[HN Gopher] Soviet children's books became collectors' items in ...
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Soviet children's books became collectors' items in India
Author : Thevet
Score : 220 points
Date : 2021-04-18 04:38 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| neeleshs wrote:
| Ah! This brings so many memories. My grandmother bought me some
| of these when I was a kid and they were my all time favorites.
| There used to be book-fairs even in smaller towns like mine and
| bought tons of them. (All in my native tongue, Kannada)
| segalord wrote:
| I remember my mom reading these for me, and I'd go "what kind of
| a name is Ilya?" And years later at University our elective
| humanities professor explained in detail how Soviet and American
| propaganda worked in the older days and that was when I truly
| understood
| jchallis wrote:
| For our engagement , my new fiancee gave me a complete set of the
| Landau-Lifschitz course and I gave her a diamond ring. Both gifts
| were clear, glittering , timeless.
| favadi wrote:
| In Vietnam, at one time, there was a very popular Russian
| children book called "Old Man Khottabych". Aside from the typical
| communist teachings and propaganda, the plot is actually
| interesting and the book is a lot of fun to read.
| mlvljr wrote:
| There is a movie too :)
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| The obvious passion for well-written, physical books made me
| smile. A nice read for a Sunday morning, so thanks.
|
| Here in the US, we're obsessed with copyright and stamping away
| physical books; and replacing them with more ephemeral digital
| "copies" (a huge f** you to Amazon).
|
| As a side note: I remember reading that the Soviet Union and
| India enjoyed a good relationship back in the 1970s and onward. I
| always wondered what sort of impact it had on India.
|
| Another tangent: Some of these books look amazing for someone
| trying to revive his passion for math, decades after college.
| rramadass wrote:
| >Some of these books look amazing for someone trying to revive
| his passion for math, decades after college.
|
| If you have never read any of the Soviet era Science books, you
| absolutely should get hold of some and go through them. They
| were succinct and to the point with the density of information
| being quite high. By comparison, most modern text books are so
| verbose and sometimes dumbed down that it becomes quite a chore
| to sift the wheat from the chaff.
|
| Dover publications has some good ones starting with
| _Mathematics: Its Contents, Methods and Meaning by Kolmogorov
| et.al._ There is also the I.M.Gelfand series; _Functions and
| Graphs_ , _The Method of Coordinates_ , _Algebra_ ,
| _Trigonometry_ etc.
| tarun_anand wrote:
| Absolutely Mir publishers used to sell books for INR 10 in late
| 80s
|
| I am indebted for life to these books.
| moh_maya wrote:
| Yep. Grew up with them, and it was these books that sustained my
| interest and imagination in science.
|
| I still remember a hard-bound, deep blue coloured (roughly)
| notebook sized book that had these amazing DIY projects for
| space, including a rover etc. I don't think I could ever make the
| more complicated ones- they required woodwork etc which I simply
| didn't have access to as a child. But they helped me dream and
| develop an interest in making stuff of my own, and they are one
| of the reasons why I still love tinkering.
|
| I wish I could get hold of that book once again, but I can't even
| recall it's name!
| roystonvassey wrote:
| What a sweetly nostalgic trip back in time through these
| comments. Misha, Irodov and many other Russian children books are
| such a treasured time from my childhood.
|
| If anyone has any scanned copies of Misha, I'd be very grateful
| if you can share please!
| papito wrote:
| Three things the Soviet culture implanted in your brain:
|
| - Books are sacred
|
| - Wash your hands before meals
|
| - Drafts make you sick
| shortlived wrote:
| Take your shoes off indoors.
| kolbusa wrote:
| I moved to the US and I cannot still understand this. House
| == clean, outdoors == dirty. Why keep the shoes on? I had a
| Chinese born landlord who told me that they also take their
| shoes off. Not to mention that I think takin shoes off when
| entering a house is expected in the Japanese culture as well.
| perardi wrote:
| Do we _not_ take off our shoes inside in the US?
|
| I...guess we don't
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition_of_removing_shoes_i
| n...
