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Well to be fair countries with extreme climate tends to be bleak since there is no need for outside activities. Middle east countries are like these, as well as Alaskan and Siberian countries. And it is no diff with Russia
>Well to be fair countries with extreme climate tends to be bleak since there is no need for outside activities. Middle east countries are like these, as well as Alaskan and Siberian countries. And it is no diff with Russia
Siberia: extreme snow, extreme melting snow rivers, high heat
That and the fact that life in Russia generally sucks if you aren't an oligarch or otherwise part of the educated urban elite in a handful of cities like Moscow and St Petersburg.
We literally had a relative who had been livng and working in St. Petersburg for 12 years already. She was formerly working in California lol, and she will always tell you are 100x more likely to die in California than compared to Russia just by walking in California streets.
What an idiotic thing to suggest. Places with extreme climates have endless outside activities across all seasons. I live in Alaska and people are outside in the winter as much as they are in the summer.
Lol what will you find in Norway? just hotels? The whole country literally is almost a zombie country, just endless roads and hotels. And the same also on the rest you mentioned.
Hell nah, if that is your idea of what is not bleak, then all countries lively.
Literally took the worst pictures possible. There are plenty of places there that look much better.
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chita,+Zabaykalsky+Krai,+Russia/@52.0515032,113.4711906,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e%3Dw360-h202-k-no!7i5152!8i2896!4m7!3m6!1s0x5dca351539f218ed:0x76432ffaf2ae72d8!8m2!3d52.0515032!4d113.4711906!10e5!16zL20vMDJrNmoy?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chita,+Zabaykalsky+Krai,+Russia/@52.0515032,113.4711906,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e%3Dw360-h202-k-no!7i5152!8i2896!4m7!3m6!1s0x5dca351539f218ed:0x76432ffaf2ae72d8!8m2!3d52.0515032!4d113.4711906!10e5!16zL20vMDJrNmoy?entry=ttu)
No, that's not true at all. My link shows the same city as pictured above. Considering it's isolation and extreme temperature, it's actually quite pretty.
Same city.
[https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0346871,113.5087157,3a,75y,306.5h,89.27t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q%26cb\_client%3Dmaps\_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.6642%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0346871,113.5087157,3a,75y,306.5h,89.27t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.6642%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu)
Omg, hell on earth? Are you like 12?
I just did in 3 separate cities in Russia. Even the residential areas od Moscow and St. Petersburg. You're right. Pretty much all the same thing. Some have less garbage laying around, but otherwise all have that crumbling, and falling apart look. Depressing AF.
But does that fit the narrative?
Look at the hateful comments here.
Nothing could ever look nice from there.
Desaturation filter when it looks to bright and colorful.
Every country looks like that a week after snow melts. It will be unrecognisable once everything blooms in a month or two. Trash should also be cleaned up now that snow is gone.
Partially collapsed buildings which are still occupied, huge piles of trash, dirt roads in a fairly big city? I don't think this is all done by melting snow.
There are very beautiful and comfortable cities in Russia. Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Sochi, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, and others are great. And Moscow was in the top-3 best cities in the world. Living during a war is a different story, of course.
“Living during war”… there’s no war in Russia. There are some attacks on their facilities, and a bit around border cities, but it’s absolutely _nothing_ comparing to what Russians do with Ukrainians. Nothing.
I agree that Ukraine has it much, much worse, but I was talking mainly about threats from the Russian government.
Civilians still die in Belgorod, Kursk oblast and other territories (depending on how you define Ukrainians), but your biggest threat in a peripheral Russian city is being mobilized against your will and being killed at war or to get several decades of prison time for nothing. And it's not a unique situation only for Russia. In western cities of Ukraine (like Lviv), your main threat is also not the bombs and drones, but the Ukrainian government, who will find you and send you to the front lines against your will or will put you in jail for words.
It technically didn't finish (there was no presidential decree), and they can start mobilizing more people at any time, but you are right, mobilization risks are much lower now
In Ukraine people being put in jail for words? Did you just make a typo and heavily confused Ukraine with Russia?
Defending Ukraine is a duty of each man during the war. That’s in Constitution and been there for decades, so that’s no surprise. Idk why you put it like a government crime.
Living in Russia is not great even without war. As others told you in this thread - 30 km from Moscow/stPrtersburg, and you’ll gasp. But if one consumes russian propaganda only, they’ll never know about that, so…
have you been to novosibirsk? I went there, and it was one of the most bleak places i have been. Moscow is also a very car dependat bleak place if you ask me, but at least it has some nice places, but its nothing compared to other eastern european cities like prague or warsaw
Moscow is not car dependent at all, especially in the last 5 years. Have you ever been to USA in places like Houston at least once, to judge what is car dependent or not? And regarding the topic: it is always easy to find "landfill" pictures anywhere. Few daus long ago there was large discussion about homeless and drug addicts problem in Canada, and this is common story in many places across western world. Russia is far more safe and cleaner place than these pits. Reddit is so biased, but what surprises me the most is how naive typical redditors, believing in every shitty post. Lack of critical thinking probably.
