X-Nico

8 unusual facts about Eastern bloc


Borduria

In The Calculus Affair (1956), Borduria is depicted as a stereotypical half-Eastern Bloc and half-fascist country complete with its own secret police (ZEP) (led by Colonel Sponsz) and a fascist military dictator, Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch, who promotes a Taschist ideology.

In Tintin post-war stories it's depicted as a typical Eastern Bloc country.

CinEast

The CinEast film festival is dedicated to presenting the current film productions from countries of Central and Eastern Europe, formerly belonging to the so-called Eastern Bloc.

Hallstein Doctrine

The Federal Republic of Germany did not recognize the German Democratic Republic and maintained diplomatic relations with neither the German Democratic Republic nor the other Communist states of Eastern Europe.

Keston Institute

Later it broadened its purview to include formerly communist countries with its main concerns being the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.

Round Table Talks

The Round Table Talks were a series of negotiations that took place in several countries of the Eastern Bloc between Communists and the opposition.

Tamta

Greek media outlets also demanded that ERT choose Tamta to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 following suspicions of favoritism from Eastern Bloc countries in 2008 where Kalomoira finished in 3rd place.

West Germany

In 1973, official East German sources adopted it as a standard expression and other Eastern Bloc nations soon followed suit.


9×18mm Makarov

During the latter half of the 20th Century it was a standard military pistol cartridge of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, analogous to the 9×19mm Parabellum in NATO and Western military use.

Aérospatiale Super Frelon

In Columbia Pictures' 1988 Soviet/Afghanistan War drama The Beast, the Super Frelon was used to represent Communist-bloc helicopters, being that no examples of Soviet aircraft were available for use due to the existence of the Iron Curtain, which would collapse three years later.

Boris Meissner

Boris Meissner (August 10, 1915 Pskov - September 10, 2003 Cologne) was a German lawyer and social scientist, specializing in international law and Eastern European history and politics.

Dornier Do 31

In the early 1960s, the Luftwaffe became increasingly concerned that its airfields were vulnerable to air attack from Eastern Bloc forces and actively researched the possibility of dispersed operations which included flying from Autobahnen but required aircraft with STOVL capabilities.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

During the Cold War and before the independence of her country, Funmilayo Kuti travelled widely and angered the Nigerian as well as British and American Governments by her contacts with the Eastern Bloc.

Italian regional elections, 1990

All Italy instead punished the Communists, revolutions in the Eastern Bloc having marked the final decline of the party: Secretary Achille Occhetto understood that an era was finished, and prepared the transition of his group to social-democratic ideas.

Jarocin

The town became famous in the 1980s thanks to the Jarocin Festival, one of the first rock and punk music festivals in communist Eastern Bloc countries.

National Artist

An equivalent title, People's Artist, has been known in countries of the former Eastern Bloc and is also commonly translated as "National Artist".

Polish October

Nonetheless, some social scientists, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Frank Gibney, refer to these changes as a revolution, one less dramatic than its Hungarian counterpart but one which may have had an even more profound impact on the Eastern Bloc.

Roy Gutman

While European Bureau Chief, from late 1989 to 1994, he reported on the downfall of the Polish, East German, and Czechoslovak regimes, the opening of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, the first democratic elections in the former Eastern Bloc, and the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Sailing at the 1984 Summer Olympics

In response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, 14 Eastern Bloc countries including the Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany (but not Romania) boycotted the Games.

Visions du Réel

At its inception, the festival promoted Swiss films and films that were otherwise inaccessible — that is, those created in the Eastern Bloc countries behind the Iron Curtain.

Winfried Freudenberg

Freudenberg was born in Osterwieck, and grew up in the Saxony-Anhalt town of Lüttgenrode, near what was then the border between his native East Germany, which was then a part of the communist Eastern Bloc, as a satellite state of the Soviet Union, and West Germany.

Wolfgang Templin

Wolfgang Templin (born in 1948) – leader of the democratic opposition in Eastern Germany, publicist, concerned with the history of the GDR, the former Eastern Bloc and the German reunification, associate of many institutions of citizen education.


see also

CMEA

Comecon (the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), 1949–1991, an economic organization under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of socialist states elsewhere in the world

Egon Krenz

Alongside the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev and Poland's Wojciech Jaruzelski, he is the youngest of the last surviving leaders of an Eastern Bloc nation as of 2014.

I.O.R.

I.O.R.'s LPS 4x6° TIP2 scopes are commonly found on Eastern Bloc sniper rifles such as the Puşca Semiautomată cu Lunetă, and SVD Dragunov.

Romanian humour

Radio Yerevan: just like in the most countries of the former Eastern bloc, Radio Yerevan jokes were popular during the communist times.

Walk East on Beacon

Professor Albert Kafer (Finlay Currie) a scientist who is being blackmailed by the Reds into cooperating with them, while Alexi Laschenkov (Karel Stepanek) is the top Eastern-Bloc spy.

Yale Strom

He was the first photographer since Roman Vishniac to publish photographs of Jews in the Eastern Bloc countries.