Xref: utzoo comp.misc:4898 talk.politics.soviet:993
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!pikes!udenva!ijohnson
From: ijohnson@udenva.cair.du.edu (ILENE JOHNSON )
Newsgroups: comp.misc,talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: The Russians are coming (to the usenet)
Message-ID: <11218@udenva.cair.du.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 89 16:56:56 GMT
References: <see> <subjects> <USSR> <.... and ICC ... in comp.misc@....UUCP> <and> <ICC> <... in comp.misc@...UUCP> <in> <comp.miscmisc@comp.UUCP> <1405@orion.cf.uci.edu>
Reply-To: ijohnson@udenva.UUCP (Ilene K. Johnson)
Organization: Univ. of Denver, CO, USA
Lines: 49

Followup-To: 
Distribution: 
Organization: U of Denver
Keywords: Russians, ICC

In article <1405@orion.cf.uci.edu> dlawyer@balboa.eng.uci.edu (David Lawyer) writes:
>I'm told that the (Soviet) ICC (International Computer Club) is
>currently making arrangements to obtain a news feed.  So you may expect
>Russians (and other nationalities from the USSR) to be online in the
>
>It has been alleged that it is against the law in the USSR for an
>ordinary citizen to own a computer printer.  I am very sceptical as to
>the truth of this statement and perhaps when the Russians are on we can
>find out about this.  If it is true, we should try to do something

I just returned from 7 months in the Soviet Union.  It is ABSOLUTELY TRUE 
that private citiizens in the USSR are NOT ALLOWED to own a computer printer. 
The government in the Soviet Union wants to control the distribution of 
all printed matter.  For this same reason, xerox machines are very very 
restricted.  

>about it.  I infer that many people on the net are not up to date on
>recent events and changes in the USSR and hopefully having them on the
>net will help.

I think I'm pretty up to date on the events in the USSR.  I'm fluent in 
Russian and spoke to many many people.  I travelled from Leningrad to 
Khabarovsk(thats near China).  My biggest frustrastion in coming back 
to the states is that people here think there are more changes 
occuring than are actually happening.  Most of it is ALL talk.  
This computer thing is a case in point.  It is also, BTW much more 
difficult to get permission to have any kind of demonstration.  This 
law was passed in October along with the computer restrictions.  
>
>
>  There is going to be a big language
>problem since most Russians don't know English very well (if at all).

	There probably won't be such a big language problem.  MOst of 
computer people read English fairly well even if they have terrible 
speech.  I was in the Soviet Union with a travelling computer exhibit 
and met many specialists who knew English well enough to read technical 
material and well enough to communicate on the net if necessary.  Its 
true, their spoken English was terrible. 

	BTW, there is much interest in the Soviet Union in AI.

Ilene K. Johnson 
ijohnson@udenva