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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Stalin had a guy (Anastas Mikoyan) whose only job was to go to America and copy how they make hamburgers

Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social

Sebastian Gorka at the 2019 CPAC convention: “they want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved.”

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

The USSR had a love-hate relationship with the USA, and admired many things about American industry. Uncle Sam (paid with expropriated Ukrainian grain and Kazakh beef, leading to great famines) was happy to oblige in all things except naval engineering, which is why the Red Navy was so shit.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

One of the things that sticks with me is the USSR trying to convince Americans they had better apartments with better kitchens because the Soviet kitchens were so small housewives didn't need to move to reach everything, which the government argued was "labor saving"

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

This led to some fascinating doublethink moments starting in the mid-30s (when Stalin had many experts, trained by American specialists at significant cost to the state, shot as spies) and continuing into the Cold War era. The hamburger became "kotleta" — de-foreignized, beyond reproach.

Pavel@spavel.bsky.social

Of course, during the Cold War ketchup disappeared from store shelves for ideological reasons, replaced with euphemistic names like "krasnodar sauce" or "spicy sauce" made with tomato and apple puree. Real ketchup could only be acquired from Bulgaria until the 90s.

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