe all this things came to us from west.
It is exactly the same in UK and Europe ... life is safer and far more comfortable but people's perception is almost the opposite .
There are a lot of trolls / совок s who are regurgitating nostalgia and ultra-nationalist Russian propaganda myth about the past . . . . . . . . . . . . It is a disaster that 90 000 Ukrainians and 200 000 Russians have paid with their lives for this evil and disgusting ideology .
@@barbarcreighton6726 In UK in London you talking on street with phone, than guy come and fast steal your phone from hand. I saw in Germany q lot of people who left UK because there is danger.
Macht niche, the USSR does not exist anymore.
But the hacks might still be applicable. :)
I’m struck by how many of your tips work equally well in Washington DC. I suppose most bureaucracies are more alike than dissimilar. God save us from them all.
Great channel.
Thanks! That's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. But I think at many levels bureaucracies are all the same, no matter what political system is like.
Welcome to Trumps America
Thank your for your comment. What's interesting is that if you look above you'll see essentially this same type of a comment from another user but it's about the Democratic Party. It's curious that both sides (Democrats and Republicans) associate USSR with their opposition.
@elvirabary MAGA makes outrageous accessions about the Democratic party on the basis of accus your opponent of doing what you are doing. The democrats have flaws, but being fascist is not one of them. The MAGA Republican party is fascist. They know it's not right, so they accus the Democratic party of being fascist. You really should look up fascism.... then get very scared because you just asked for it.
Just like the Democrat party