Silver Cat
Gold Member
Putin's achievement is that the Russians have enough of money to buy all this stuff. In mid-1980s consumption was quite low (especially if we are talking about food, cars, tobacco, other goods)...These years went through mid-1980s (though, the last years werent actually Brezhnev's). It is ridiculous to compare those years and the current ones, especially regarding TVs and gadgets. That is not Putin's achievements, these things are now available in the most post-Soviet countries.In narrow meaning of the 'gold years' - (VIII-th five-year plan) 1966-1970 were pretty nice, but not even close to the current level of consumption:The 'gold years' of Brezhnev's rule werent too bad in this regard, either.In fact, the Russians never lived better than in the era of Putin's rule.It depends on what you consider as nation's/people's interests. If building a corrupt system of power with pocket oligarchs and billions of dollars flowing abroad annually can be called that, than yes, he has made great achievements in that.didn't say he wasn't an authoritarian strongman. I said he tries to advance his nation's/people's interests.
Do you even understand what that means?
- almost no tropical fruits, good alcohol, little amount of good tobacco, tea and coffee.
- little quantity of cars, TVs and other gadgets.
- not sufficient amount of houses.
- no international tourism.
First of all, there are new "science-towns" and industrial centers- Skolkovo, Innopolis, Koltsovo, etc... Second, the Soviet industrial and technological evolution has been grown on the basis of Russian Empire with the significant help of foreign, first of all, American, engineers (as well as the Russians done their bit in the rise of America). There is nothing really "new" in the world.Basically, the core distinction between Brezhnev's USSR and Putin's Russia is that the former was really building new industrial and scientific centers, the Soviet science and education were really at a high level for their time. Virtually all that Russia has now is thanks to the base which was laid at those times and earlier.