Unironically, the “Soviet’s build to last” idea was nothing more than a propaganda product, like “cheap, natural and tasty ice cream” and “natural sausages”. In fact, comparing one-to-one tooling made in US vs Soviet tooling, it turns out that US was much higher quality and could last longer.
The primary reason for that illusion to sustain is because after soviet union fell apart, general poverty caused people to use tooling until it broke down completely — which made quality degradation of modern tooling much more apparent. The old-created tooling was produced years ago, and it was economically unsustainable at that point of time, and it was produced in huge masses disregarding actual need — making it almost as cheap as the new bought (while the latter was lower quality).
At the same time, the overall quality degradation for pricing lowering in richer countries was not noticed as much, because people were changing things over the time. I still see lots of projects, where people restore old European grinders, saws, etc — to the state that those tools look like new. They just got into awful shape, because there was an ability to replace thing, while in post-soviet countries you had no choice: either you take a good care of tool, or you don’t have it at all (because of poverty).
p.s. The ice cream and sausages is really just a propaganda legent: they were adding margarine to the ice cream, and so much stabilizers to sausages, it wouldn’t be allowed even in US, not speaking of EU.
Speaking of razors: I only recently learned that Gilette was producing their double-edged blades for safety razors in russia. IDK if they still are, but… yeah, that was a surprise for me.
Good point tho small part of the items were legit good due to keep it simple philosophy even if not intentionally. Particularly as you mentioned stuff like razors were very well regarded.
As for present it’s actually crazy how incapable Russia is at making stuff. As a Russian speaker myself I struggle to come up with any other country with such miniscule presence in actually creating stuff that is not weapons, rockets or dubious software.
I’ve worked with many Russian software developers and they’re mostly good dudes making good stuff. The issue is the brainwashed and uneducated masses and some bad apples that are in bed with the this mafia system.
Unironically, the “Soviet’s build to last” idea was nothing more than a propaganda product, like “cheap, natural and tasty ice cream” and “natural sausages”. In fact, comparing one-to-one tooling made in US vs Soviet tooling, it turns out that US was much higher quality and could last longer.
The primary reason for that illusion to sustain is because after soviet union fell apart, general poverty caused people to use tooling until it broke down completely — which made quality degradation of modern tooling much more apparent. The old-created tooling was produced years ago, and it was economically unsustainable at that point of time, and it was produced in huge masses disregarding actual need — making it almost as cheap as the new bought (while the latter was lower quality).
At the same time, the overall quality degradation for pricing lowering in richer countries was not noticed as much, because people were changing things over the time. I still see lots of projects, where people restore old European grinders, saws, etc — to the state that those tools look like new. They just got into awful shape, because there was an ability to replace thing, while in post-soviet countries you had no choice: either you take a good care of tool, or you don’t have it at all (because of poverty).
p.s. The ice cream and sausages is really just a propaganda legent: they were adding margarine to the ice cream, and so much stabilizers to sausages, it wouldn’t be allowed even in US, not speaking of EU.
Speaking of razors: I only recently learned that Gilette was producing their double-edged blades for safety razors in russia. IDK if they still are, but… yeah, that was a surprise for me.
Good point tho small part of the items were legit good due to keep it simple philosophy even if not intentionally. Particularly as you mentioned stuff like razors were very well regarded.
As for present it’s actually crazy how incapable Russia is at making stuff. As a Russian speaker myself I struggle to come up with any other country with such miniscule presence in actually creating stuff that is not weapons, rockets or dubious software.
AFAIK
nginxwas originally created by a russian, then opensourced.Though, now, I cannot care less for russian products, not since 24.02.2022.
I’ve worked with many Russian software developers and they’re mostly good dudes making good stuff. The issue is the brainwashed and uneducated masses and some bad apples that are in bed with the this mafia system.