Lived in Houston for a few years and honestly Moscow outside of the very center was the most Houston I have felt in a long time. Everything is too far to walk, huge immer city stroads and lots of space around housing dedicated to parking
Car-independent is not necessary short-walking (especially in such megapolis like Moscow), but instead it means well developed public transit. I frankly do not understand how you can compare Houston where literally no public transit goes to suburbs, and literally no sidewalks along the roads with the city which has fantastic public transit everywhere.
Define Houston Suburb. You can get public transit to most suburbs, but I don't think there was any public transport to areas like Cleveland which is where I knew of some people who would carpool to work.
And another thing - they had some floodings recently, and I read that many houses aee sitting without electricity for few days already. It is inamaginable in Moscow or even in regional centers like Kazan. But Houstonians seems to be very get used to it, typical advice: "go rent a hotel for a few days if you can afford". Nobody thinks about overthrowing the government for some reasons haha
I mean areas like Katy. Even if public transit exists there from/to downtown, the choice is wildly limited and it is considered as "last resort", for the poorest of the poor. And in general rich suburbs are even against public transit like central rail, because they think if suburb will be easily accessible without cars, then it will attract a lot of homeless and addicts into their clean areas (and they are not so wrong, I beleive). I regularly read a lot of such discussions in reddits like r/Katy and r/Houston.
There is public transit between Houston to Katy. The rail line in Houston mostly covers downtown, but there are buses that feed the major suburbs,except for the extremely distant ones like I mentioned before.
No, but I watched some videos about Novosibirsk and my friends speak highly about it. One of my friends likes it even more than Saint-Petersburg which is a high bar to pass.
I doubt the commentator have implied Russians speak like that, and yet it is valid as, for instance, a satirical hyperbola of what does Russian propaganda say on TV. As a Russian speaker I hear it first hand and they aren’t even trying to transmit the message much more subtly than that. Have you watched Первый Канал lately?
At least living in Moscow, no one believes TV propaganda, people understand it's stupid and lying, younger generation use internet and have access to western media
Hah that is a sudden turn!
I can’t say I really study it, but I do find the early 20 century Yiddish music to be interesting and hence did learn some words and tried their Duolingo course for a bit. Why? :)
lmao, i've tried to learn hebrew with duolingo (i haven't completed even an alphabet). but i've been thinking my entire life, yiddish is just an odd version of german, isn't it?
The fact that so few of you guys have risen up in mass riots and protests against your psychopathic leaders for the rape and mass murder of the Ukrainan people and your own, speaks volumes though.
I've been to Chita last summer to visit my grandparents. I didn't see any places like the ones on the photos (and my mom and I walked alot around the city to remember her and dad's childhood). I'm sure they exist, I'm not denying that cities that aren't Moscow (or the other big cities of the country) can be in a very terrible state. But Chita also has some beautiful (or at least nice) architecture, and most of what I saw of the city was at the very least presentable (helped by the fact that large hills surround the city which provide a pleasant backdrop). My mom was actually surprised (in a good way) how the city is developing and I think that if it is given enough time and the effort to make the city better continues, then it can become quite nice. Of course Chita's future depends on the politicians actually doing their job, but that can be said about any city. For example, when I was a teen and visited San Francisco, I enjoyed the uniqueness of the city, but was thrown off by the amount of homeless people and trash that could be seen around the corner from a nice, more "tourist friendly" street near the city centre.
I understand that Chita is (very) far from Moscow in its city development. I did feel the huge difference it has with Moscow. I know that many Russian cities have features that are embarrassing to have in the 21st century (but I saw many places that I would call an embarrassment in the US also). But I feel like the photos presented here can mislead some to think that the whole/most of city is like this (and so are most of Russian cities), when these were most likely taken in the outskirts of Chita (and while the neglect of the people who live there by the city government and the horrid conditions are unforgivable), the city as a whole is not like the photos above, it's mostly an okay small (not very extravagant, but not complete shit) place.
Not too surprising if this photo is unrepresentative of what you saw in Chita. I've seen unflattering photos of Macau and Hong Kong here, when in reality those places are quite nice to visit.
It is interesting, regardless, to see the seedier corners of the world's urban areas, even if it's hard to draw conclusions from them.
Most countries have issues but I think Russia is one of the best examples of a state oligarch that's sole purpose is the funnel money from the citizens into the pockets of the billionaires and Rich Fucks like Putin.
Think about the quality of life 140 odd million Russians could have if they weren't sent to the meat grinder to die or instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that that's sole purpose has been to transform people and machinery into scrap and cubes.
Not only were the Russian people screwed in the Soviet Union since the collapse it really hasn't gotten that much better for the average Russian.
Many will point to all the propaganda to support Putin but at the end of the day he's an authoritarian dictator who's been in direct power for what 25 years?
Quality of life should be going up not down
Lol shit no. But here we can say negative thing on our country without getting jailed or killed. A simple white paper in russia get you ass jailed fast.
