Thread: Нарочно не придумаешь. (Юмор!)

Originally Posted by LXNDR

from me: people were waiting in line from eve to have a chance of getting the desired unprocurable book the next morning

This was exactly because the books were so cheap so that the people bought a lot of books. I just looked at books in my library and the typical prices of a tome (inscribed on all books in soviet times) are 2.20, 2.40, 2.60, 2.90. Bear in mind that 1 ruble was about 1 dollar at the time.

Of course this business was not profitable for the state (if not to count the indirect, difficult to measure profit from the more learned population).

Originally Posted by Anixx

This was exactly because the books were so cheap so that the people bought a lot of books.

this was because the books which were really in demand (as the articles says: фантастика, детектив, приключенческая литература или авантюрный роман) were published in scarce numbers and a single other way of getting these without night long waiting in line on occasional sale campaign, was buying them from illegal resellers at a higher black market price

since book publishing was a state enterprise controlled by the Party, it mainly promoted works loyal to the regime and what the regime wanted people to need rather than what they really needed, although I don't deny that there were worthwhile books inside the heaps of published waste paper

i have no idea how profitable book publishing in USSR was, but if it wasn't, it's only due to publishing of lots of rubbish instead of popular items, which is impossible by definition because a lot of times popular was something unapproved by the state

Originally Posted by LXNDR

this was because the books which were really in demand (as the articles says: фантастика, детектив, приключенческая литература или авантюрный роман) were published in scarce numbers and a single other way of getting these without night long waiting in line on occasional sale campaign, was buying them from illegal resellers at a higher black market price

I do not think that any detective, sci-fi or adventure was a deficit. But good books were indeed. But as I already said this was because all books were so cheap that people bought very many books. By 1990s I had 5 bookcases (2 of which were cupboards actually) filled with books each shelf in two rows, plus 16 separate wall shelves, plus the space under a divan plus entresol above the entrance plus a heap in the closet box.

Originally Posted by LXNDR

since book publishing was a state enterprise controlled by the Party, it mainly promoted works loyal to the regime and what the regime wanted people to need rather than what they really needed, although I don't deny that there were worthwhile books inside the heaps of published waste paper

Yes. What the people needed was decided by the Gosplan as anything that was produced. They had plans how many detectives the people need, how many adventures and so on. This was calculated "scientifically" based on people's free time etc. But they did not account that many people just bought more books than they could even theoretically read (many wanted to look "learned" by having a large library and many wanted to pass the books to their children etc).