He’s really old but I see him fairly regularly to take care of his cat but mostly just to hang out with him. He doesn’t really understand the internet and his interpretation is that there’s like 5 people on here who are all my friends. He has agreed to do an AMA but in his style where it might take a while to actually get some answers from him for each individual question.
The best way to do this is I think is to ask the questions you want him to answer the most and then I’ll probably update this post or make a new with with the first batch of answers and so on. He will give long answers because it’ll be like an interview of sorts but I can shorten them so they’re more friendly to digest.
He does know English but like teaching him to use a phone or my laptop would be difficult so I think it’s best I do it this way.
Don’t be shy to ask whatever you want. I will try my best to get him to answer them but if there’s a few hundred questions that might be too hard lol.
Anyways take care and looking forward to it
UPDATE
Hey gang really sorry to do this. I managed to ask him about 6 questions and he gave really detailed answers but one of the questions I gave him threw him off and kinda put him in a bad mood and he was saying “who would ask such stupidity?” So I moved onto a question I thought would take his mind off the other one but I think his bad mood persisted throughout and he got somewhat irate.
I don’t really know what he was expecting but he seems to think the questions weren’t good enough. I showed him the site and he got kinda upset once he realized that it wasn’t just some random chat board but rather a website with hundreds of concurrent users. He literally said “stop using that moronic website” lol. I’ll see if he comes around but he’s pretty pissed. He did give detailed answers to about 5/6 questions so I can transcribe these but sorry that we couldn’t finish this.
He is old and this is kinda how he gets sometimes but this is the first time he’s gotten this way in a while. He’ll be okay though I’ll just buy him ice cream or some shit lol.
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Grandpa is wise
Commie granddad calling Hexbear libs confirmed.
“who would ask such stupidity?”
“stop using that moronic website”
Damn 78 is really old for a cat. His fur looks impeccable.
This made me smile and ache a little. Your grandpa sounds like a character … grumpy but golden. I’m a trans woman living in a refugee camp in South Sudan, and it’s wild how we’re all navigating such different lives but still connecting on places like this. If anyone’s ever curious about what surviving looks like from here, my page is open. Solidarity and ice cream to you both.
Please read the updated post
Damn, just saw this. That’s hilarious.
Hey gang really sorry to do this. I managed to ask him about 6 questions and he gave really detailed answers but one of the questions I gave him threw him off and kinda put him in a bad mood and he was saying “who would ask such stupidity?” So I moved onto a question I thought would take his mind off the other one but I think his bad mood persisted throughout and he got somewhat irate. I don’t really know what he was expecting but he seems to think the questions weren’t good enough. I showed him the site and he got kinda upset once he realized that it wasn’t just some random chat board but rather a website with hundreds of concurrent users. He literally said “stop using that moronic website” lol. I’ll see if he comes around but he’s pretty pissed.
This needs to be a site tagline. It deserves to be immortalized.
I believe that your post is real, but imagining that this was all fake just to do a bit is really funny
It’s a bit
source?*it is known
I’m sorry but your update is really fucking funny
I’d really like to know how the average person in the USSR was given instruction in regards to racial/minority sensitivity. Like there are the famous quotes from Paul Robeson and Muhammad Ali about how Soviet citizens weren’t racist, and the Soviet Union itself was a diverse country with dozens of languages and ethnic groups. And I’m sure there were unresolved tensions but as an American looking backwards in time it seems the Soviet population was remarkably tolerant of women’s rights, racial minorities, etc.
So I’m wondering how formalized it was to learn how to be respectful. Was it something in school? Were there outreach programs or what?
One thing I’ve always wondered: was the word “comrade” used in place of a title like Mr., Mrs., Ms., etc? What about titles like doctor or professor?
I was in kindergarten when the communist party fell from power here (Warsaw pact but not USSR) and distinctly remember being told we should no longer call the caretakers comrade.
What was it like changing jobs, or choosing jobs out of school?