Yep. This picture has zero significance. Any country with impoverished areas and areas with harsh weather are going to have places that don't look that far off from these pictures
Originally Im from Baikalsk town. I had visited many small towns and villages across the Irkutsk Oblast and Buryatia. Such hellhole poor state have happened in some parts of very few of those but it was rather local administration failure.
It has always been higher than China. The different is that Russians were 10x richer than the Chinese in 1988, and now China has almost closed that gap while russia has made little progress since the 80s.
Bro, Russia has gone through times of perestroika, the collapse of the country, severe corruption, banditry, several wars, terrorist attacks, instability and billions of sanctions were imposed on it , Russia has much fewer partners and allies, worse geography, huge distances which makes logistics more expensive, extreme climate in some regions, Internal conflicts that have torn the country apart for centuries and now Russia is generally at war, what do you want? What if this country were as rich as Luxembourg? For its enormous size and population, for its difficult situation in the world, Russia has a very good standard of living, at the level of some European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania or Serbia
Yeah, no country is perfect, but this is a city of over 300k people, not some abandoned factory town. I can't speak for the United States, but if you really believe this, you need to travel both Central Europe and Russia more. It's true that you'll find places like this in Serbia and Romania, but certainly not in 'any European country'. The level of poverty and lack of public services in Russian cities (outside of the city center) was pretty shocking as a German who has visited lots of places off the beaten path in Europe.
Gotta admit though, some towns in the UK were exceptionally shit, too. Felt like deep Eastern Europe.
His/her point isn't whether you can find this sort of decrepit town in America or Europe, and it's disingeous of you to imply that they were trying to say that.
The difference is that while you can find places like this in first world countries (and before the brigade comes in, i'm fully aware that the original use was to distinguish between the blocs of countries based on economic/political ideology), they are far and few in-between relative to Russia.
Yeah that’s exactly what I was getting at. If you dropped a Google street view pin at random inside Russia, much higher chance of seeing this sort of thing compared to dropping one in Europe or the US
No, you cannot find major cities in Western Europe or America that look like this. Stop this misinformation. Even Detroit doesn't look as bleak as major Russian cities like Chita.
Bro has never seen the homeless camps of LA. Go travel outside of your suburb. There are places in my city that look almost identical to this. Only different is we don’t have as much affordable apartment housing like that anymore
"Places in my city"
Not the entire fucking city. Why are you so fucking stupid? I've been to LA multiple times, and it looks stunning. Sure, there are some homeless camps, but the city still looks nice overall. It is far cleaner and better than Moscow. Your brain has been melted by anti-US propaganda.
Do you think that it looks like Chita? You won't be able to find a single nice photo of Chita. The entire city looks like Baltimore's drug-infested slums. The same applies to other major Russian cities like Magnitorks as well.
[https://www.snagaslip.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Snag-A-Slip-blog-Baltimore-Maryland.png](https://www.snagaslip.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Snag-A-Slip-blog-Baltimore-Maryland.png)
You can't be serious, right? Even North East (the poorest region in the UK) has a higher regional GDP per head than Moscow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_regions\_of\_the\_United\_Kingdom\_by\_GRP.
I think that this just shows the power of anti-West/anti-US propaganda that is rampant on social media. There's people who think that LA is bad as Chita just because there's some poor neighbourhoods with homeless people. Complete brain rot. The GDP of Manhattan (a tiny island) equals half of Russia.
Russians think of themselves as superior to other Slavic nations, they like to think of themselves as some kind of fatherly nation to Slavic world.
I have zero idea what are they basing this on apart from some sort of delusion.
They have the richest country of all Slavic nations yet it is by far the worst.
The size is not the issue here because in the “developed” European part you will easily find such views. It’s a systemic problem.
>Russians think of themselves as superior to other Slavic nations, they like to think of themselves as some kind of fatherly nation to Slavic world.
People probably think this based on decades of online and overt propaganda efforts by the state of Russia to perpetrate an idealized view of their imperialistic ambitions
Not decades, but centuries. Russia has always been pro-Panslavism with itself in the centre. If anything, the Soviets tried to eradicate such views as they wanted every nation to be a Soviet Man, not Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh or whatever. Nowadays the current Kremlin administration is leaning towards the Imperial Russia ideals albeit with some Soviet ideas it deems worthwhile mixed in.
>capital of the Slavic world
By force
I can't blame the person. It's not his fault his education was lacking, the social structure that led him to think of Moscow superiority, it's not his fault propaganda has been spoon-fed to him his entire life
>Russians think of themselves as superior to other Slavic nations, they like to think of themselves as some kind of fatherly nation to Slavic world
I've lived in Russia for 20 years and this is the first time I've heard this. I've never heard anyone who doesn't belong to the media and is in their right mind thinking that way. Complete BS
I didn't say that russian narrative and media doesn't say it. I said russian people i know never thought that way. I called it BS cause you pointed out at russians without going into details, summarizing, that's all. And yes, i would prefer to stay detached from any media and gvt narrative because it's all crap
>I grew up in communism under “the Russian patronage” and heard to crap all the time
Sorry to hear that. But also, there has never been communism anywhere
Could be that you don’t know people who think that way. I met people who did.
