Quote Originally Posted by mishau_
BTW, do you know, who was one of the main inspirators of this doubtful criminal case? It was Telman Gdlyan, the future hero of Perestroyka and fighter with the totalitarian system. Smile
I've read all the materials including Gdlyan's interrogationprotocols written and signatured by his own hand. It was nonsence. Gdlayn was a cop, so he was totally a Sobiet man, like now Gryslov (who used to be a cop) and Putin how was (and I think is) a KGB'ist. So cops are governing the country now and people are so glad. But it seems you didn't read the book.
Missed you point. If you want to say, what Gdlyan is mostly responsible for this case, I agree. I guess, Putin and Gryzlov have nothing to do with it.

Quote Originally Posted by mishau_
Now his invention is in practice in Europe, but not in Russia.
So, Johannes Hint did invent something? And what? And which was his contribution?

Quote Originally Posted by mishau_
Besides TV Set was invented in the USSR first and introduced in Britain later.
TV set was invented in USSR? Never heard of this! More facts, please.

Quote Originally Posted by mishau_
So, try to read Zadornov to recall what was going on in Soviet Cunstruction Buerous.
Which Zadornov do you mean, the humorist?

Quote Originally Posted by mishau_
But if you still don't remember anything about the quality of goods in the USSR, just look at Russian cars now or elevators that always break down.
First, I thought we were discussing the goods made in USSR, not Russia? But, anyway:

I'm looking at Russian cars every day. I'm living in Moscow, remember? Even here in Moscow (with relatively high life level) 30-35% of personal cars are LADA's of various modifications. Some of them are (judging by their looks) in use from middle of 70's -- and still not broken. LADA's and NIVA's were exported to the rest of the world, and were quite popular.

And I'm also using the Russian elevator every day! Yes it's working perfectly -- from my memory, it was broken one or two times for last 4 years. (And this was mostly due to vandalism of some cretins, I think.)

Yes, it was a serious social stratum -- a clinical idiots, considering everything western-produced to be better. Even Edichka Limonov ironised in some of this novel about some soviet-breed idiots, who detested Soviet-made 100% cotton shirts and preferred western-msde synthetic ones. (And when he emigrated to USA, he discovered, what values are slighttly different there -- pure cotton shirts are worn by millionaires, and synthetic -- by young bandits in negro ghettos. Smile )
The same is true for aspirin, which is just an acetil-salicilic acid and is absolutely identical, regardless of where it is produced.
And idiots, even if they are numerous, remain an idiots.
May be you mean only vodka. Edichka Limonov is a greatist idiot himself. [/quote]

I'm agree he's quite an idiot -- but it's no reason to think, what people he is writing about are smarter than him.

Don't forget, most of rather good products came from Hungary, GDR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Another over-general stetement -- *which* products?
And in which aspect they were so good -- prettyly looking packing case?

Tobacco was too bad, just incomparable with the import (Java by Java was was the best sort of cigarets, but the Camel and Marllboro were out of competition).
Can't even comment cigars quality -- I'm not a smoker, and wish you too...

French wines and cognac were in favour, Czechic beer (did you forget long queues?) was in deficit.
Neither I'm expert in alcohol. But you must remember, what things like "French wines and cognac" are world-known brands, and were popular not only in USSR.

Jeans from the USA and snickers from the Adidas or Botas were the best.
Ha ha. Do you know, what *lots* of these "best" jeans were actually made in Poland or southern respublics of USSR? They just had stickers like "Levy's" or "Wrangler" on them.
So theyr popularity were due to widespread idioticy, and have nothing to do with their objective quality.

Musical intruments from Germany, Bulgaria and the CSSR, remember Leningradskaya guitars? They were total rubbish comprated to those from abroad.
Not expert in musical instruments.

Finnish smoked sausages were at the top as I remember.
Good sausages. As wines, they were popular in the other countries of the world.

Tape-recordes and Video-recorders, you know, were no match at all for the import ones.
First, this depends from how you match them.

Do you know, what audio reproducing equipment depends from its class?
Classes are from highest (0) to lowest (4). As far as I know, this is european standart, and Soviet-made audio equipment conformed to this standarts precisely.
For example, "Elektronika-302" tape recorder sounded exactly like class 3 tape recorder must sound -- neither better, nor worse.
As far as I know, some Soviet-made audio equipment (especially, lamp-based) is quite popular among modern audiophiles. I hope, this is telling something to you.

I'll laugh at you if you tell me that Russian cassetes like (МК-60-1) were better than Agfa, Sanio or Maxell.
Before starting to laugh, remember, what only idiots compare consumer goods by they quality alone. They are *always* compared by quality/price ratio.

Yes, audiocassetes like MK-60 and MK-90 were a bit worse -- but they also were at least 2 times cheaper! As far as I remember, MK-60 costed 4 R, and most cassetes from abroad -- 9-10 R (with normal ferrite tape, and something like 15R with chromdioxide tape).

And finally computers, especially Russian and Bulgarian disckettes (Izot) that were banned to use in all labs I knew (people were idiots like you say).
Yes, this sounds quite idiotic. Why did they ban quite a normal floppy disks? As I remember, "Izot" produced both 8" and 5.25" floppy diskettes (which were not much worse, the the other ones I encountered )

And we couldn't compare Russian Iskra's and Poland Masovia's, not to say about American ibm's.
Well, let's be a bit more specific. There was no computer caleed "Iskra", for example.
If we are talking about IBM-PC compatibles made in USSR, I know two of them "ES-1840/41" and "Iskra-1030". (I'm sure you aren't talking about "Iskra-226", which was weird and *not* PC compatible).

In the good old times I worked both on ES-type and Iskra-1030 PCs. IMHO, by their functional parameters they were not worse, than normal IBM PC/XT clones. Both worked OK with all available software, from Borland and Microsoft compilers, to dBase III, Lotus 123 and games. There were lot of weird things about them (for example, Iskra-1030 had only monochrome monitor; ES series had a color one, but no HD at all) -- but such was most of PC compatibles made in various parts of the world.

I have on idea, what was Poland "Masovia", because I never met one. But I strongly doubt, what it was really better, than ES-1840, for example.

Uffff.... this was a lot of work. Hope, you're satisfied, at last.