One week in Greece - Anarchist Solidarity with French Uprisings
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Ryazan said:
I don't remember it being called the Shamrock Bar, although it could have been. It might have been just the supermarket it was attached to that was called the Irish House. It was, as far as I know, the first foreign-owned bar, or joint venture, as they used to call them, in the USSR. It was an almost surreal experience coming across it in 1991, so little westernisation (if that's the right term for it) was there in Moscow at the time. To be sitting drinking Guinness in that kind of bar would have been unimaginable only a year earlier.
Many of the Russians I knew were shit scared of the typically Soviet restaurants and bars on Kalinin. Apparently they'd recently become hangouts of some really serious characters in the burgeoning mafia. Dickhead here, however, dragged the Russians he was staying with into a couple of them without them uttering a squeak of protest before realising any of this. Maybe they were secretly hoping I'd become the first foreign victim of the Russian mafia....
I think that most unsavoury mafia activities are largely out of view and not in the way of humble western visitors and tourists. It is petty criminals you have to watch out for. I foiled a pickpocket when in Ryazan myself, spotted him in the corner of my eye moving up close beside me, while walking with my girlfriend in a street, I turned and stared at him, and he just stopped grinned and shadyed off somewhere else. That and nearly having my watch nicked off my wrist by a young beggar this summer! Can't blame him though. He was literally dirt poor. Mind you, at a classy ( 
) venue called the Krater Klub in Ryazan there is bowling alley and VIP restaurant attached- a group of us fancied a game of bowling but all the lanes were taken up by sharply dressed, but shady looking men in their middle age with attractive women in their early twenties. We asked for a lane, but the staff just told us not tonight. It turned out they were local mafiosi. "Patrons" to the club.
I always find it it quite astonishing how much organised crime has penetrated into Russian life. I read about two of the main gangs in Moscow during the supposedly wild 90's, before the economy going all tits up- the Dolgapruadanskaya and Solnstznevskaya gangs fighting it out for control. A humble tourist should be fine, but if you are a business man or banker, or somebody with access to a lot of money, then expect a visit from the mafia.
) venue called the Krater Klub in Ryazan there is bowling alley and VIP restaurant attached- a group of us fancied a game of bowling but all the lanes were taken up by sharply dressed, but shady looking men in their middle age with attractive women in their early twenties. We asked for a lane, but the staff just told us not tonight. It turned out they were local mafiosi. "Patrons" to the club.I always find it it quite astonishing how much organised crime has penetrated into Russian life. I read about two of the main gangs in Moscow during the supposedly wild 90's, before the economy going all tits up- the Dolgapruadanskaya and Solnstznevskaya gangs fighting it out for control. A humble tourist should be fine, but if you are a business man or banker, or somebody with access to a lot of money, then expect a visit from the mafia.
Ryazan said:I think that most unsavoury mafia activities are largely out of view and not in the way of humble western visitors and tourists. It is petty criminals you have to watch out for. I foiled a pickpocket when in Ryazan myself, spotted him in the corner of my eye moving up close beside me, while walking with my girlfriend in a street, I turned and stared at him, and he just stopped grinned and shadyed off somewhere else. That and nearly having my watch nicked off my wrist by a young beggar this summer! Can't blame him though. He was literally dirt poor. Mind you, at a classy (
I always find it it quite astonishing how much organised crime has penetrated into Russian life. I read about two of the main gangs in Moscow during the supposedly wild 90's, before the economy going all tits up- the Dolgapruadanskaya and Solnstznevskaya gangs fighting it out for control. A humble tourist should be fine, but if you are a business man or banker, or somebody with access to a lot of money, then expect a visit from the mafia.
I know; I didn't notice a thing out of the ordinary (for Moscow, I mean) in those restaurants. The worst that happened was that the waitresses wouldn't bring us wine. They said that they were out of it, then proceeded to serve other tables dotted around the room with as much wine as they wanted. The Russians I was with said that they were hoarding it and then selling it at their own price to those who were in-the-know. The best thing to do, they said, was to tell them to fuck off. Looking back on it, I'm probably glad that we never drew attention to ourselves in that way.
Many bars and restaurants were charging pretty much what they wanted at the arse-end of perestroika. To an average-to-poorish westerner like me it wasn't a problem, but, as you'll probably know, it pissed most Russians off no end. The rouble bars were the wackiest. I remember the downstairs rouble bar at the Cosmos Hotel was selling Sovietskoye Champanskoye for fifty roubles a bottle around the time of the August 1991 putsch. To most Russians it was an unthinkable amount to pay. To me, it was about two quid fifty or so, if I remember rightly. As you can imagine, this made the place quite an attractive proposition, even if you had to keep your gaze averted from the mean-looking Georgian pimps that frequented the place.
Another Russian I knew said that the tragedy was that when his father was young, during the sixties and early seventies, those very same restaurants were accesible to anybody and served reasonably good food at a price almost everybody could afford.
My gf's family do speak of Breshnevian times as being quite good for consumer goods and relatively okay standards of living, with travelling to Moscow to take advantage of buying some imported goods being allowed to be sold in shops there, this was in the mid-seventies; but mind you her family had some special treatment with the grandmother on her mother's side being a respected and well known artist. Belonging to the artists union meant some perks, like preferencial treatment with things like housing. Equality, socialism etc....... Breshnev was a corrupt buffoon though, but better scripted in speaking than George Bush Junior. I wonder how many pointless medals he awarded himself throughout his career as great leader.