All you have to do is confront them about the fairytale version of history that is peddled to them in schools and it comes up in this or that form during conversation. They are convinced about their “messiah” role. As if they need to fix something or bring the Slavs together.
*I edited my comment to remove part of my post that on the second thought I considered unnecessary.
There was communism of course but I agree that it wasn’t implemented in its idealistic form since it’s impossible to do.
This is the dirtiest city in Russia. There is a popular blogger Varlamov who calls it The Garbage capital of Russia. Terrible place with depressing alcoholic population
That’s where I was born, my orphanage had broken glass on the playground so I doubt we played on it at all. I was pretty malnourished and wasn’t adopted until I was almost three.
Bro showed photographs of demolished areas in which at least one grandmother lives, perhaps these are generally old photos, look on the Internet for photo of chita, this is an absolutely normal city, Those who laugh at Russia in the comments, maybe look at Detroit?
Друг мой, я из города в 400к населения и что-то не замечал особой помойки. Хотя окраина да, выглядит похоже, а на другом берегу еще хуже. Но промзона она и в любой другой стране промзона.
What are you smoking? New Hampshire has GDP per capita of $75K (which is almost four times higher than that of Moscow City). It is almost on par with Norway. Zabaykalsky Krai has a regional GDP per capita of a whopping $5K.
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Absolutely bleak
Well to be fair countries with extreme climate tends to be bleak since there is no need for outside activities. Middle east countries are like these, as well as Alaskan and Siberian countries. And it is no diff with Russia
>Well to be fair countries with extreme climate tends to be bleak since there is no need for outside activities. Middle east countries are like these, as well as Alaskan and Siberian countries. And it is no diff with Russia Siberia: extreme snow, extreme melting snow rivers, high heat
Alaskan checking in… 💯 wrong to include Alaska. That is all. Carry on
Right? Extreme weather has nothing to do with all that trash in these photos.
you are correct.
That and the fact that life in Russia generally sucks if you aren't an oligarch or otherwise part of the educated urban elite in a handful of cities like Moscow and St Petersburg.
Reddit expert opinion from the US on life in Russia
We literally had a relative who had been livng and working in St. Petersburg for 12 years already. She was formerly working in California lol, and she will always tell you are 100x more likely to die in California than compared to Russia just by walking in California streets.
What an idiotic thing to suggest. Places with extreme climates have endless outside activities across all seasons. I live in Alaska and people are outside in the winter as much as they are in the summer.
Juneau is in Alaska and it is probably the most beautiful city with natural setting.
Norway, Iceland, Sweden would like a quick chat.
Lol what will you find in Norway? just hotels? The whole country literally is almost a zombie country, just endless roads and hotels. And the same also on the rest you mentioned. Hell nah, if that is your idea of what is not bleak, then all countries lively.
You call it bleak, they call it Russkyi Mir (Russian World).
And there are people ready to kill and die to export this shit elsewhere
They will accept bottomless levels of shit as long as they can be sure their neighbor is doing worse.
Like what the US call 'bringing democracy' to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and a never ending list of countries.
Literally took the worst pictures possible. There are plenty of places there that look much better. [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chita,+Zabaykalsky+Krai,+Russia/@52.0515032,113.4711906,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e%3Dw360-h202-k-no!7i5152!8i2896!4m7!3m6!1s0x5dca351539f218ed:0x76432ffaf2ae72d8!8m2!3d52.0515032!4d113.4711906!10e5!16zL20vMDJrNmoy?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chita,+Zabaykalsky+Krai,+Russia/@52.0515032,113.4711906,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMW9K78P1KHo6Sri5BQDQLPSCvI1iD9cGJOOL-e%3Dw360-h202-k-no!7i5152!8i2896!4m7!3m6!1s0x5dca351539f218ed:0x76432ffaf2ae72d8!8m2!3d52.0515032!4d113.4711906!10e5!16zL20vMDJrNmoy?entry=ttu)
Every country has its rundown areas, but with Russia literally drop a pin on Google maps outside Moscow or St Petersburg and looks like this
No, that's not true at all. My link shows the same city as pictured above. Considering it's isolation and extreme temperature, it's actually quite pretty.
Seriously, open Google maps - pick a random point away from the major cities, then select street view - fucking hell, dystopia.
Same city. [https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0346871,113.5087157,3a,75y,306.5h,89.27t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q%26cb\_client%3Dmaps\_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.6642%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0346871,113.5087157,3a,75y,306.5h,89.27t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D-UoXDV5xLyxyBMWZQBlb1Q%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D212.6642%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) Omg, hell on earth? Are you like 12?
And a mile out of town https://maps.app.goo.gl/Kb7iV4uGtprZHDgu7?g_st=ic
I just did in 3 separate cities in Russia. Even the residential areas od Moscow and St. Petersburg. You're right. Pretty much all the same thing. Some have less garbage laying around, but otherwise all have that crumbling, and falling apart look. Depressing AF.
.... And? It just an ordinary Russian countryside buildings
This isn't much of an improvement
But does that fit the narrative? Look at the hateful comments here. Nothing could ever look nice from there. Desaturation filter when it looks to bright and colorful.
