More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev

Sep 1

You see, that's very subjective. How would you assess e.g. the relative rank of Armenians vs Azerbaijanis?

Liberal intelligentsia: Armenians = ancient Christian people, Azerbaijanis = Turkic nomads. Ergo Armenians >>> Azerbaijanis

Working class: Armenians = Azerbaijanis = apes

https://twitter.com/GCarty80/status/1565389833127792640

I would say that upper classes are more culturalist and being Christian/ancient civilisation plays a big role for them. Working classes' perspective tends to be purely anthropological. They don't care about "ancient culture", "Christian" crap, they just see you as an ape

That's why Karabakh war was a huge thing for intelligentsia but not for masses. Intelligentsia saw it as a conflict of Muslim barbarians vs Christian civilisation and called for a crusade. Masses didn't give a damn though. Neither Armenians and Azeri were seen as fully human

Read 6 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Sep 1

Gorbachov's funerals dilemma. Gorbachov allegedly destroyed the USSR. Still, he is an ex-Tsar which is super important in Russian quasi-monarchy. Disrespecting him would undermine the awe before the institution of Tsar's power. So Putin's private farewells were still broadcasted

Many things about Gorbachov would be counterintuitive for the American public. First, few things undermined his reputation in Russia more than his relationship with his wife. They were very close, he took her everywhere and she tried to play a figure of her own. People hated that

In America being a "good family man" is usually considered a prerequisite for the high political career. You must be one, or at least persuade enough voters that you are. So Americans casually assume Russian politics work just like this. But they don't

Read 14 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Aug 31

Not quite. In Stalin's era engineers indeed could enjoy royal lifestyle compared with working masses. You could realistically hope to get Your 👏 own 👏 apartment 👏 one day 👏, while others would live in barracks forever. Absolute kings

https://twitter.com/SmokWawelski77/status/1565065049428869123

Since 1960s however system of incentives gradually changed. First, engineers were simply overproduced. Second, Soviet village with its seemingly infinite human resources was dying out. Third, Soviet government got wary of too many engineering grads. Are they even proletarian?

By the 1970s it was absolutely normal for industrial workers to earn more than engineers, way more. Hence jokes "The more you study, the less you earn". Sounds strange, but in the late USSR it was very real. Tons of engineers took workers' jobs to earn more cash

Read 4 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Aug 31

Yes, of course. Actually this year fates of Russian material producers diverged. Titanium producers are doing fine, as they're irreplaceable and thus pulled out of sanctions lists. Russian ferrous metals producers are replaceable -> sanctioned -> being obliterated

https://twitter.com/OmiljeniDaidza/status/1565048064070524929

If you look at the recent ЦСР report on the Russian narrowly specialised industrial cities (monotowns), you see that maximum risk category mostly consists of two types:

1) Machinery dependent (Naberezhnye Chelny, Tolyatti)
2) Ferrous metals dependent (Cherepovets, Magnotogorsk)

For anyone interested in the Russian regional economy, I strongly recommend digging in into the Central Bank or CSR (ЦСР) reports. They're very informative

Read 4 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Aug 31

Actually the Russian metallurgy has been doing ok in post-Soviet period. Production of ferrous metals (left graph) bounced back after the initial contraction of the late 1980s-1990s. Production of non-ferrous metals (right graph) even exceeded Soviet figures in the Putin's era

https://twitter.com/KuldkeppMart/status/1565045720071168001

It is the machinery that never recovered after the post-Soviet collapse. I will give you just four examples: production of tractors, сombine harvester, bulldozers, excavators. You can find many, many more. Soviet machinery pretty much died and never recovered

I believe this graph: production of friction bearings may illustrate the history of Soviet/Russian machinery well. As you see, it quickly collapsed in the 1990s and then continued to contract through the Putin's era. Russian metallurgy recovered, but machinery never did