Now in the Moscow, which is hardly representative of Russian life out in the provinces, there is a bewildering amount of choice in terms of eateries, faddish, pretensious, cultured of otherwise. It is all there, the thing is you just need money.
Now in the Moscow, which is hardly representative of Russian life out in the provinces, there is a bewildering amount of choice in terms of eateries, faddish, pretensious, cultured of otherwise. It is all there, the thing is you just need money.
That hasn't answered my question, just as you have failed to answer other people's questions on another particular thread.
And I don't know why you refer to Stalinism, as I don't see what that has got to do with recognising, with also people who actually lived there, that the scope for consumer goods was better in comparison to other points in the history of the Soviet Union. From Kruschev onwards. How that is a defence of Stalinism I do not know. Perhaps you could actually explain to me what Stalinism is, and then you and I can discuss it and it's relation to my comments on my recent travels and Russian people's experiences who lived under Brezhnev.
I somehow doubt it though. Chuck Wilson has taken the piss, LLETSA has taken the piss, Sean has taken the piss, but you seem to take exception to me taking the piss out of you. Oh well, nevermind. I don't take it personally. I just can't seem to fathom the ignorance shouting out at me from your supposedly witty outbursts.
And I don't know why you refer to Stalinism, as I don't see what that has got to do with recognising, with also people who actually lived there, that the scope for consumer goods was better in comparison to other points in the history of the Soviet Union. From Kruschev onwards. How that is a defence of Stalinism I do not know. Perhaps you could actually explain to me what Stalinism is, and then you and I can discuss it and it's relation to my comments on my recent travels and Russian people's experiences who lived under Brezhnev.
I somehow doubt it though. Chuck Wilson has taken the piss, LLETSA has taken the piss, Sean has taken the piss, but you seem to take exception to me taking the piss out of you. Oh well, nevermind. I don't take it personally. I just can't seem to fathom the ignorance shouting out at me from your supposedly witty outbursts.
soulman said:Congratulations. You are the thickest IWCA supporter/member I've ever encountered. Have a comedy stalinist medal for your efforts.
Wear it with pride -
There's nothing at all Stalinist about what Ryazan said. He was simply stating the kind of facts that can be found in more or less any credible account of life in the USSR during that period, facts that, in my experience, people who grew up there do confirm (people who are heavily critical of the USSR on the whole, that is.)
I have certainly not defended the Soviet Union, and those I have met in Russia have not either. The only thing they talk about in any positive regard are Soviet-Present comparisons to be made in regards to the problems that now exist with social provision from the state. No matter how inadequate it might have been during Soviet times, housing, hospital treatment etc was a little better. A lack of alternative to one party dicatatorship for sure, but as far as social welfare and services that are supposed to be free are concerned, things seem to be moving in the opposite direction now. Society is becoming more polarised.
Im not abig fan of the IWCA but i dont think they are stalinist or that Ryazan is either, 
He was looking for any excuse to troll, although that has been the unsafe reason consciously placed at the front of my mind, to give a relatively concern-free explanation as to his behaviour on this thread. That reason does have doubts regularly trying to prick it from off it's place, due to concerns that he really is ignorant about the Soviet Union; an ignorance that has depths as yet unreached by others I have come across who have been themselves of a pseudo-radical persuasion- and then try to use such ignorance to discredit and smeer others who bother to read books and have a decent grasp of the subject in question. I am not an educated man, not in the formal sense, even with secondary schooling, but public libraries, and an inclination to discover and inform a young mind in making opinion, works wonders when it comes to the discussion of politics. As well as working class experience.
The thing is, no matter how many times the electoral tactic of the IWCA is attacked and sneered at, it is perhaps a sad kind of jealousy that is aroused when a, no doubt small, but significant organisation that has actually bothered to listen to working class people then places their concerns into some poltical context and action. A jealousy seething from the point of frustration, from those that cling to some fantasy that any present social conditions can give birth to highly politicised, mass working class spontaniety.
What the IWCA has to do with Stalinism I simply do not know. Only soulman does, I suspect.
The thing is, no matter how many times the electoral tactic of the IWCA is attacked and sneered at, it is perhaps a sad kind of jealousy that is aroused when a, no doubt small, but significant organisation that has actually bothered to listen to working class people then places their concerns into some poltical context and action. A jealousy seething from the point of frustration, from those that cling to some fantasy that any present social conditions can give birth to highly politicised, mass working class spontaniety.
What the IWCA has to do with Stalinism I simply do not know. Only soulman does, I suspect.
apart from crap experiments in socialism the iwca has nothing to do with stalinism, the closest to stalinism is the rumour that LLETSA has a a gammy hand and big tash, but it is only a rumour. stalin actually had success in getting in power, alas the iwca has not.
Showing films in cheadle and head of wheelie bins in oxford is not the most dangerous form of stalinism ever.
The IWCA is closer to vic and bobs councillor coxy and roy evans
Showing films in cheadle and head of wheelie bins in oxford is not the most dangerous form of stalinism ever.
The IWCA is closer to vic and bobs councillor coxy and roy evans
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Herbert Read said:
The only gammy hand on here is yours, Herbie. You've strained it from too much pulling on your knob every time the IWCA is mentioned.
Haven't you still to outline your own vision of the way forward, Herbert?
(Awaits some vaguely disturbed mumbling about co-operatives and social centres emerging from the ashes of society's ultimate collapse at the hands of nihilism. Oh, and the necessity of nestling up to the middle class occupants of 'the caring professions'.)
