Good morning. It's time for cartoons (not a thread)
Much like the Ming to Qing transition, the Soviet to post-Soviet transition was the Golden Age of culture. Censorship was over, while much of Perestroika optimism was still alive. Today I'm gonna show you a couple of iconic cartoons that you absolutely must be aware of
"Treasure Island" by "Kyivnauchfilm". Kyivnauchfilm = Kyiv Scientific Movies. In the Soviet era this Ukrainian studio had to shoot some boring academic instruction videos. Thankfully, in Perestroika era they abandoned any false pretence of rigour and just started drawing cartoons
It may be literally the most iconic and memetic cartoon of the post-Soviet space. I have no idea how many times I've watched it. Here you can find it with English subtitles
The fact that the Kyivnauchfilm used to be a scientific movies studio before turning to something more worthy, is very illustrative of general trends of the Soviet society. Ideally, the central government would extirpate any nonconformity over the country. But it had constraints
Ideally Kremlin would extirpate any nonconformity over the USSR. And it did, in the humanities (which explains their current condition). But repressions against the STEM folk were costly, because the STEM folk had to produce stuff, So Kremlin needed to kinda tolerate them
That is not to say that the STEM folk didn't suffer. They did. Genetics for example was considered an imperialist whore, so the geneticists were massacred. Few decades later, cybernetics were suppressed, too. But as a general rule, Kremlin allowed the STEM folk to exist
As a result, by the late USSR the STEM became *the* only oasis for free thinkers and non conformists in the entire country. They were the only ones who were allowed for (some) freedom and nonconformity without the immediate repressions. In humanities it was far worse
For people from beyond the post-USSR it's difficult to grasp the cultural importance of the STEM culture (the only oasis of free thought and non conformity) for the post-Soviet culture in general. Pretty much anything else turned out to be intellectually and culturally futile
When discussing the post-Soviet space, you need to consider this STEM bias in their thinking. This bias exists because mental processes taking place outside of STEM ecosystem can't be really qualified as "thinking"
That bias produces negative externalities. Consider just one. A boy studied only math, physics and engineering in school, then in uni. Then he became an engineer, a manager and finally a CEO. Sounds good, doesn't it? On paper, yes, zero knowledge of humanities didn't hurt him
In reality it's more complicated. An intellectual with zero knowledge of humanities is nearly guaranteed to fall in love with the first theory he becomes acquainted of. That's why all those Soviet (and post-Soviet) STEM folk are such an easy prey for charlatans. Saw it many times
Many Westerners think that Russians are into mysticism. As a general rule, that's wrong. (Smart) Russians don't fall for mysticism that easily as Westerners could imagine. What Russians really fall for easily and enthusiastically is pseudo science
And yet, if you watch only one cartoon, that won't give you full and exhaustive understanding of the Eastern European culture. So you must watch two
I very much like this cartoon by the Borisphen studio. The Clinic
I heard that there is a theory that you should learn literature in the reverse chronological order. You study the modern culture, and then notice it's full of references you don't understand. So then you go by those hyperlinks, burying deeper and deeper. All the way to the roots
In this paradigm you shouldn't start with reading Shakespeare for example. You start watching the GOT instead. Through Lannisters and Starks you come to Lancasters and Yorks and through George R. R. Martin - to Shakespeare. Modern culture gives you references to the older one
Much like the Song of Ice and Fire can be described as a modern interpretation of Shakespeare, this Clinic cartoon is an interpretation of a certain Gogol's novel. It may be a good start. End of not a thread
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In August 1999, President Yeltsin appointed his FSB Chief Putin as the new Prime Minister. Same day, he named him as the official successor. Yet, there was a problem. To become a president, Putin had to go through elections which he could not win.
He was completely obscure.
Today, Putin is the top rank global celebrity. But in August 1999, nobody knew him. He was just an obscure official of Yeltsin's administration, made a PM by the arbitrary will of the sovereign. This noname clerk had like 2-3% of popular support
Soon, he was to face elections
By the time of Putin's appointment, Russia already had its most favoured candidate. It was Primakov. A former Yeltsin's Prime Minister who broke with Yeltsin to contest for power. The most popular politician in Russia with massive support both in masses and in the establishment.
In Russia, the supreme power has never ever changed as a result of elections. That simply never happened in history. Now that is because Russia is a (non hereditary) monarchy. Consequently, it doesn't have any elections. It has only acclamations of a sitting ruler
Obviously, there has been no elections of Putin in any meaningful sense. There have been only acclamations. And that is normal. His predecessor was successfully acclaimed with an approval rate of about 6%. Once you got the power, you will get your acclamation one way or another
Contrary to the popular opinion, Russia doesn't have any acclamation ("election") problem. It has a transition of power problem. Like Putin can get acclaimed again, and again, and again. But sooner or later, he dies. What next?
My team has documented the entire Russian missile manufacturing base. That is 28 key ballistic, cruise, hypersonic and air defence missile producing plants associated with four corporations of Roscosmos, Almaz-Antey, Tactical Missiles and Rostec
The link is in the first comment
Our report How Does Russia Make Missiles? is already available for download
By the next weekend, we will be publishing the first OSINT sample, illustrating our methodology & approach. The rest of our materials will be made available laterrhodus.com
Key takeaways:
1. Missile production is mostly about machining 2. You cannot produce components of tight precision and convoluted geometry otherwise 3. Soviet missiles industry performed most of its machining manually
That was extremely laborious and skill-intensive process
No one gets famous by accident. If Alexey @Navalny rose as the unalternative leader of Russian opposition, recognised as such both in Moscow and in DC, this indicates he had something that others lacked. Today we will discuss what it was and why it did not suffice 🧵
Let's start with the public image. What was so special about the (mature) @navalny is that his public image represented normality. And by normality I mean first and foremost the American, Hollywood normality
Look at this photo. He represents himself as American politicians do
For an American politician, it is very important to present himself as a good family man (or woman). Exceptions do only corroborate the rule. Notice how McCain defends @BarackObama
Should Putin just suddenly die, @MedvedevRussiaE is the most likely compromise candidate for the supreme political power. He is the inaugurated President for God's sake. Which means, the anointed King.
"Not a real king", "Figurehead", "Nobody takes him seriously" is just intangible verbalism. Nothing of that matters. What matters is that he is the inaugurated President, consecrated by God. Opinions are subjective, anointment is objective
It is the fact
Medvedev may be one single person in the entire Russian establishment with a decent chance to keep power, should Putin go. For this reason, he may not even need to fight for power. The power will very probably be handed to him
On Friday, @navalny died (most probably killed) in prison. This is a good time to discuss the prospects of Russian opposition and the future transition of political power, once Putin is gone. This is also a good occasion to debunk some pervasive myths on the mechanics of power🧵
First, getting rid of @navalny was probably a correct decision on behalf of Kremlin. Execution of this murder may have been suboptimal (unprofessional, etc.). But the very idea to eliminate him was reasonable and makes total sense. There is nothing crazy or irrational about it
This remark may sound as cynical or paradoxical. So let me present you another paradox, which is yet to be fully processed by the political theorists. And the paradox is:
Bloody tyrants rule longer
The Russian history may possibly demonstrate this better than any other