d4e4cfaa
XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian
XPost: soc.culture.nordic, soc.culture.baltics
From: holman@mappi.helsinki.fi
In article , James A. Donald
wrote:
> James A. Donald
> > > "Ruble" symbolizes pretend money, unconvertible into
> > > goods,
>
> Eugene Holman
> > This is nonsense. The ruble was a strong currency inside the USSR and was
> > convertible to the goods and services that were on sale there.
>
> If there was anything on sale, which there usually was not.
Not true. There was lot's of stuff to buy. Books, records, cultural
events, transportation, were almost free. Eating out was cheap, if you
knew where to go. Since I had my clothes, shoes, and toilet articles with
me, I did not have to buy these basics.
> As a
> result, most people in Russia had very large amounts of unspent, and
> unspendable rubles.
No, things were more complex. Those baggy Finnish-made men's suits might
have cost 400 rubles, quite an outlay if a person's salary is only 120
rubles/month. Since basic living costs (housing, public transporation, at
least one subsidized meal at work) were so cheap, spending 400 rubles for
a suit did not require the sacrifice that it would in a western economy,
where few people spend more than three months' salary on such an item. A
basic automobile cost 15,000 rubles, payable in full in advance, with a
waiting time of two to four years. Still, lots of people could amass this
sum and purchase a car. Even in 1983, with its 16-lane streets, Moscow had
traffic jams.
> > I spent a
> > month in Moscow in 1983 on a 200 ruble research grant and could live like
> > a prince on that money, considering that the average salary at the time
> > was about 120 rubles
>
> No one in Russia lived like a prince. What you mean is that there was
> no way you could spend 200 rubles -and there was also no way a person
> on the average salary could spend 120 rubles. They could have given
> you a million ruble grant, or a hundred ruble grant, it would have
> made little difference to your lifestyle.
I disagree. It depends pon the person, but there were many intersting
things to buy and experience. Since I was not saving for a car or baggy
mens suit, I could, and did, live quite high on the hog.
> > .... This is what you had to do to buy a 1 kg. of potatoes, 1 kg.
> > of onions, 1 loaf of bread, nd 250 grams of sausage.
>
> And if you wanted to buy a light bulb?
This reminds of something I experienced when living in Kiev in 1994. At
the local marketplace there was a lady who sold burnt out light bulbs. I
wet by her stand several times before curiosity got the better of me and I
asked her why anyone would want to buy burnt out light bulbs.
"Don't be naive!," she said. "People buy the bulbs and take them to work.
There they exchange them for the light bulbs still birning at their job."
Buying a good light bulb was not difficult in the pot-Soviet Kiev of 1994.
But with salaries at the level of $15 - $20/month, buying burnt out light
bulbs made ore sense. In Russian outdoor markets even today you can find
merchants selling broken eggs at a discount: if you are going to use them
today, it doesn't really matter.
> Towards the end the lights were going out.
Nevertheless, there was always plenty to buy in the USSR, particularly if
you liked the novels of Jack London, baggy men's suits, industrial size
jars of pickles, pickled peppers, and tomato juice, rye bread, eggs, burnt
out light bulbs, vodka, potatoes, and fresh or smoked fish.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
