Born in the USSR

You wondered why we were (and maybe remain) the most reading nation? And why do so many scientists, mathematicians, even abroad have painfully familiar names and surnames? Why is not one loud IT project from WinAmp, through Google and many others, for example, BitCoin could not do without the same names?

I was the other day with a child in the pool and saw two kids talking in Russian. So somewhere near must be their parent. I like to try to guess the appearance of fellow countrymen . In the mass of parents was a woman with a tablet, in general, no different. The only thing is that it was not an ipad or a tablet, but an electronic black-and-white reader. At first I did not attach any importance to this. But then, when it turned out that this is just the mother of one of the Russian-speaking boys, I thought.

I thought: was the CCCP really the most reading nation? And the main thing is why and where does such a love for books come from? I saw an article somewhere that statistically it seems like Americans even read more, which is doubtful. Buying a lot of books, I doubt read about. But this is not the most interesting. And I was puzzled more why, after all, in the USSR and by inheritance in Russia they read so much.

If you look at the story, it turns out a strange picture. Tsarist Russia was in the main mass (excluding the idle prowling elite) a very uneducated even illiterate agrarian country. Then the revolution thundered and most of the literate and educated elite voluntarily left it, some were forced to leave. Brutal and not the best (often not educated) representatives of the population came to power. Which 70 years physically destroyed, rotting, and so on the remnants of the intelligentsia. That is, if there was a genotype that was especially prone to genius, it was statistically nullified. Those who took the baton did not care much about preserving the wealth of the nation and indirectly contributed, at best, to the rapid leakage of remnants from their remnants from the country.
But the Bolsheviks and the authorized Lunacharsky still did something very positive. This is a colossal program to eradicate illiteracy and universal compulsory education. This is a very difficult and costly business and the tsarist regime, like the ones in other countries, did not do it not only for reasons of saving the treasury. Dark (mostly) people are easier to manage. As they say now: this topic has long been cleared by the church. The Bible was not specifically translated into local languages, so that only knowledgeable Latin, Greek, and others. The elite could read the original source (already a dozen times edited and far from the original texts). Even in India, Sanskrit was the language of the higher castes.
')

Knowledge is power!

The Bolsheviks needed to somehow raise and educate the loyal and loyal masses. They decided to use education for propaganda and, together with education, introduce their ideology into the subcortex of the masses. Therefore, they did not stint and unwound a huge flywheel. Education was politically one-sided, but it was very good and successfully implemented in all regions and graduates of rural schools could enroll in abstruse institutes and universities. And this is not because the level of the latter was low (it was just as compared to what it is now), but due to the fact that education even in rural schools was good. What is the result?

Let's start by reading. The result was a huge country with a high level of literacy and, at the same time, a closed curtain, mono politics and, to put it mildly, a poor adult entertainment and leisure industry. Yes, the films were, of course, good ones among them, orchestras, yes theaters and the famous ballet. But everything was subjected to the most severe, mostly political, but fortunately and moral censorship. Films are very filtered. The same music, either explicit propaganda “My address is not a house or a street”, or less obvious “Grass near a house”, or classical. And it is not surprising that many have chosen, and out of habit, they still choose the classical one, as something beautiful and not touched by censorship. We will return to classical music later.

For children, on the contrary, there was an excellent system of leisure and development, which, with all its politicity and shortcomings, turned out to be much more moral and better than Western alternatives, or rather their absence. The children were busy (and this may be the most important thing), they could do for free what is available only to very wealthy families in the west. Yes, of course, there was one-sidedness and inferiority of that system. But the benefits are also huge. In addition, there was not such a bad informal leisure - Yards. Yes, they fought there, offended the small and the weak, tried wine and smoking, but nevertheless, I spent a lot of time on my own, being physically active in the fresh air and in the company of uneven-aged neighbors. Everyone has different memories and sediment from the courtyards. I also have a lot of negativity left, but compared to today's alternatives, even in the CIS (I’m not talking about foreign countries), I think most of those over 35 would agree that the courtyards were great. We are again distracted from the initial topic.

So with all the world around it was quite gray and even boring, not only because of the empty, monotonous store shelves. For adults and children, much if it was not closed and not available, like traveling outside the country (and the country was very underdeveloped and difficult in comparison with the west), then it was very predictable and inconvenient. It is very difficult to put it in words.

The most important thing is that you realized that almost nothing depends on you and your efforts, from salary to housing. Everything is very limited. Especially children are sensitive to restrictions, they want everything at once (and cartoons are not 15 minutes a day and popsicle and soda and of course toys). So, it was all this that became the prerequisites for such a mass exodus to other realities. I mean, first of all, reading fiction, especially fiction. It was sometimes the only way to get a vivid impression. Of course, some left (and continue to leave) differently. Many, even intelligent people, combined books and alcohol in different proportions. For example, as a reflection of the situation, the Strugatskys (not Yerofeyev) in the novel could have quite positive protagonist, a forever drunken intellectual. This word is interesting: “drunk”.

So, let's look further. Where did the people of the country prefer to direct their thoughts and time to a large experiment instead of eagerly building a bright collective future of communism? Study (in general and the exact sciences in particular), books, sports, classical music (for children learning music), hobby (for children countless circles). Let's see what came out of each of them.
- Study . Very strong and massive: mathematical, physical, chemical, engineering and programmer (as a result of the combination of the previous ones) schools. Respectively, which led after a while to a huge number of highly qualified specialists in the relevant areas. Chess can also be included here.

- Books . Mass reading and love for him. Which was transferred to children who grew up in a new environment. And some have gone so far that they run with wooden swords through the suburban forests in search of elves from a nearby forum ...

- Sport . All that is needed for the country to have a strong hockey team is: a negative temperature in its greater territory 4-5 months per year, flooded boxes in each yard, the absence of game consoles and the swan lake across all channels. (Of course a controversial statement)

- Classical music . She was loved because of the fact that she was of high quality and without propaganda. Children were en masse to music schools, which provided unrealistically high-quality, deep, and advanced music education in comparison with Western analogues.

- Hobby . Well, this is generally a topic of separate volumes. But the most interesting thing is that in the absence of industry (or lack of) source materials for the realization of creativity, part (sometimes more important) of creativity was the use of ingenuity and social connections to make or extract the necessary materials to create crafts. Radio components on the jacket's turn in “Ivan Vasilyevich” have already become classics, which are hard to believe for those who did not find it, but that was exactly the case.

Unfortunately, few of these assets remain to this day, but fortunately enough remains to notice the Russians on pleasing signs in a crowd of foreigners.

Now think about what is happening now with yours, your loved ones and children , time and attention and goals in modern society? Where are the vectors of development?