What My Family Used to Watch in the Soviet Union

CORRECTIONS: 1. Thank you to those who pointed out that I oversimplified my description of India's economic system after independence, at minute 1:04. India is a country with a mixed socialist-capitalist economy, and it leaned more towards socialism from 1947 until 1991. 2. Thanks, also, to those who told me in the comments that I used Nepalese music at some points in the video when I was actually talking about India, I believe the songs are at minutes 1:00, 2:15 and 3:17. I'm glad there are viewers who are pointing these mistakes out to me so I can learn from them, as long as it's constructive criticism and as long as you're civil about it. If you find anything else that you feel like it misrepresents your culture or your country's history, please tell me so I can write the corrections here for new viewers to see.

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I am from a coal mining town in India in State of Odisha. My grandfather was a teacher but had learned Russian because back then Russian officials came regularly to our town to assist in surveying coal and training officers at Coal mining companies. Such events reflect the deep nature of engagement we had back in the day !

People in Moscow thronged up in streets when Raj Kapoor first had a public event in USSR. The babushkas really did love him back in those days :D

There used to be Soviet Folklore printed in Indian languages available to my parents’ generation. My father still has a collection of Russian folk tales in Bengali, printed from Soviet Russia.

Growing up in 80s India, I had pen pals in the USSR that I found via magazines like Sputnik and Misha. We used to write to each other to find out about our cultures but also to exchange stamps. We always used to go out and buy the best stamps to go with those letters. There was this one time when I had to go looking for a Russian translator just to understand what was written to me. You reminded me of fun times.

My dad grew up reading translated versions of children's stories from the USSR back in the '80s. He says that you could find these translated versions for cheap here in India.

My parents told me once how much the Soviet Union was popular here in Kolkata, India. They used to have these circuses which came from the USSR and my parent's generation went to watch those every weekend or so.

Hi, I am from India. From what I have heard from my parents and elders, Soviet folklore, science fiction books and magazines were quite popular back then. I like watching Soviet films and melodramas. Personally, I would say that the film 'I'm Cuba' was pretty impactful, sad that it never received the recognition it deserved.

Hello from India! I visited Russia in 2018 for the world cup and the last thing i expected was people talking to me about old bollywood movies and Mithun Chakraborty from Disco Dancer 😂 This world is a weird place and as big as it is, sometimes it reminds you of how small it can be.

Ayo, Mithun da (Lead actor of Disco Dancer) had that 70s rizz

One of my classmates spent three years in Uzbekistan. He said that shopkeepers wouldn’t charge him when he said he was Indian and believed him when he said he was Shah Rukh Khan’s neighbour 😂 Seems like Bollywood is still popular there.

When I saw the thumbnail the first thought that came to my mind was Mithun Chakraborty joined CPM

I grew up reading Soviet children's books of folk tales from various regions of the Soviet Union. These books were printed on very nice paper and were available cheaply in India. I still have some of them in my book collection.

Wow, I’m from India, I didn’t know that Mithun Da was so popular in the Soviet Union❤….Disco Dancer was composed by a famous music director Bappi Lahiri ….he passed away a few years ago…please show Bappi some love too dear Soviet people

in 2011, i visited st petersburg and my host, an elderly russian man perfectly sang raj kapoor songs in the evening . Jimmy Jimmy, not quite popular in India since the late 80s is ubiquitous in the post soviet countries even today.

Thanks!!! Wow what memories. As a child growing up in 1980’s New Delhi, the Ruski cultural exchange was vivid - our school was visited by USSR cosmonauts and we were given copies of a kids magazine called “Misha”. My parents worked for the central government and we used to go watch Russian circus, Bolshoi theater, pop music and many other events held in Delhi and at their Embassy. Many Indians forget the help USSR gave to India from 1950-1990. Agriculture, food grains, science, mining, steel, space program, military, naval, even Television and arts. In return USSR got way less. We will never forget that help. ❤

For those who don't know, Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath tagore also fond of Russia. Rabindranath tagore have an elaborate travelogue about Russia and Satyajit Ray many times told how Russian innovation in Filmmaking Inspired him. Sadly the degradation of Film and film appreciation are so drastic. In that era Arts was for Art's sake. Now from writing to film, everything is about making money. Now in West Bengal we don't have such directors who will be remember for their contribution to Cinema. Currently there are actually two directors whose work will be written in Film history- But sadly 99.99% Indians don't even know their names- Ashis Avikuntak and Amit dutta.

I recently recovered a magazine paper from 70s. It was from सोवियत नारी (Soviet Woman). The page held instructions to weave a cardigan. Now the page of this magazine I retrieved was from a very old book belonging to my father. He later told me that this magazine, apart from its content, also use to have the best quality paper which was ideal to cover the books temporarily. And believe me it indeed was. The page quality to this day felt astounding.

Wow , i knew that Late Raj Kapoor films were quite famous in Russia in 50s and 60s but Disco Dancer 😂 Bollywood of 60s and 70s was all about song and dance and over the top fight scenes and unique villains. We still have retained a few of those aspects but now its more small town stories or a villain from Pakistan.