Every country looks like that a week after snow melts. It will be unrecognisable once everything blooms in a month or two. Trash should also be cleaned up now that snow is gone.
Partially collapsed buildings which are still occupied, huge piles of trash, dirt roads in a fairly big city? I don't think this is all done by melting snow.
Literally a landfill
[удалено]
There are very beautiful and comfortable cities in Russia. Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Sochi, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, and others are great. And Moscow was in the top-3 best cities in the world. Living during a war is a different story, of course.
“Living during war”… there’s no war in Russia. There are some attacks on their facilities, and a bit around border cities, but it’s absolutely _nothing_ comparing to what Russians do with Ukrainians. Nothing.
I agree that Ukraine has it much, much worse, but I was talking mainly about threats from the Russian government. Civilians still die in Belgorod, Kursk oblast and other territories (depending on how you define Ukrainians), but your biggest threat in a peripheral Russian city is being mobilized against your will and being killed at war or to get several decades of prison time for nothing. And it's not a unique situation only for Russia. In western cities of Ukraine (like Lviv), your main threat is also not the bombs and drones, but the Ukrainian government, who will find you and send you to the front lines against your will or will put you in jail for words.
> biggest threat in a peripheral Russian city is being mobilized against your will You're confusing Russia and Ukraine
I wrote, that Ukraine does it too.
Yes, but Russia doesn't do that. The only mobilization in Russia was in the fall of 2022 and lasted a few weeks and was only for military reservists
It technically didn't finish (there was no presidential decree), and they can start mobilizing more people at any time, but you are right, mobilization risks are much lower now
In Ukraine people being put in jail for words? Did you just make a typo and heavily confused Ukraine with Russia? Defending Ukraine is a duty of each man during the war. That’s in Constitution and been there for decades, so that’s no surprise. Idk why you put it like a government crime. Living in Russia is not great even without war. As others told you in this thread - 30 km from Moscow/stPrtersburg, and you’ll gasp. But if one consumes russian propaganda only, they’ll never know about that, so…
Lmao can’t u read? They were talking about other thing
have you been to novosibirsk? I went there, and it was one of the most bleak places i have been. Moscow is also a very car dependat bleak place if you ask me, but at least it has some nice places, but its nothing compared to other eastern european cities like prague or warsaw
Moscow is not car dependent at all, especially in the last 5 years. Have you ever been to USA in places like Houston at least once, to judge what is car dependent or not? And regarding the topic: it is always easy to find "landfill" pictures anywhere. Few daus long ago there was large discussion about homeless and drug addicts problem in Canada, and this is common story in many places across western world. Russia is far more safe and cleaner place than these pits. Reddit is so biased, but what surprises me the most is how naive typical redditors, believing in every shitty post. Lack of critical thinking probably.
Lived in Houston for a few years and honestly Moscow outside of the very center was the most Houston I have felt in a long time. Everything is too far to walk, huge immer city stroads and lots of space around housing dedicated to parking
Car-independent is not necessary short-walking (especially in such megapolis like Moscow), but instead it means well developed public transit. I frankly do not understand how you can compare Houston where literally no public transit goes to suburbs, and literally no sidewalks along the roads with the city which has fantastic public transit everywhere.
Define Houston Suburb. You can get public transit to most suburbs, but I don't think there was any public transport to areas like Cleveland which is where I knew of some people who would carpool to work.
And another thing - they had some floodings recently, and I read that many houses aee sitting without electricity for few days already. It is inamaginable in Moscow or even in regional centers like Kazan. But Houstonians seems to be very get used to it, typical advice: "go rent a hotel for a few days if you can afford". Nobody thinks about overthrowing the government for some reasons haha
Houston tries to overthrow the government every election though. Houston overwhelmingly votes against the ruling party.
Well, in this sense - yes, for sure :)
I mean areas like Katy. Even if public transit exists there from/to downtown, the choice is wildly limited and it is considered as "last resort", for the poorest of the poor. And in general rich suburbs are even against public transit like central rail, because they think if suburb will be easily accessible without cars, then it will attract a lot of homeless and addicts into their clean areas (and they are not so wrong, I beleive). I regularly read a lot of such discussions in reddits like r/Katy and r/Houston.
There is public transit between Houston to Katy. The rail line in Houston mostly covers downtown, but there are buses that feed the major suburbs,except for the extremely distant ones like I mentioned before.
No, but I watched some videos about Novosibirsk and my friends speak highly about it. One of my friends likes it even more than Saint-Petersburg which is a high bar to pass.
And that's how I can tell you're not from Russia, no one here says such things
I doubt the commentator have implied Russians speak like that, and yet it is valid as, for instance, a satirical hyperbola of what does Russian propaganda say on TV. As a Russian speaker I hear it first hand and they aren’t even trying to transmit the message much more subtly than that. Have you watched Первый Канал lately?