|
| Strange. I was raised to take my shoes off, and it feels
| commonplace to me to take your shoes off when you go into
| someone else's place. Perhaps this is a regional thing.
| [deleted]
| dinamic wrote:
| Here, in Ukraine, we usually try get rid of the soviet legacy and
| I've never heard about anybody collecting soviet books. They are
| filled with communist propaganda and are not fun to read.
|
| The thing is, they were printed at a massive scale (up to 100s of
| thousands), which doesn't help them in being a valuable
| collectible.
|
| By the way, there is a website where soviet children books
| translated to ukrainian are published with illustrations in case
| anybody is interested in such things:
|
| https://xn--80aaukc.xn--j1amh/
|
| english version (much smaller):
|
| http://freebooksforkids.net
| kgeist wrote:
| Can you name popular children's books with communist propaganda
| in them? I don't remember any.
| versale wrote:
| "Dunno in the sunny city" and "Dunno on the Moon". The latter
| is rather an anti-capitalist satire.
|
| I really love them and managed to buy both books with the
| original illustrations for my kid.
| anthk wrote:
| You have children books being critical on Capitalism here
| in the West too.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| anthk wrote:
| Spivak/Perelman's books on Math have no propaganda.
| 0x737368 wrote:
| It's not everybody in Ukraine that is so froth-mouthed with
| their hate for USSR/Russia that they would get rid of quality
| books just because it's 'Soviet legacy'. Throwing the baby with
| the badwater spites yourself, not USSR.
| devdas wrote:
| There was a fair amount of non-propaganda literature published
| in the USSR as well.
| markvdb wrote:
| There's lots of very negative points rightly to be made about
| the Soviet Union, but lack of investment in high quality
| childrens books is definitely not one of them.
|
| These things were heavily subsidised, so cheap even by USSR
| standards.
|
| I've got a few Latvian language ones I'm particularly fond of.
| A compilation of Baron von Munchhausen stories for example -
| one of them the etymological source of the word
| "bootstrapping", or Astrid Lindgren's Ronja the robber's
| daughter.
|
| Most Latvians I know, especially the ones of Latvian culture
| extraction, have very good reasons not to enjoy their memories
| of the USSR occupation, but childrens books in particular seem
| to be exempt. Within the boundaries the USSR set, there was an
| incredibly rich and high quality production. A sharp contrast
| unfortunately to a lot of what is currently happening in that
| space.
| yantrams wrote:
| I was lucky to get hold of 70 of these books in absolute mint
| condition (except for rusted stapler pins) last year after years
| of futile search in secondhand markets all across India. My dad,
| a book hoarder extraordinaire in his own right, managed to
| connect with a retired journalist who apparently stumbled upon
| them in Nepal and bought them at like less than a dollar a kilo
| or something!
|
| For anyone interested in scanned files of these in Telugu, you
| can get them from my blog here http://linkdot.link/sooviytt-
| prcurnnlu-childrens-books.html#...
|
| https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/ probably has the largest
| collection of many of these books in English and other Indian
| languages. There are tons of children's books from other
| countries too.
| [deleted]
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Holy smokes this is awesome! Kannada being my mother tongue I
| can read (more or less ;-)) Telugu! BTW do you have Stories
| from Russian History? I had its Kannada edition as a child;
| been searching for it for a while. The book title (in Kannada)
| is "Russian Itihasadinda Kathegalu".
| yantrams wrote:
| Yes indeed! Amazing stories and illustrations. Have read this
| book end to end probably a dozen times as a kid :) The
| headings in this book had a Telugu font I'd never seen used
| anywhere else.
|
| I assume you're talking about this one https://sovietbookbugs
| .files.wordpress.com/2014/09/rassian-c...
|
| It is relatively easy to find if you search in the right
| places. Have seen copies of it floating around in many second
| hand shops. I'm pretty sure you can get this in Lenin Centre,
| Vijayawada. I can speak to my dad and see if he can help. You
| can ping me at xhreeha.replace.x.with.s@gmail.com
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Yes! That's the one! Thanks so much :-).
