It looks very easy to just start selling stuff in Russia. We're used to regulations covering everything. Got a car for sale? So, place it on the side of a busy road with a "For Sale" sign on along with your phone-number? Well no, there's regulations banning that. Might be a cause of accidents and anyway, it makes the place look untidy, which isn't a good look for tourists.
I suspect your free-market is much more free (and easy) than ours.
russia is immersed in corruption/organized crime. and i think there are all sorts of regulations, maybe worse than in nz, but no one respects them! which doesn't mean you can't get punished, if you're unlucky, which makes punishments look rather arbitrary. this is a typical situation for un unstable country, i guess, and yes, it has more merits than drawbacks as far as i'm concerned - as long as you can get away with breaking the law most of the time. but i grew up here, i'm used to all this.
and i think there are all sorts of regulations, maybe worse than in nz, but no one respects them!
Yeah, that is probably the key to it. It does make the place seem somehow more alive than in your typical Western suburbia though, or even most Western cities, where the chance of seeing a car with pigs-heads for sale on its bonnet are kind of rare. I think that's why so many from the West are attracted to your photos. It looks kind of like living in the West, but without the crippling order we've imposed on ourselves.
yes, i have never been abroad but the impression i get from many posts 'westerners' write is LET ME BREATHE FUCK LET ME BREATHE! all those tiny regulations, sense of responsibility, the need to be more positive and what's not! in russia you run more risks i guess, people are less friendly, probably, but at least there's no such constant, stable social pressure, unless you watch tv/read papers. which is only natural since there's no stable society! on the other hand, i know very little about other countries and the feel of them, at least, there are many mellow/ironic/relaxed people from civilized countries, right? probably much more than from russia. so there, no conclusion.
That doesn't look like a "gated community" though, which are walled little villages where you're supposidly safe from all the low-life that threatens you.
Umm, a gated community: http://www.fullerlandsales.com/ "God Bless America"...
there are many mellow/ironic/relaxed people from civilized countries, right?
Yeah, though a lot fewer than there used to be, I think. The retired seem relaxed, but the rest seem on a treadmill. In the 50s the typical lifestyle was dad went to work (40 hours a week) and mum stayed home and looked after the house and kids. Now it's closer to both parents working 40 hours a week, though the typical nuclear family of mum, dad and the kids is mostly a myth now, the kids having quite a choice of parents these days. :-) And couples not having kids by choice being more common.
the first image looks quite awful. i don't understand, i could never understand that, why such tiny plots of land. that should make living there nearly impossible with your neighbours lurking around/in the yard/behind the curtains/under your nose all the time. and this, i gather, is not a place where poorest people live. the same goes on in russia now, and even worse: wealthy people building huge castles on tiny plots of land and living in these neighbourhoods, crammed up like a fucking hostel. yes, i understand, land should be quite expensive around moscow, but they all have cars, why not buy 10 acres some 50 km further away??? and that first picture also looks like an ant-hip or a hive, people are not supposed to be that symmetrically organized, it's bad for their carma, okay? ok, whatever and the gated community - well, it looks fun (not so much in photos here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_Community). i wonder what's the atmosphere/feel of a typical rich people's gated community. would you want to cry LET ME BREATHE in a month? i have no idea. my aunt visits her cousins in america sometimes, one of them is rather rich and i think she lives in something like a gated community - at least, they have deers strolling into their yard. about how relaxed people are/used to be -- i don't know, i think it's a very complex thing, especially on a cross-cultural level, i guess young people are supposed to be more relaxed in some respects at least, what with liberalism, internet, free flow of information etc. i don't know, really
The developers would've decided that. Twice as many plots on the land they're subdividing means more money for them.
That's middle-class housing, and the usual middle-class couple are both working, meaning no-one to maintain a garden except at the weekend, so a small garden's prefered. The rich upper-classes can afford gardeners though, (or the wife doesn't work), so they do buy plots with a decent amount of land...
Scroll out from most big cities in the West and you'll see that divide - the very rich are the ones who can afford some space in suburbia.
I think it'd be pleasant enough in a gated community. It wouldn't feel very natural though, but then neither is a suburb without gates, so it's a trade-off for security and a place that's clean and nicely maintained.
And I think they're a horrible idea! :-) It's a running away from the real world in my opinion. Shudder!
