Mark Underhill says:

Спасибо за это Макс. Я уверен, что вы знаете, что это подкаст невероятно интересна для меня! Я хочу рассказать вам о Соединенных Штатах с того же перспективы. Я напишу на английском языке, потому что я не знаю, будет ли Google все это правильно.

Быстро отличное спасибо первым. Я слушал Аквариум во время своего вождения, и очень круто для определенных настроений и мест!

I’ve now driven 30,000 miles in the US since the Pandemic started and I couldn’t leave the US.  Yes – 48,000km since February 2020.

And we have a lot of similar situations with very broken городок.   I used that Russian word because I think it expresses it right – small city.  We also have towns that are broken but the cities are maybe creepier (I don’t know the right Russian word) but like you said, apocalyptic. 

I used to think it was cool to drive in them and it was like a movie but I don’t really any more.  One small city which had been a mine town in the desert in California I really felt like the people were zombies.  A lot of the people who stay in these places use bad drugs (methamphetamine).   I’m talking about a city that maybe had 5000-10000 people. 

One thing about the US is that our roads are all good everywhere unless you use the dirt roads that you have seen in my videos but those are actually great. Those are roads to nature, to adventure and never to broken towns unless it’s a very old historic “ghost town” (1800’s).  I love those roads and places!

But, almost all of the small, broken cities in the US still have roads in good shape.  I think the reason for this is that America was built on the car. The Henry Ford goal of having every American own a car made it different for us and so when the American economy needed these small towns the roads were made well.  You can drive everywhere in the US smoothly.   Maybe the side roads in these small cities are becoming bad but the road to drive in, through and away are always good.

Because of this and because everyone has good cars people drive fast but I would say safely.  We do use the same system about the police and the lights but since our roads are good the system of overtaking cars uses the lines painted (if the line is solid you can not overtake, if it is not solid you can).  It works well. 

People in the big cities drive differently and I hate it on the big highways with 6 lanes on each side.  People drive like jerks, but in the places like you are talking about it feels safe.

Anyhow, yes, the situation with these broken places is very weird here too.  I don’t understand what people do for work in them and they are falling apart.

As always, thanks for incredibly interesting content.  This one in particular gave me eyes and ears into something that would be my wish to come and do in Russia (drive around and just see what it is even if it can be depressing at times) .

Some day!

By the way, this is a documentary about Russia transitioning from communism that I watched a couple of years ago by a British film maker who also speaks Russian pretty fluently and interviews people at factories in Russia at the start of the 2ks . It’s not very long but it seems to touch on the idea of the cities and the problems you hit in on the light of communism.  I think you would find it interesting.

https://youtu.be/OAx6C0FJdHU