|
| > The headings in this book had a Telugu font I'd never
| seen used anywhere else.
|
| Same for Kannada too and I too have read the book end-to-
| end a dozen or so times, even as an adult :-D.
|
| I'll ping you! Thanks again!
| nsenifty wrote:
| Any chance you are from Mysore? I grew up in Mysore and these
| books were always on sale in the Town Hall building next to
| the city bus stand. I would go there with my mom and spend
| HOURS picking books while she did her other shopping.
| shardulaeer wrote:
| Those looking to buy Soviet era books in Mumbai, check out
| People's Book Store in Fort area (Google maps-
| https://goo.gl/maps/pJd7ve2g68D8AXsK7). Behind racks of Marx
| and Che Guevara are stashed quite some rare books.
|
| I distinctly remember seeing the cover image book (Adventures
| of Denis). Visited sometime in late 2018.
| smg wrote:
| Growing up in India, I had quite a few of these Soviet gems on my
| bookstand. The only thing I had that originated from the West
| were a pair of Levi jeans. I was shocked to find out that a
| system that could make those jeans would win against one that
| made those books. In the early 2000s I was working in SV and
| repeated this remark to a Russian colleague. He told me of course
| the system that made the jeans is superior - he did not get his
| first pair of jeans till he got to the US and the trousers that
| he wore in Russia were absolutely horrible when compared to the
| jeans. Jeans to him were a marvel of engineering. The fact that a
| system could produce affordable jeans that would last for years,
| which people could buy whenever they wanted by strolling into
| their neighborhood shop was a much bigger achievement than state
| sponsored STEM books
| notdang wrote:
| I grew up with plenty of very good Soviet books and without
| Levi jeans.
|
| The jeans were a status symbol, almost impossible to find and
| the price was 1-2-3 salaries of an engineer, teacher or doctor.
|
| Now that I have more access to jeans but having troubles
| finding good books for my kids, I would chose the books over
| the jeans. But I wouldn't go back to USSR.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I remember having a hard-bound Bengali translation of Russian
| folk tales with characters like Baba Yaga, names like
| Alynoushka/Ivanoushka and houses that had feet and turned on
| them. Considering how rich the Bengali language is, it was a
| match made in heaven. I found a nice pdf of 16 Russian folk tales
| for my daughter - each quite detailed - she loves them.
| [deleted]
| truth_ wrote:
| "Kon Se Desher Kon Sagorer Pare"?
|
| I have this one- https://imgur.com/a/keTNqAc
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I had "Rooshdesher Roopokotha".
| [deleted]
| hkrgl wrote:
| There is also a great podcast episode on the cross-cultural
| exchanges between India and Russia -
| https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/from-bombay-with-love...
| sidcool wrote:
| India and USSR had deep ties during the cold war. The US was pro
| Pakistan, which naturally pushed India to ally with Soviet. This
| cultural exchange is obvious.
| rocknor wrote:
| I wouldn't say there were deep ties, but there certainly were
| some. Only older people remember those ties now. You will find
| comments by such people on Youtube clips of old Hindustani
| songs. Not just Russia, they come from other ex-Soviet states
| as well. I've talked to some younger Russians, and they can
| sometimes recognize these tunes, but have no idea about their
| origin.
|
| [1955] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW72kDrJvwA
|
| [1955] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wjGc1zGWBc
|
| [1955] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXxR1Fj-BQ0
|
| [1955] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXLzfldeDcM
|
| [1956] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwZVFw7bhos
|
| [1975] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGYjHQbV1KE
|
| [1982] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUdJQSUcK_Y
| thwoieruwe234 wrote:
| the cultural exchange is actually non-existent - indians know
| next to nothing about Russia. the deep-ties you speak of
| were/are mostly restricted to state, party and intellectual
| capture by the KGB (and the CIA).
|
| indian elites, on the other hand, despite there announced
| loyalties, have always been and will remain anglo-saxon vassals
| - and so will the indian state and people. indeed, even after
| 70 odd years of so-called independence, one is still forbidden
| from using Indian languages in the higher Indian courts, manned
| by the elite brown "anglo" feudals.
