Narcissism

Recently I mentioned to TRS that I hate Manhattan because it’s full of narcissistic people (which he found amusing, because we were discussing the quality of Manhattan in a different realm).

Here’s a great illustration of narcissism from Artemiy Lebedev. Look at this picture (click to enlarge):



In the picture is a monument to the victims of Golodomor, a famine in Ukraine (1932–1933) which some people say was orchestrated by Stalin, y"sh, as a genocide against Ukrainians. (Others say that it’s propaganda by Ukrainian nationalists, and there was a famine everywhere in the Soviet Union due to socialist economic policies. I don’t care at this point about who’s right and who’s wrong in this argument. I don’t care whether, even if it was a genocide, Ukrainian politicians are really using it as a tool to inspire anti-Russian feelings. I don’t care how any of that compares to the Holocaust. There was a famine. Millions of people died.)

Lebedev comments on the picture [slightly edited for language]:

People love nothing more in the world than themselves. That is why every person loves to have pictures of himself taken. So that nobody can accuse him of nasty narcissism, one takes a picture of himself next to something else, to take off the feeling of awkwardness. If there is nothing nearby, he will take a picture next to a branch of a tree, or a bush. If there is a famous building — yay, we are saved! A monument? Excellent, even better.

To take pictures of the famous sites without yourself is not interesting. There is enough of this junk on the postcards. And there is nothing to hold the guests’ attention with — they saw enough of the castles on the TV. This way you kill two birds with one stone [in the original: “two hares”] — show off yourself, and not just wherever.

That is why people come to a monument, stand like morons next to it, and make a special photo-taking face. Take :-) a :-) pic :-) ture :-) of :-) me :-)

Later they will show the album and say: “Here I am in Kiev”, showing off, in reality, themselves. Here I am, such a handsome guy, with the bags, with a haircut. And I don’t give a damn that next to me is standing tortured by terrible famine little poor Ukrainian girl.

Of course, the point is strengthened by the fact that the guy looks like a typical post-Soviet zhlob, with his moronic bags and his Eastern European chochmurte ponim. But I don’t know if I’d like it any more if it was a typical post-Soviet middle aged woman with her circular earrings and standard short haircut of the standard color. Or an American tourist showing off as many teeth as possible.

(By the way, I mostly care about his point on the monument. The rest I translated because I enjoy the cynicism, whether or not I have the same opinion. If you don’t care about strong language and would like to see Lebedev’s view of the human society, see this.)

Russian problem — Russian solution.

Background: While driving along the road, sometimes a Russian driver wants to eat some peaches. To do so, he can stop and buy some from a local old lady selling them along the road (with regular intervals — not just pears, all kinds of stuff).

Problem: After sitting in the heat the whole day, the peaches become hot. A driver wants to eat cold peaches.

Solution: Put the pears in a plastic bag; hang the bag on the rear-view mirror, over the A/C vents. Turn the A/C on max. In a short while you’ll have cold peaches.



[via Artemiy Lebedev]

Metamorphoses

Buy it.

More of the same.

Yes, Russians are nuts. Sometimes it pays off.

Life in the Soviet Union

This is how Soviet people lived (I assume people know this, but 1 ruble = 100 kopeyek; I am using Russian plural endings, because this is the proper way to do it):

1 kopeyka — a box of matches
2 kopeiki — call a girlfriend
3 kopeiki — a glass of soda water with syrup, or a trip on a street car
4 kopeiki — call a girlfriend twice and get a wrong number once, or a trip on a trolley bus
5 kopeyek — a small glass of sunflower seeds (to go)
9 kopeyek — milk ice cream
13 kopeyek — butter ice cream
14 kopeyek — a piece of “block” bread
22 kopeiki — chocolate ice cream “Leningrad”
56 kopeyek — 1 dollar
1 ruble 12 kopeyek — 2 dollars
2.87, 3.62, 4.12 rubles — three bottles of vodka
8.80 rubles — a night trip by taxi to the railroad station and back. On the way there, buy flowers for a girl, give the cab driver a tip and lose 3 rubles
44 rubles — a University student’s stipend. Crazy money.
160 rubles — the goal of life. Dirty money if necessary.
5000 rubles — Zhiguli
10,000 rubles — Volga (in theory. In reality, due to deficit, you had to be in a line to buy a car, and after that, it cost a lot more.)
15,000 rubles — 1o years of prison with confiscation of property
1 million — no such number
300 million — the number of people living in the USSR

But hey, people had free education, free medicine and free service in the army.

* * *

An amazing post by Artemiy Lebedev on Russian food. You really have to understand Russian to get the context; my favorites were:

• being able to pick the bread by poking it with fingers to check for freshness
• being able to cut bread in halves or quarters
• milk brand was called Milk — levels of fat were labeled by cap color
• butter was cut with metal wire and weighed
• eggs were bought in numbers — if you bought at least 30, you could get the container, otherwise, you’d put them all in a bag
• you paid first, got a receipt, brought it to the “cashier” who put all the receipts on a metal spike, calculated in hear head and using the abacus that the sum was correct and then gave you the produce
• if you wanted to insult the cashier, you could buy a single egg
• a produce store, liquor store, paper store, toy store, butcher store “director” could be sure his children would get into a University
• no plastic bags — you brought your own bag or carried things in hands
  

I lived the total of seven years of my life under Communism, but I remember almost all of this. Aah, the nostalgia!..

Lebedev tells a joke regarding the picture above:

A Soviet and an imported chicken legs are lying in a store and having a conversation:
— Look at you: you’re all skinny, venous, blue, hairy!
— Yeah, but at least I had a natural death.

If you think this is funny, it’s not. I am not talking about the joke — the whole topic. That’s what spreading the wealth accomplishes. Americans have seen something likes this, during the Great Depression. Two to four generations of Soviets lives their lives through this.

But yeah, capitalism is evil. No question about it.

Regarding PC

No, not Personal Computer (this is not another Apple-bashing post). Political correctness.

Lebedev Studio presents Documenticus, a politically correct passport cover with different ethniticies living in the Motherland drawn on its front (click on the picture to see it in greater detail):



A little background: in the Soviet passport (an everyday identification document, like driver’s license in the US), amongst birth date, gender, address and the like, there was an entry called “nationality” — meaning, ethnicity. (By the way, “Jew” — top left corner on Documenticus — was one of the choices. A Jew is not a religion, of course.)

In modern Russia, you have face control — not, however, just in airports, like in the US, but also on a street.


(Documenticus in action)

* * *

Obviously, “Russian Jew” is an oxymoron. You’re either the one or the other.

London through eyes of a designer. Evolution of sign with finger

Russian designer Artemiy Lebedev posts a photo-reportage of his visit to London. As usually, most attention is devoted to garbage cans, traffic lights, mailboxes and light poles.

His previous adventures. His visit to North Korea should be looked at by any liberal, socialist or even just a proponent of bailouts. This is what you are supporting:

КНДР. I

КНДР. II

КНДР. III

КНДР. IV

КНДР. V

A people’s prison. Mamosh.

* * *

By the way, Evolution of Sign with Finger.

Compare Italian sign —



... and Red Army’s one —



... with that of Russian White Army —



Ah, the problems of Russian intelligentsia…

“It is difficult to shake off the feeling that White Army lost only because of its designers’ impotence,” says Lebedev.

* * *

Also, Lebedev pyramid. Not sure I agree that it applies to every community. Certainly some communities seem to consists mostly of upper part, while others — mostly of the lower part (take Russia, for example).

* * *

And a final thought: