Its historic buildings were not well maintained, but neither were they knocked down, since there was no incentive within the Soviet system for speculative redevelopment.
This slight culminated in a more fundamental failure: while America was still hoping that Mr Gorbachev could reform the Soviet system, Russia and the rest were declaring independence.
The Bush White House was slow to realise that the Soviet system was falling apart and clung too long to its well-established links with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader.
But it also seems clear that Prokhorov, a man with property holdings all over the world and substantial international exposure as the owner of an NBA franchise, is much more independent, and more capable of striking independent political positions, than a party functionary in the old Soviet system.
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And the most notable thing about the introduction of that system there, down from the almost impenetrable Soviet tax system, is that revenue collection went up when this low rate and simple system came in.
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They include those of Memorial, the association set up in the late 1990s to retrieve and make known the full truth about the Soviet penal system and its victims.
Under the old Soviet propiska system, Russians can vote only in their place of permanent residence, which is usually where they were born unless they have bought property elsewhere.
Soviet procurement and distribution system and even less reached store shelves.
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Like phone books, we used to have immutable facts all compiled in Encyclopedia Britannica: 9 planets in our solar system, the Soviet Union, and avoid alcohol.
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He is a charismatic politician who came from within the system, both Soviet and Russian, and with his Duma seat he remains very much an insider.
In 1918, in the Soviet Union, January 31 under the Julian Calendar system was the last day of its use.
For its part, Honeywell has been approved to provide the Soviet ministry the technical data supporting its TDC 3000 system, a microprocessor-based digital electronic system for industrial process controls.
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Two decades ago he exploited the shadowy system of gray-market capitalism in the Soviet Union.
It is particularly ironic that the United States is pursuing an "Open Skies" initiative with the Soviet Union at the very moment that it is considering abandoning its foremost system for exploiting the opportunities afforded by such an arrangement.
Of course, these limitations did not keep the Soviet Union and, after its demise, Russia from putting into place a territorial anti-missile system.
Other reasons for the system's survival include the collapse in the birth rate, and the generous staffing levels adopted in Soviet days.
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In the Soviet Union Moscow had the authority and responsibility to do all of those things, and the continued functioning of the system demanded that it do so.
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