Are the 'Sovoks' of Eastern Europe equivalent to our Boomers? Surely seems so by the evidence.
More than any other generation, the Soviet Generation is largely monolithic in its views and attitudes because their source of information was standardized and they did not have access to alternative media. This makes analyzing them quite easy, although it makes conversing with them rather tedious at times — you know what they’re going to say before they even formulate the thought in their heads.
It is worth mentioning that these people are often pejoratively referred to as the Sovok Generation, and when people in Eastern Europe refer to “sovoks” or the state of being “savok-like” they are referring to Soviet attitudes, values, and ways of doing things. It’s not a very nice word, but it’s also not quite at the level of being a curse or a slur. It is used in much the same way as the phrase “Ok, Boomer” is used by Millennials to deride their parents’ generation and their values.
A sovok, of course, is a broom in Russian and for some reason, it became popular to refer to Soviet nostalgists as sovoks, probably because of their tendency to deny that anything bad was happening during Soviet Union days. As an example, if someone were to bring up the existence of the archipelago of gulags in Siberia that the Soviet Union had created, the sovok would deny that such a thing existed and simultaneously insist that the people in them deserved to be incarcerated before just sweeping the discussion under the rug, as it were.
Anyway, because of their demographic weight, almost all culture in Eastern Europe revolves around them and their views on the world and their tastes. Because they remain committed and dedicated TV watchers, all official propaganda is broadcast with them in mind. As a result, you get non-stop state-funded dramas about World War II that play on repeat almost continually, with barely any commercial breaks. Spend some time living with these folks and you get used to the non-stop rat-at-tat of machine-gun fire wafting through the paper-thin commieblock walls and angry German barking noises coming from the TV. It is only interrupted occasionally by those god-awful “narodinye” music concerts that feature singers in their 60s singing love songs from better days and commercials advertising laxatives and the services of private health spas.
Hey, what can I say? The TV people clearly know their target demo.
