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Edwird -> RE: Trump Tells his Supporters stop harrassing Minorities (11/15/2016 1:37:09 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Dvr22999874
Their manufactured goods were mainly crap and many years behind the times, unless they had used a western or Asian product, back-engineered it and made a few slight changes to it and claimed it as their own. Their tanks and warplanes were good.
Ah, but the arts ...
Back in my show biz days I got to work the Moscow Ballet (props) and the St. Petersburg Orchestra. The ballet company had each a male and female dance member defect the previous night after a show in Dallas, Texas (so, awhile ago eh?) so things were just a tad edgy, but not much. Their security guys were more obvious but that was about it. Tremendous show, tremendous body control, athleticism, etc. Just like in the sports/gymnastics/skating I think they got them at 4yrs. old and that was life for the ones who made it.
Not long before the Berlin wall came down (Der Fall der Mauer) The St. Petersburg visited. I was local crew chief, and took direction from the orchestra's road manager who spoke ~ five words of English. It was comedy day, watching his communicative pointing and histrionics while talking, and me trying to understand it. He saw a sand bag counterweight hanging about head level and said "kick boxing?" with a smile on his face as he jabbed at it a couple of times; two of his five words. He liked to talk (of course!), and with pen and paper, drawing stick figures and numbers, conveyed to me that he had a wife and two girls, 8 and 12. He somehow told me that he wanted to go to a store that had clothes, then said questioningly "Family Dollar?" Another two of his five words, describing a discount store selling low quality cheap stuff. The orchestra members had hot plates and cooked their own food in the hotel rooms to save money. Musicians in one of the best orchestras in the world. The USSR was definitely out of money near the end.
They were fantastic, in any case. Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead is the only piece I can specifically remember, but it's an almost other-worldy experience hearing an orchestra that good in live performance.
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