| triceratops wrote:
| You sure the reason they still use English is due to being
| "Anglo-Saxon vassals". And not, y'know, the lack of a common
| Indian language that everyone is happy to use? For example:
|
| "The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in
| Devanagari script to be the official language of the union.
| Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for
| official purposes was to cease 15 years after the
| constitution came into effect, i.e., on 26 January 1965. The
| prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the
| non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially Dravidian-
| speaking states whose languages were not related to Hindi at
| all. As a result, Parliament enacted the Official Languages
| Act, 1963, which provided for the continued use of English
| for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965."[1]
|
| Moreover you aren't even right that all higher courts in
| India operate in English.
|
| "in many high courts, there is, with consent from the
| president, allowance of the optional use of Hindi. Such
| proposals have been successful in the states of Rajasthan,
| Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar."[2]
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_stat
| us...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_with_official_stat
| us...
| pm90 wrote:
| Indian elites have evolved over the millennia so categorizing
| them as forever being Anglo Saxon vessels seems to be both
| improbable and a useless assertion to make.
| rizpanjwani wrote:
| marathi is such an interesting language. I wish I had paid
| attention in school.
| croh wrote:
| P L Deshpande is one of the best author in Marathi literature.
| For me the best part of learning Marathi, is reading his
| literature. When reading his book, you will be rolling on the
| floor while laughing and then suddenly he will touch your heart
| such a way that you start crying. What a roller coaster ride !
|
| His real potential was observing individual's
| traits/characterstics and waving story around them. Sadly I
| belive it is very very difficult to translate his work as there
| are lot of cultural references in his writing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purushottam_Laxman_Deshpande
| gumby wrote:
| If you do learn it, you might enjoy reading the poetry of
| Madhav Julian. He was a real lover of Marathi, but also brought
| into his work Pharsi and English elements which might be
| familiar to you.
| astatine wrote:
| I remember traveling exhibitions from Navkarnataka Publications
| which used to be fascinating. Mostly Russian books along with
| very nationalist (in the good sense) literature. Ukrainian Folk
| Tales and many Russian math books. I remember buying a book on
| astronomy - quite possibly of Soviet origin - at one of these
| exhibitions, which introduced me to the delights of the sky.
| kevinkeller wrote:
| > Ukrainian Folk Tales
|
| I happen to have one of those! It's a Kannada translation by
| Raduga. The surreal artwork is etched into my memory still.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/Qs1ZWF8
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Fun fact: Dennis Dragunskiy, the hero of his father's stories, is
| a very real person, now in his late 60s, has turned to literature
| too, and is very active on Facebook writing short stories. He is
| one of the most popular people in the russian Facebook.
| mlvljr wrote:
| Saw him meeting with public at the Saint Petersburg House of
| the Book some years ago :)
| satya71 wrote:
| I had gotten hold of a few Misha books. I think they were
| bilingual. As a result I could read Cyrillic alphabet and Russian
| to some extent. Not any more alas.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Some of the most awesome books I fondly remember from my
| childhood are Soviet ones. One awesome thing about those books
| were that they were translated to regional language _and_ were
| printed /typeset in equally high quality papers and hard bound as
| the original. One reason most comments here are able to relate
| with the post is because those books were accessible to them in
| their mother tongue. Russia/India did a _fabulous_ job in
| translating those books to Indian languages and still maintain
| high quality print and typeset. Unlike now in those days English
| language was not accessible so all the education and learning was
| in the child 's mother tongue.
|
| Physics for Entertainment -- Yakov Perelman [1] is one such book.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.in/Physics-Entertainment-Book-Yakov-
| Perel...
| mavelikara wrote:
| Not just fiction, but Russian technical books were also memorable
| from my childhood in India. Many here would remember their
| struggles with I.E.Irodov's _Problems in General Physics_ [1] as
| much as stories of _Chuk and Gek_ [2], or _Misha_.
|
| [1]: https://archive.org/details/IrodovProblemsInGeneralPhysics
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuk_and_Gek
| rramadass wrote:
| A low cost Indian publisher named "Arihant Publications" has
| published Irodov's (and others) books under "Classic Texts
| Series"; all available on Amazon India.
| xNeil wrote:
| I'm studying for the JEE and Yes! Irodov is a beautiful book.
| That, along with Krotov, tells me Russia must have had an
| excellent program, with their Physics books from the above,
| their Chemistry books from Landau, and their Math Circles.
| truth_ wrote:
| Lev Landau was a Physicist. And I really liked his book on
| Quantum Mechanics.
|
| Landau's books[0] are very famous among advanced undergrads
| and grad students of Physics in India.
|
| Landau also measured the genius of his contemporaries[1]. He
| gave himself a 1.5, and 1 to Schrodinger, Satyen Bose, etc.
| Eisnstein was 0.5. (Lower the better)
|
| He also won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_of_Theoretical_Physics
|
| [1]: https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/landau-genius-
| scale-...
| croh wrote:
| Irodov is one of that must have book for competitive exam but
| very hard
| pm90 wrote:
| Irodov has a reputation for being difficult. I remember that
| if someone could solve a problem from that book, they would
| be considered especially bright.
|
| However I also remember trying the book and after some failed
| starts really getting into it and it became one of my
| favorite books. I believe the difficulty was because the book
| was purely problems, there was almost no context of theory.
| But the problems were _very well designed_ and solving them
| was a joy.
| varjag wrote:
| For sure there were countless jokes by Soviet students at
| the expense of his last name (for _king Herod 's_).
| adiM wrote:
| I remember these short 20-30 page math books written for 6th-8th
| grade students by prominent Soviet mathematicians. Extremely
| clear exposition. About 30 years later, I still remember the
| contents of the book on logarithms, which gave geometric
| interpretation of log as the area under the curve of 1/x, and
| used that to show why log must satisfy properties such as log(ab)
| = log(a) + log(b). As a 12 year old, my mind was blown away and I
| read all such books that I could find, which lead to a lifelong
| passion for mathematics.
| pdimitar wrote:
| I remember those books and I'll always regret that I misplaced
| them.
|
| Do you happen to know a collector who's selling them?
| thwoieruwe234 wrote:
| +1
|
| The books by Soviet authors always seemed so much less verbose
| than those from the West. I particularly appreciated this, as I
| had - and have - poor English ability (like many other
| Indians), but was nevertheless forced into an exclusively
| English based education (also like many other Indians).
|
| There are gems like Spivak from the other side, but I find it
| much rarer. Even papers are annoyingly verbose - almost as if
| to compensate for general lack of novelty.
|
| (forgive the rant).
| javajosh wrote:
| First, I find it hard to believe that someone who can
| correctly construct a phrase like "almost as if to compensate
| for general lack of novelty" to have poor English. Or perhaps
| your definition of "poor" is different than my own.
|
| Second, why not just ignore the verbiage you didn't want or
| need? It's easier to remove exposition if you don't want it
| than to add it in if its missing!
| thwoieruwe234 wrote:
| if someone would mark all the "important" bits in red, I
| could. alas, they don't, and drone on and on and on with
| smattering of important bits thrown in.
|
| for instance, Thomas & Finney's book is what... 2000 pages
| ? In comparison, Piskunov was something like 200-300 pages
| IIRC.
|
| btw phrase usage is not "good" english - it's in fact an
| easy tactic to get around it. this is a very obvious in the
| outputs of Indian state/academia, esp. in the humanities -
| lots of fancy sounding words/phrases, but very often, zero
| actual knowledge. some of the judgments of the indian
| courts, will even make you weep... but i digress.
|
| personally, non-generic non-templated emails still take a
| lot of effort and constant second-guessing.
|
| (this took ~5-10m to write, and probably still has
| grammatical errors and semantics issues).
| javajosh wrote:
| My senior year quantum prof was a Landau student, and he
| was so terse and inscrutable - it was an awful class.
| Given the man's combination of thick Russian accent,
| lisp, and poor English, a bit of redundancy in his
| delivery would have helped!
|
| But I get your point.
| bugzz wrote:
| Do you happen to know what that logarithm book was?
| adiM wrote:
| Thanks to the comment by yantrams:
|
| https://mirtitles.org/2012/09/05/little-mathematics-
| library-...
| sandGorgon wrote:
| Irodov and Crotov ?
| yantrams wrote:
| I highly doubt it. They are problem books and aren't aimed at
| middle school kids. My guess would be the [1] Science for
| everyone pocket books. They fit the description but
| definitely have more than 20-30 pages.
|
| [1] https://mirtitles.org/tag/science-for-everyone/
| adiM wrote:
| Thanks!!!!
|
| I didn't remember the name of the series and this is it.
| Found my favorite logarithm book:
|
| https://mirtitles.org/2012/09/05/little-mathematics-
| library-...
|
| And my memory was hazy. These are 70-80 pages rather than
| 20-30. They seemed like short books when I was reading them
| :-)
| yantrams wrote:
| Ah yes the little mathematics library :) I had a book or
| two from this series but never really got into them. Was
| more into Perelman's books on puzzles and riddles at that
| age. And speaking of pocket science books, my favorite is
| [1] 'Straight Lines and Curves'. Accessible to high
| schoolers with quirky illustrations and introduces many
| interesting concepts.
|
| [1] https://mirtitles.org/2013/10/21/straight-lines-and-
| curves-v...
| pdimitar wrote:
| Do you have links to the math books?
| yantrams wrote:
| https://mirtitles.org/2011/06/02/little-mathematics-
| library/
| dmos62 wrote:
| What a difference it makes when you're thought by someone who's
| passionate about the subject.
| billfruit wrote:
| I would recommend Sergei Mihkalkhov's Disobedience Holiday and
| other children's stories. Soviet children's writing was very high
| quality and at par with what was being written in the west.
| Perhaps the Soviet ones had better art too and were well printed
| and bound. Even the lush Soviet inks had a peculiarly inviting
| smell and eye-popping colour.
| croh wrote:
| Soviet era books always rock. I honestly adore my copy of
| Mathemaics: Its content, methods and meaning.
|
| Getting good books are really difficult these days. Nothing is
| more enjoyable than having your Sunday coffee while reading a
| good book.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > Mathemaics: Its content, methods and meaning.
|
| Seconded.
|
| This[1] is a fabulous book that teaches history of mathematics
| _and_ explains the meaning of mathematics that goes beyond the
| superficial.
|
| https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/mathematics-its-conten...
| andi999 wrote:
| Can you be more specific about the mathematics book, I d like
| to take a look. (like title author publisher or any other
| pointer)
| croh wrote:
| Book is a collaborative effort of many mathematicians from
| different soviet regions
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Content-Methods-
| Meaning-V...
| sn41 wrote:
| There is a great "origin story" for "Mathematics: Its content,
| methods and meaning". Kolmogorov initially read a great deal of
| mathematics by reading encylopedias like one by Brockhaus and
| Efron. ( see, e.g. Tikhomirov "The life and work of Andrei
| Nikolaevich Kolmogorov", 1988 Russ. Math. Surv. 43 1, Page 8)
| This contributed to his great breadth of knowledge in
| mathematics.
|
| He later felt that the encylopedia articles were too brief, and
| must be somewhat more elaborate. He spent a great deal of
| effort in "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia", and wrote some
| classic articles like the one on "Probability Theory". Later,
| with other distinguished mathematicians like Ladyzhenskaya and
| Sobolev, he formulated the great tri-part volume "Mathematics:
| Its content, methods and meaning". Great for a budding
| researcher in mathematics.
|
| A modern successor to this kind of effort is "The Princeton
| Companion to Mathematics", which is an encylopedia of
| mathematics for the mathematician.
|
| Another historical anecdote is Kolmogorov's famous visit to
| India. I have heard Soviet mathematicians who were students at
| that time, asking excitedly about his visit, like did he have
| to sit on top of trains? Kolmogorov laughed and said that the
| trains were quite comfortable. An amusing pic has Kolmogorov in
| dhoti and kurta, with the Indian statisticians standing around
| him with pants and shirts: [1]
|
| [1] http://bhavana.org.in/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/11/KolmogorovV...
| croh wrote:
| Thanks. Really appreciate this note about history. By the way
| Bhavana Magazine looks cool. Never heard of it before.
| rramadass wrote:
| Great anecdote and excellent picture!
