Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears, But It Is A Little Worried About Syphilitic Jeans

Urban legends of the Soviet Union.

Comments

[Ken Shultz]

I'd heard from people who'd traveled to Moscow back in the good ol' days that everywhere they went, somebody would come up and offer to buy the jeans they were wearing.

They just loved them some Levis.

[Ken Shultz]

I mean, there's gotta be a whole back catalog of urban legends about STDs.

There was even a Seinfeld episode about the girl whose boyfriend told her she got it from driving her dad's tractor in a bathing suit...

I mean, come on! Married people + STDs = Urban Legends...

No, no, honey, I didn't cheat on you! I must have gotten them when I bought that pair of jeans from the American! Damn Capitalists!

[Jennifer]

These are no worse than American urban legends: if a mass murderer is locked in an asylum for the criminally insane and then loses his hand in a tragic accident, the state will replace his hand with a sharp, shiny hook just in time for him to escape the asylum and roam lovers' lanes looking for randy teens to butcher.

[Aresen]

The link references 'underwater tanks' as a Soviet Urban legend.

IIRC, the Soviets did experiment with snorkel-equiped tanks for river crossings.

Sadly for the occupants, they worked as well as most Soviet technology.

[Mad Ivan]

Uh, pretty much any modern tank has a snorkel and can cross rivers.
(BTW, last time Soviet technology was pitted against civilized European weaopnry, it did not go too well for the Germans. It only improved since then)

[Death Panelist]

Fourth legend: Ivan Drago punching at 30,000 psi. That was clearly myth.