wrote:

> On Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 2:58:12 PM UTC-5, wrote:
> >
> > Also, you may want to check out the comment by Conan the Grammarian - he included a link to an article about Boris Yeltsin's 1989 visit to an American supermarket (in Houston?) and how astounded he was.
> >
> > Lenona.
> >
> >
> I didn't read the article but when Khrushchev visited here in the late
> 50's and visited a supermarket he thought it had been staged. He didn't
> believe there was that much food or variety in American grocery stores.


Yup, early (post - Stalin's 1953 demise) Soviet visitors to the US often thought that all that they saw in the US was staged. One Soviet official who landed at Idlewild (now JFK) airport thought that his whole trip into Manhattan had been staged; another on a San Francisco visit thought all the cars on the streets had been placed there for "show". As more Soviets visited the US, they became more sophisticated, and that all the common stuff they saw here - full food markets, cars, department and other stores, etc. - was not staged, but real.

It was part of the whole Russian "Potemkin Village" mentality, that information about the outside world was scarce (heavy censorship), and also that Soviets were constantly told that they had the highest standard of living and that they were the most prosperous country in the world. Eventually by the early - mid 60's, they started to realize that their government was simply lying to them. When the 1939 film "Grapes of Wrath" was finally shown in the USSR, their response was not shock at the poverty, but amazement that the Joads had their own vehicle...

I'm a history buff regarding that early era of US - Soviet cultural exchange, 1959 was really when ordinary Soviets started to think critically about the mis - information they were being fed. The summer 1959 US National Exhibition held in Moscow was a huge deal, it has been stated by some historians that it started "the beginning of the end of the USSR"; here is an article with fascinating pics, including General Mills staff showing Betty Crocker baked goods to Soviets:

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-...ssia-550628823

"Over the course of six weeks during the height of the Cold War, almost three million Soviets visited an exhibition that celebrated America. American kitchens, American art, American cars, and most especially American capitalism. The American National Exhibition in Moscow was a full-court press to convince the Soviet people of American superiority.

It was supposed to be a showcase for how Americans of the 1950s were living and prospering. But like nearly everything American during this time, it was really about selling the future.

[...]

Books would often go missing from the displays, just as the food baked in the kitchens (officially off-limits for sampling by order of Soviet officials) would mysteriously disappear. But the Americans didn't worry too much about the stolen books; they'd brought plenty to replace them with.

The same went for the food. As General Mills notes on its blog, the company shipped seven tons of food to Moscow for the exhibition. A missing plate of brownies here and there was seen by the Americans as a welcome introduction into the world of easy-bake products. To get around the ban on handing out samples, the demo women learned that they could simply turn their back on finished desserts and the crowd would descend on them quickly.

[...]

The April 10, 1959 issue of official Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda didn't mince words when it ran the headline "Is This Typical?" This was only the start of the Soviet propaganda offensive against what was seen as manipulation by the U.S. exhibit to depict a lifestyle far outside the means of the average American. The show hadn't even started yet, but the magazine raised a valid point that would be repeated throughout the six weeks of the exhibit. The Americans were in many ways showing off the two things it sold best: consumer goods, and the future.

According to the Associated Press, the TASS news agency took many issues with the "typical" American homes on display at the exhibition. Special attention was paid of the $13,000 American house (about $100k adjusted for inflation) which was being planned and furnished by Macy's for an additional $5,000 (about $39k adjusted for inflation).

TASS explained, "Many wives of American workers will be surprised indeed to learn that their 'typical' kitchen is fully equipped with the most marvelous latest automatic devices." TASS contended that even if the average worker had $5,000 to spend at Macy's, "he could hardly succeed even for this sum in buying such furniture as is shown by the firm of Macy with the air or propaganda."

"Actually," TASS wrote, "there is no more truth in showing this as the typical home of the American worker than, say, in showing the Taj Mahal as the typical home of a Bombay textile worker, or Buckingham Palace as the typical home of an English miner."

While the furnishings on display may have been a bit extravagant, American home ownership was indeed soaring. In 1960, median household income for American families was $5,620, meaning that a $13,000 house was well within the middle class's reach when they took out a mortgage.

The Soviets may have been correct when they asserted that much of the furniture on display was not within reach of most Americans. But that average house, believe it or not, was actually the norm. Behind the scenes, this fact terrified Soviet officials..."