Money spent putting microchips into dogs would be better spent on registering owners and ensuring they had training in controlling their animals, Marlborough dog breeder and international dog trialist Ken White says.
"Politicians are using scare tactics as a knee-jerk reaction to recent dog incidents. Putting a chip in a dog isn't going to change its behaviour."
All dogs first registered after July 1 this year will have to have to be implanted with a microchip to make it easier to identify the dog and its owner.
Mr White said the move to extend the chipping to farm dogs defied logic.
beautiful. i wonder what street phtographers do in your country? probably they died out along with the street animals/hanged themselves a long time ago!
Actually, I've a Russian photographer on my FL who's living in NZ. See antipodean_wor. Not many photos recently, but if you start a while back, there's plenty. Say from here...
But then the West has exciting cities like Las Vegas (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=las+vegas&ll=36.173773,-115.243492&spn=0.029723,0.077591&t=k) which makes up for it, right?
I'd tend to agree with the point of view you both express here - we have made a choice between maximum security/protection and... life - aware of what we would be gaining, but unaware of what we were losing. And it just looks too late to turn back and find a better balance - since the trend is always to add more and more regulations, or fixed older ones, but hardly to remove them.
I remember while in St Pete being moved practically to tears while walking in a market, with actual people seeling actual food that smelt like food - and lamenting about what we lost. In the other hand, we don't have such a market/pool/theatre collapsing every week and killing 56 people here, guess that's the plus point i can hold on to.
you also don't have the sort of army we do, with tortures/killing sprees, your citizens are not treated like just the sort of shit russians are treated like, plus tb prisons, plus homeless children, plus everything else. i learn only a few days ago that people from the building next door that burnt out last summer ( http://vriad-lee.livejournal.com/190113.html ) are still living in kids' summer camps and hostels around the town. as long as market/pool/theatre roofs don't fall on your head it's a nice country, with a lot of nice people in fact, and when they do -- well, you're fucked but as long as they don't, you might actually risk and choose this sort of unrestrained/uncowed reality, it doesn't look like an impossible choice to me. and what you have seen in petersburg is far from the best stuff russia has to offer if you're after that sort of stuff. petersburg is a big european city after all
I know, I know, but that's actually what makes the comparison sensible, that's where we could look toward, and wonder.. where the heck did we screw it all up ?!
Of course i've been to market places in the asshole of China and Ethiopia as well, been charmed by their lively caractère - have even eaten raw meat there which should give any EU food commissioner an instant heart attack ! - but yeah, what i saw in Piter looked like a nice middle point.
you make me jealous, i want to visit ethiopia some day. you might be right about the nice golden mean, but, aesthetically, ethiopian market place should beat both europe and petersburg. in fact, clean tide europe i see on tv/in pictures, or the sort of neighborhood stillcart showed above must be a hell for anyone artistically inclined? i mean not 'like hell', but just plain hell? how starved would one get from living there. even the good humoured naughtiness typical for civilized coutries, like statue of a pissing dog in the middle of the sidewalk, is sickening, it's so made-up, premeditated. no, really, i have no idea how artists (in the most broad/loose sense of the word) live in those cute european/american cities/neighbourhoods - but i haven't been anywhere and might be missing something important.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 03:02 am (UTC)I suspect your free-market is much more free (and easy) than ours.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 07:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 07:49 am (UTC)Yeah, that is probably the key to it. It does make the place seem somehow more alive than in your typical Western suburbia though, or even most Western cities, where the chance of seeing a car with pigs-heads for sale on its bonnet are kind of rare. I think that's why so many from the West are attracted to your photos. It looks kind of like living in the West, but without the crippling order we've imposed on ourselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 08:30 am (UTC)all those tiny regulations, sense of responsibility, the need to be more positive and what's not! in russia you run more risks i guess, people are less friendly, probably, but at least there's no such constant, stable social pressure, unless you watch tv/read papers. which is only natural since there's no stable society! on the other hand, i know very little about other countries and the feel of them, at least, there are many mellow/ironic/relaxed people from civilized countries, right? probably much more than from russia. so there, no conclusion.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 09:53 am (UTC)http://maps.google.com/?ll=41.569923,-87.80856&spn=0.001722,0.003101&t=k
(Hopefully that's not too slow on dialup.)
That doesn't look like a "gated community" though, which are walled little villages where you're supposidly safe from all the low-life that threatens you.