I know there’s a lot of writing I can read about the on-paper process but how did it actually feel in day-to-day life?
Was there a sense you could quit if your workplace was unfavorable? Or transfer? Was there a sense you could move up in your job (or was there even a huge motivation to want to move up?)
Curious because I’m in a younger part of my career and this kind of thing has been on my mind lately lol.
Thank you for making the time to answer us, comrade!
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After seeing Chinese citizens on RedNote react to westerners confirming that capitalism really is as bad as they’ve been told and the Chinese govt isn’t lying to them, I’m curious about the average soviet citizens’ view of the West and specifically
, what was your understanding of the capitalist world and did you or your comrades have doubts about what you were told about it?I read an article a while ago about nostalgia for the plombir ice cream they made in the USSR. Are there any items from that era (e.g. food products, household goods, clothing items) that he’s particularly nostalgic for?
Hello grandpa. How have your views towards life, the nature of humanity and the world changed from when you were a young man of 24 to now?
UPDATE
Damn, I had been looking forward to answers to a bunch of the great questions that were posed. I’m really curious what specifically made him mad, though. Like,
one of the questions I gave him threw him off and kinda put him in a bad mood
Which question was it? And when he said “who would ask such stupidity?” was it about that particular question or the things you were asking him in general?
I don’t really know what he was expecting but he seems to think the questions weren’t good enough.
I’m sure it will be apparent when you post the 5 detailed answers he did give, but I think it would have been good if we had known beforehand what kind of general sentiment he has about the USSR. I would ask different questions of someone I knew looked back on the USSR fondly with nostalgia versus someone who saw it mostly as an impediment to the way they wanted to live. I realize it’s probably too late now, but if you get the chance and it doesn’t seem inappropriate, I want to know what kind of questions he wanted us to ask. Since he agreed to do it in the first place, even if he didn’t quite understand the situation, I would think there must have been something he did want to share - but what was it?
I think it would be nicer if I don’t disclose the question that set him off because I don’t want the person/s who asked the questions to feel singled out.
I’ll say though that he did get mad at the cat comments because he got confused and thought people were thinking he was a cat because of the image attachment. The way he sees it is being called a cat means he’s cunning and untrustworthy so because he was already in a bad mood this set him off further.
He is fond of the USSR but he legitimately thinks people here are too LARPy lol. I hope he doesn’t think that of me, I did distance myself to try and save face by saying “yeah grandpa I agree” but his determination of this website’s user base just from comments alone isn’t a good one. Good thing I’m not posting from main
He is fond of the USSR but he legitimately thinks people here are too LARPy
Well why would our most treasured comrade say that? I would never even think of betraying the revolution or anything.
I’m hopeful this won’t have ruined multiple days for your grandad - because this reaction alone is incredible (and really makes me miss my Algerian gma). And please give the cat (actual cat) scritches to make up for this transgression.
I’m assuming, maybe incorrectly, that he immigrated to a country in the west. If that’s the case, when did that happen and why? These are questions I also assume you, OP can answer for us without having to further question him.
Trade schools, apprenticeships, simply hard work: how was training dealt with in the USSR? Did the unions mostly handle it, and did they send people out to get certifications? Or was it mostly in-house? What were the safety standards like for those who worked in fields like mining and construction?
Also, Dacha culture and Sanitoriums. How prevalent were trips to the countryside? And what was it like visiting the Sanitoriums? Were there different amenities depending on the union? Or were they all mostly the same?
Probably the largest thing that turns people into socialists is the prospect of turning all the productive capacity the industrial world has into something that can feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the ill, etc. i.e. poverty reduction. However, there’s also a more selfish reason: many jobs under capitalism feel extremely useless and like they only exist to facilitate shuffling money around for arcane reasons. They’re alienating.
Under the Soviet system, does he think people genuinely felt like their work was making society better in tangible ways? Or is this grass always greener on the other side syndrome?