At least living in Moscow, no one believes TV propaganda, people understand it's stupid and lying, younger generation use internet and have access to western media
You know what they say, drive 30 mins out of Moscow and that’s where real Russia starts. And that’s where most of the population lives.
i'm from novosibirsk, (3000 km away from moscow) and nobody believes such propaganda as well
I wish it was so, but it feels like we often believe that “everyone” is our bubble we are used to and connect to the most
yeah, you're right. i mean though, people beyond moscow have free access to western media as well as moscowians do
do you study yiddish?
Hah that is a sudden turn! I can’t say I really study it, but I do find the early 20 century Yiddish music to be interesting and hence did learn some words and tried their Duolingo course for a bit. Why? :)
lmao, i've tried to learn hebrew with duolingo (i haven't completed even an alphabet). but i've been thinking my entire life, yiddish is just an odd version of german, isn't it?
The fact that so few of you guys have risen up in mass riots and protests against your psychopathic leaders for the rape and mass murder of the Ukrainan people and your own, speaks volumes though.
And yet, majority supports war in Ukraine because, you know, the nato threat. Seems that access to all media doesn’t help much
Давай не будем притворятся что ватников не существует. И что Москва это не страна в стране.
Chita is known as the garbage capital of Russia, so yeah it’s super shitty.
Looks like UK but with better weather
It does not look like the UK.
It looks fucking better mate. Rather live anywhere but birmy
I've been to Chita last summer to visit my grandparents. I didn't see any places like the ones on the photos (and my mom and I walked alot around the city to remember her and dad's childhood). I'm sure they exist, I'm not denying that cities that aren't Moscow (or the other big cities of the country) can be in a very terrible state. But Chita also has some beautiful (or at least nice) architecture, and most of what I saw of the city was at the very least presentable (helped by the fact that large hills surround the city which provide a pleasant backdrop). My mom was actually surprised (in a good way) how the city is developing and I think that if it is given enough time and the effort to make the city better continues, then it can become quite nice. Of course Chita's future depends on the politicians actually doing their job, but that can be said about any city. For example, when I was a teen and visited San Francisco, I enjoyed the uniqueness of the city, but was thrown off by the amount of homeless people and trash that could be seen around the corner from a nice, more "tourist friendly" street near the city centre. I understand that Chita is (very) far from Moscow in its city development. I did feel the huge difference it has with Moscow. I know that many Russian cities have features that are embarrassing to have in the 21st century (but I saw many places that I would call an embarrassment in the US also). But I feel like the photos presented here can mislead some to think that the whole/most of city is like this (and so are most of Russian cities), when these were most likely taken in the outskirts of Chita (and while the neglect of the people who live there by the city government and the horrid conditions are unforgivable), the city as a whole is not like the photos above, it's mostly an okay small (not very extravagant, but not complete shit) place.
Not too surprising if this photo is unrepresentative of what you saw in Chita. I've seen unflattering photos of Macau and Hong Kong here, when in reality those places are quite nice to visit. It is interesting, regardless, to see the seedier corners of the world's urban areas, even if it's hard to draw conclusions from them.
Most countries have issues but I think Russia is one of the best examples of a state oligarch that's sole purpose is the funnel money from the citizens into the pockets of the billionaires and Rich Fucks like Putin. Think about the quality of life 140 odd million Russians could have if they weren't sent to the meat grinder to die or instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons that that's sole purpose has been to transform people and machinery into scrap and cubes. Not only were the Russian people screwed in the Soviet Union since the collapse it really hasn't gotten that much better for the average Russian. Many will point to all the propaganda to support Putin but at the end of the day he's an authoritarian dictator who's been in direct power for what 25 years? Quality of life should be going up not down
Average expert never been to Russia. Ok
You talk like you have a brain? Yet I've never seen it so it can't exist. Checkmate
Ты ж мой хороший, а написать в чем он не прав слабо?) Давно у нас олигархи перестали деньги пиздить у народа?
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There's 250,000+ Russians buried in Ukraine who might disagree. And 250,000 Russian mothers who might also disagree
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Are you mocking people who die defending their country from invaders? That's fucked up what's wrong with you?
250,000 killed? How brainwashed or ded are you?
Nice place to visit so I hear.
At least they have their christian values, right?
Oh , this is the glorious russia pootin talkin about. We should all take exemple on this great regime.
Bro made a decision on a 150 million country based on 3 pictures
It's not just these pictures. If Russia could behave itself, people might cut it some slack.
As if Russia is a single entity
It's a totalitarian regime, emphasis on "total", so yeah, it can be treated as single-minded because it is.
Behave itself?) As if other western countries didn't participate in unnecessary, destructive wars. Why no sanctions for Israel? USA in Iraq?
Nah, i know. We have all shitty place. But the regime wouldnt admit it. Like north korea
Russia is far from North Korea
You didnt get my point. They lie alot about those kind of thing.
And western politicians are honest?)
Lol shit no. But here we can say negative thing on our country without getting jailed or killed. A simple white paper in russia get you ass jailed fast.
“Superpower”
You know you'll find place like these in the US, China, and most of europe right?