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Dang, where do I find them? I have Soviet propaganda posters and
| some random Soviet memorabilia.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CNk1TuBlmSZ
|
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CNnigVUlGDG
|
| https://imgur.com/a/KPu6qIo
| airhead969 wrote:
| I just bought a Soviet watch and some records.
| [deleted]
| fdffff wrote:
| yakov perelman - mathematics can be fun.
|
| I still remember the sense of wonder and deeper understanding
| that this book provided, which led to interest in math and cs.
|
| Found it on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Can-Fun-
| Yakov-Perelman/dp...
|
| We had some more similar books growing up in 80s, but this was
| the best for me.
| zem wrote:
| check this thread out!
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8486515
| carlob wrote:
| I was a physics student in Italy in the early '00 and math and
| physics MIR books in Italian were beginning to be hard to find as
| newer editions were coming out. I remember the feeling of pride
| when I snagged a copy of a book on calculus of variations for a
| couple of euros. I still think the graphic design was amazing
| [0].
|
| Obviously Landau-Lifshitz was also a must read (though it was
| starting to show its age in some subjects). I also recently found
| a MIR Russian translation of Gardner in a market in Kyiv
| (illustrated hardcover for under $2...).
|
| [0] https://www.ebay.it/itm/Edizioni-MIR-Krasnov-Calcolo-
| delle-V...
| gumby wrote:
| One thing I loved about visiting relatives in India in the 70s
| was the exciting soviet influence which was not available in the
| west. "Cosmonauts visit Delhi" screamed a newspaper headline that
| made me beg to go visit Delhi. I've never forgotten that.
|
| As an adult, I of course realized the Soviet Union was only
| interesting because I wasn't getting a full picture, but that is
| true of a lot of things I suppose.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"As an adult, I of course realized the Soviet Union was only
| interesting because I wasn't getting a full picture"
|
| If you get "full picture" it is still interesting. They've done
| some horrible things, some meh thing and some absolutely
| amazing and beautiful things. Proportions of those of course
| depends on time period.
|
| It is then up to the individual to realize what they see, how
| and what they can have from looking at it. If one wants to find
| crap they'll find it everywhere and the opposite.
| gumby wrote:
| I should probably have used the word "paradise" rather than
| "interesting". My mistake.
| abhijat wrote:
| I loved a hardcover book as a child called dada ka chashma. I
| remembered that book seemed to be from Soviet union. I just
| searched for it and it's called grandpa's glasses by Georgi
| Yurmin.
|
| https://archive.org/details/GrandpasGlasses/mode/1up
| [deleted]
| Ice_cream_suit wrote:
| A travelling Russian bookshow came regularly to my medical school
| in Vellore.
|
| They had great books on physics and electronics.
| sidm83 wrote:
| I have faint memories of reading Misha comics in English when I
| had just about started reading. Do remember enjoying it along
| with other Indian content in Hindi like Champak/Chandamama but
| unlike these we maybe stopped getting supplies of these later
| with the USSR implosion as I don't remember coming across them
| later.
| truth_ wrote:
| Reading Russian fairy tales is one of the fondest memories of my
| childhood. So many beautiful, lively pictures, and unique stories
| made my slow and hot Indian afternoons enjoyable.
|
| Such books had very good Bengali translations printed on very
| expensive papers with expensive ink which Indian publishers could
| only dream of even 10 years ago.
|
| My state (WB, IN) was ruled by Communists for 34 years and we got
| book printed in Russia in extremely low prices (subsided by
| USSR).
|
| Here's some pictures from one of such a book sitting in my shelf
| right now-
|
| https://imgur.com/a/keTNqAc
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