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Sadly, Bollywood has degraded by its association with western culture which is indirectly hurting Indian society

People in Moscow thronged up in streets when Raj Kapoor first had a public event in USSR. The babushkas really did love him back in those days :D

There used to be Soviet Folklore printed in Indian languages available to my parents’ generation. My father still has a collection of Russian folk tales in Bengali, printed from Soviet Russia.

Growing up in 80s India, I had pen pals in the USSR that I found via magazines like Sputnik and Misha. We used to write to each other to find out about our cultures but also to exchange stamps. We always used to go out and buy the best stamps to go with those letters. There was this one time when I had to go looking for a Russian translator just to understand what was written to me. You reminded me of fun times.

When I saw the thumbnail the first thought that came to my mind was Mithun Chakraborty joined CPM

One of my classmates spent three years in Uzbekistan. He said that shopkeepers wouldn’t charge him when he said he was Indian and believed him when he said he was Shah Rukh Khan’s neighbour 😂 Seems like Bollywood is still popular there.

Hi, I am from India. From what I have heard from my parents and elders, Soviet folklore, science fiction books and magazines were quite popular back then. I like watching Soviet films and melodramas. Personally, I would say that the film 'I'm Cuba' was pretty impactful, sad that it never received the recognition it deserved.

My dad grew up reading translated versions of children's stories from the USSR back in the '80s. He says that you could find these translated versions for cheap here in India.

My parents told me once how much the Soviet Union was popular here in Kolkata, India. They used to have these circuses which came from the USSR and my parent's generation went to watch those every weekend or so.

I grew up reading Soviet children's books of folk tales from various regions of the Soviet Union. These books were printed on very nice paper and were available cheaply in India. I still have some of them in my book collection.

I am from a coal mining town in India in State of Odisha.

You have summoned Indian audience successfully

Hello from India!

Wow, I’m from India, I didn’t know that Mithun Da was so popular in the Soviet Union❤….Disco Dancer was composed by a famous music director Bappi Lahiri ….he passed away a few years ago…please show Bappi some love too dear Soviet people

Ayo, Mithun da (Lead actor of Disco Dancer) had that 70s rizz

Thanks!!! Wow what memories. As a child growing up in 1980’s New Delhi, the Ruski cultural exchange was vivid - our school was visited by USSR cosmonauts and we were given copies of a kids magazine called “Misha”. My parents worked for the central government and we used to go watch Russian circus, Bolshoi theater, pop music and many other events held in Delhi and at their Embassy. Many Indians forget the help USSR gave to India from 1950-1990. Agriculture, food grains, science, mining, steel, space program, military, naval, even Television and arts. In return USSR got way less. We will never forget that help. ❤

in 2011, i visited st petersburg and my host, an elderly russian man perfectly sang raj kapoor songs in the evening . Jimmy Jimmy, not quite popular in India since the late 80s is ubiquitous in the post soviet countries even today.

I recently recovered a magazine paper from 70s. It was from सोवियत नारी (Soviet Woman). The page held instructions to weave a cardigan. Now the page of this magazine I retrieved was from a very old book belonging to my father. He later told me that this magazine, apart from its content, also use to have the best quality paper which was ideal to cover the books temporarily. And believe me it indeed was. The page quality to this day felt astounding.

When I was growing up, I remember seeing a lot of books on popular science, geography, folk tales, etc. from "Raduga Publishers Moscow" at my home in English and Bengali. They had fantastic colours, beautiful prints and the page and binding quality was something way above a lower middle class/middle class Indian family could afford.