Yep. This picture has zero significance. Any country with impoverished areas and areas with harsh weather are going to have places that don't look that far off from these pictures
Chinese perhaps, but this is not how your average European or American lives whereas huge swathes of Russia look like this
But average town in Russia also doesnt look like that
This is exactly what the "average" Russian city looks like though. Have you seen their regional GDP per capita?
Originally Im from Baikalsk town. I had visited many small towns and villages across the Irkutsk Oblast and Buryatia. Such hellhole poor state have happened in some parts of very few of those but it was rather local administration failure.
maybe i live in the wrong average russian city, but although it doesnt look like this shit
GDP per capita in Russia is higher than in China)
It has always been higher than China. The different is that Russians were 10x richer than the Chinese in 1988, and now China has almost closed that gap while russia has made little progress since the 80s.
GDP per capita in the USSR in 1980 was $2,700, Russia in 2021 was 11 thousand dollars, is this a small progress?
Yes. The US went from $12K to $76K. China went from $300 to $12K.
Bro, Russia has gone through times of perestroika, the collapse of the country, severe corruption, banditry, several wars, terrorist attacks, instability and billions of sanctions were imposed on it , Russia has much fewer partners and allies, worse geography, huge distances which makes logistics more expensive, extreme climate in some regions, Internal conflicts that have torn the country apart for centuries and now Russia is generally at war, what do you want? What if this country were as rich as Luxembourg? For its enormous size and population, for its difficult situation in the world, Russia has a very good standard of living, at the level of some European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania or Serbia
You can find places like this in any American state or European country. Don’t be so naive, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. No country is perfect
Yeah, no country is perfect, but this is a city of over 300k people, not some abandoned factory town. I can't speak for the United States, but if you really believe this, you need to travel both Central Europe and Russia more. It's true that you'll find places like this in Serbia and Romania, but certainly not in 'any European country'. The level of poverty and lack of public services in Russian cities (outside of the city center) was pretty shocking as a German who has visited lots of places off the beaten path in Europe. Gotta admit though, some towns in the UK were exceptionally shit, too. Felt like deep Eastern Europe.
I live in Detroit, michigan, trust me on when I say this exists in the US
His/her point isn't whether you can find this sort of decrepit town in America or Europe, and it's disingeous of you to imply that they were trying to say that. The difference is that while you can find places like this in first world countries (and before the brigade comes in, i'm fully aware that the original use was to distinguish between the blocs of countries based on economic/political ideology), they are far and few in-between relative to Russia.
Yeah that’s exactly what I was getting at. If you dropped a Google street view pin at random inside Russia, much higher chance of seeing this sort of thing compared to dropping one in Europe or the US
No, you cannot find major cities in Western Europe or America that look like this. Stop this misinformation. Even Detroit doesn't look as bleak as major Russian cities like Chita.
Bro has never seen the homeless camps of LA. Go travel outside of your suburb. There are places in my city that look almost identical to this. Only different is we don’t have as much affordable apartment housing like that anymore
"Places in my city" Not the entire fucking city. Why are you so fucking stupid? I've been to LA multiple times, and it looks stunning. Sure, there are some homeless camps, but the city still looks nice overall. It is far cleaner and better than Moscow. Your brain has been melted by anti-US propaganda.
Baltimore City….
Do you think that it looks like Chita? You won't be able to find a single nice photo of Chita. The entire city looks like Baltimore's drug-infested slums. The same applies to other major Russian cities like Magnitorks as well. [https://www.snagaslip.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Snag-A-Slip-blog-Baltimore-Maryland.png](https://www.snagaslip.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Snag-A-Slip-blog-Baltimore-Maryland.png)
UK looks same and considered global power
Please name a location in the UK that looks like this complete with completely unpaved roads? Or a railway track that isn’t fenced off?
I pretty sure you can find something extremely resembling on the North
No, you can't.
You can't be serious, right? Even North East (the poorest region in the UK) has a higher regional GDP per head than Moscow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_regions\_of\_the\_United\_Kingdom\_by\_GRP.
Yeah I honestly don’t know what’s going on in this thread, people are totally delusional thinking Russia and the UK/US are comparable, it’s bizarre
I think that this just shows the power of anti-West/anti-US propaganda that is rampant on social media. There's people who think that LA is bad as Chita just because there's some poor neighbourhoods with homeless people. Complete brain rot. The GDP of Manhattan (a tiny island) equals half of Russia.
Russians think of themselves as superior to other Slavic nations, they like to think of themselves as some kind of fatherly nation to Slavic world. I have zero idea what are they basing this on apart from some sort of delusion. They have the richest country of all Slavic nations yet it is by far the worst. The size is not the issue here because in the “developed” European part you will easily find such views. It’s a systemic problem.
>Russians think of themselves as superior to other Slavic nations, they like to think of themselves as some kind of fatherly nation to Slavic world. People probably think this based on decades of online and overt propaganda efforts by the state of Russia to perpetrate an idealized view of their imperialistic ambitions
Not decades, but centuries. Russia has always been pro-Panslavism with itself in the centre. If anything, the Soviets tried to eradicate such views as they wanted every nation to be a Soviet Man, not Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh or whatever. Nowadays the current Kremlin administration is leaning towards the Imperial Russia ideals albeit with some Soviet ideas it deems worthwhile mixed in.