Umm, a gated community: http://www.fullerlandsales.com/ "God Bless America"...
there are many mellow/ironic/relaxed people from civilized countries, right?
Yeah, though a lot fewer than there used to be, I think. The retired seem relaxed, but the rest seem on a treadmill. In the 50s the typical lifestyle was dad went to work (40 hours a week) and mum stayed home and looked after the house and kids. Now it's closer to both parents working 40 hours a week, though the typical nuclear family of mum, dad and the kids is mostly a myth now, the kids having quite a choice of parents these days. :-) And couples not having kids by choice being more common.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 10:20 am (UTC)and the gated community - well, it looks fun (not so much in photos here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_Community). i wonder what's the atmosphere/feel of a typical rich people's gated community. would you want to cry LET ME BREATHE in a month? i have no idea. my aunt visits her cousins in america sometimes, one of them is rather rich and i think she lives in something like a gated community - at least, they have deers strolling into their yard.
about how relaxed people are/used to be -- i don't know, i think it's a very complex thing, especially on a cross-cultural level, i guess young people are supposed to be more relaxed in some respects at least, what with liberalism, internet, free flow of information etc. i don't know, really
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 11:46 am (UTC)The developers would've decided that. Twice as many plots on the land they're subdividing means more money for them.
That's middle-class housing, and the usual middle-class couple are both working, meaning no-one to maintain a garden except at the weekend, so a small garden's prefered. The rich upper-classes can afford gardeners though, (or the wife doesn't work), so they do buy plots with a decent amount of land...
http://maps.google.com/?t=k&ll=41.522941,-87.931266&spn=0.003446,0.006201&t=k
Scroll out from most big cities in the West and you'll see that divide - the very rich are the ones who can afford some space in suburbia.
I think it'd be pleasant enough in a gated community. It wouldn't feel very natural though, but then neither is a suburb without gates, so it's a trade-off for security and a place that's clean and nicely maintained.
And I think they're a horrible idea! :-) It's a running away from the real world in my opinion. Shudder!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:02 pm (UTC)just how stupid is that. overgown/neglected garden is the best garden anyhow...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:19 pm (UTC)And here's a current NZ news story...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3582063a11,00.html
Money spent putting microchips into dogs would be better spent on registering owners and ensuring they had training in controlling their animals, Marlborough dog breeder and international dog trialist Ken White says.
"Politicians are using scare tactics as a knee-jerk reaction to recent dog incidents. Putting a chip in a dog isn't going to change its behaviour."
All dogs first registered after July 1 this year will have to have to be implanted with a microchip to make it easier to identify the dog and its owner.
Mr White said the move to extend the chipping to farm dogs defied logic.
How far do you think that's off in Russia? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:41 pm (UTC)http://antipodean-wor.livejournal.com/2005/01/13/
You won't see many people though.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:49 pm (UTC)if i weren't on dialup, i'd have a lot of photographers on my fl too!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 01:21 pm (UTC)http://stillcarl.livejournal.com/7282.html
Who was killed by roaming dogs, as it happens. :-(
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 10:55 am (UTC)I remember while in St Pete being moved practically to tears while walking in a market, with actual people seeling actual food that smelt like food - and lamenting about what we lost. In the other hand, we don't have such a market/pool/theatre collapsing every week and killing 56 people here, guess that's the plus point i can hold on to.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 11:12 am (UTC)as long as market/pool/theatre roofs don't fall on your head it's a nice country, with a lot of nice people in fact, and when they do -- well, you're fucked
but as long as they don't, you might actually risk and choose this sort of unrestrained/uncowed reality, it doesn't look like an impossible choice to me. and what you have seen in petersburg is far from the best stuff russia has to offer if you're after that sort of stuff. petersburg is a big european city after all
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 11:29 am (UTC)I know, I know, but that's actually what makes the comparison sensible, that's where we could look toward, and wonder.. where the heck did we screw it all up ?!
Of course i've been to market places in the asshole of China and Ethiopia as well, been charmed by their lively caractère - have even eaten raw meat there which should give any EU food commissioner an instant heart attack ! - but yeah, what i saw in Piter looked like a nice middle point.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 11:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:27 pm (UTC)They don't, they get out - head for the big cities. ie...
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/lou-reed/85278.html
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 12:39 pm (UTC)http://home.no.net/krlars2/smalltown_boy.htm
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-25 01:17 pm (UTC)