back
4 comments
That's the funniest thing how USSR still existed when videocassettes became a thing.

If you were a rare and highly valued type of person who travelled abroad, with some luck you could bring a video player with you on your return.

USSR even shipped its own VC players and sold them for something like 2 years of median wage. Go figure if that's how communism should look like.

Improptu cinemas were the earliest example of Soviet small business - you only need a large room, a TV, VC player and a couple of benches. Repertoire included American action films such as Rambo and erotic movies - latter could get you behind bars. In fact even former could, as most ways of making money outside of an official job were explicitly prohibited up and until ~1987.

That’s seriously insane to think about living under.
relevant: https://radiolab.org/episodes/mixtape-cassetternet
I believe they had scheduled Spectrum program transmissions on radio in Yugoslavia - read on HN about it.