Yeah possibly. In another sub in a discussion about Moscow some dude said that it is the capital of the Slavic world lol 😂
>capital of the Slavic world By force I can't blame the person. It's not his fault his education was lacking, the social structure that led him to think of Moscow superiority, it's not his fault propaganda has been spoon-fed to him his entire life
>Russians think of themselves as superior to other Slavic nations, they like to think of themselves as some kind of fatherly nation to Slavic world I've lived in Russia for 20 years and this is the first time I've heard this. I've never heard anyone who doesn't belong to the media and is in their right mind thinking that way. Complete BS
It’s not bullshit. It only means that YOU DIDNT HEAR IT. That’s all. I heard it plenty of times.
I didn't say that russian narrative and media doesn't say it. I said russian people i know never thought that way. I called it BS cause you pointed out at russians without going into details, summarizing, that's all. And yes, i would prefer to stay detached from any media and gvt narrative because it's all crap >I grew up in communism under “the Russian patronage” and heard to crap all the time Sorry to hear that. But also, there has never been communism anywhere
Could be that you don’t know people who think that way. I met people who did. All you have to do is confront them about the fairytale version of history that is peddled to them in schools and it comes up in this or that form during conversation. They are convinced about their “messiah” role. As if they need to fix something or bring the Slavs together. *I edited my comment to remove part of my post that on the second thought I considered unnecessary. There was communism of course but I agree that it wasn’t implemented in its idealistic form since it’s impossible to do.
Wonder how many contaminated sites there are in Russia
So the first picture is where they filmed Polar Express
Do trees ever bloom
Reminds me of Jamaica too.
Gattsu on his way to fill in… **checks notes**… nondescript post Soviet.
This is the dirtiest city in Russia. There is a popular blogger Varlamov who calls it The Garbage capital of Russia. Terrible place with depressing alcoholic population
The first photo is not bad
Looks like a bad CoD map
Actually, honest Russia
It's like living in fallout wasteland. Incredible! Especially we're living in same planet.
This is where the White russians went to die
Looks a bit Chita
Looks like Bucharest or Belgrad 😂
That’s where I was born, my orphanage had broken glass on the playground so I doubt we played on it at all. I was pretty malnourished and wasn’t adopted until I was almost three.
[It is good that you came in summer. In winter, it can get very depressing. ](https://youtu.be/1mYqY5YELd0?si=ttMydDN0315y7TVB)
Bro showed photographs of demolished areas in which at least one grandmother lives, perhaps these are generally old photos, look on the Internet for photo of chita, this is an absolutely normal city, Those who laugh at Russia in the comments, maybe look at Detroit?
varlamov detected
ew. fukk russia
russia is so interesting
Russia posts shouldn't be allowed. I feel like that's just cheating.
Fuck Russia. Slava Ukraine
This is where “SHAMELESS” (Russia) was filmed. Cool.
No one show Tucker Carlson he will cry all the way back to Swansons Food.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Gradual_Growth: *No one show Tucker* *Carlson he will cry all the* *Way back to Swansons Food.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Shita ?
I've been there on dayz
Nice Half Life 2 map
That second pic, I think I saw Tucker Carlson’s summer home
But Vladimir on twitter tells me Russia is richer than even Germany?
Every russian city/town/village is like this.
I wonder if you've been to any Russian locality to make such a claim? 🤔
What? I can send you photos from my city lmao)))
Хорош по окраинам и помойкам лазить
Да ладно, Чита объективно помойка ебаная. Лучшее, на что можно заработать в чите - это билет из читы
Ахахх, видимо остальная Россия кроме Москвы и нескольких миллиоников окраина и помойки?) Хотя да, чего это я, рашка та ещё помойка во всех смыслах
Друг мой, я из города в 400к населения и что-то не замечал особой помойки. Хотя окраина да, выглядит похоже, а на другом берегу еще хуже. Но промзона она и в любой другой стране промзона.
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Я живу в Британии и она выглядит так же/хуже
Не сказал бы, что это ну прям помойки; но, да, это не самые благополучные районы глубинки уж точно. К сожалению, у нас в стране много похожих мест :/
This is what happens when you degenerate back to capitalism
Capitalism is America's fucked up system Russia is a oligarchy
But you won’t meet a gay person here. Keep it up our beloved leader, he has set his priorities
I’ve never understood the garbage strewn about all over.
Ever been to Baltimore City?
Yep, many times. It’s the same everywhere. Why the city doesn’t come by and clean out the lots is beyond me.
Looks like New Hampshire
What are you smoking? New Hampshire has GDP per capita of $75K (which is almost four times higher than that of Moscow City). It is almost on par with Norway. Zabaykalsky Krai has a regional GDP per capita of a whopping $5K.
The orcs don’t deserve any better
Russia is a 3rd world country that puts on lipstick for the cameras.
Ew poor people 🤢🤢🤢
“Hello Chita Russia, can I take your rorder?”
A pigsty for pigs.