Is it true that during the Soviet Union, blue jeans were banned because they symbolized capitalism...

I completely disagree, jeans are great. They're the most comfortable type of long pants.

mate, we can barely leave the house with a spork. let alone a pair of jeans

>blue jeans were banned
Not banned. Simply "not produced". All jeans were available ONLY through import.
Which instantly made them extra popular among Soviet subculture youth, like loli hentai among American basement dwellers.

Still no one took them away from people who wore them. Worst you could face was official bullying and criticizm from your local ideological cell (either Pioneers or Komsomol, depending on your age) and your peers.

But on the other hand wearing foreign clothes - not jeans, ANY clothes - was very cool and made you popular among people.

You see, it was some kind of doublethink: of course, officially this was all discouraged, and if asked by party/pioneer/komsomol functionaries eceryone would say they hate them and people who wear them.
But at the same time all these people (including komsomol functionaries) unofficially wore them and liked them.

If you wore jeans, foreign clothes and carried some cool Japanese or American casette player, you could pick any girl in class. You was just FUCKING COOL by soviet youth measures.

I think all this crap made people in the Eastern bloc super materialistic, which carries to today.

This is super interesting, thank you. I only ask because I had an old professor who claimed that when he was young, his class got to visit the Soviet Union. He said one student knew to bring nothing but blue jeans in his luggage, and then just sold them on the street and made a fortune.

Maybe.
And also psyche is still very much double-thinking. We support "official position" on everything yet despise it inside and discuss how shitty it is among ourselves in private.
They say that schizophrenia is when you have two antagonizing thoughts, positions, etc in your head and you agree with both of them (though they are self-exclusive). By this logic we can say that the history left us Russian all schizophrenics in some way.

Well, he did a very clever thing. Actually jeans are not the only one. ANYTHING foreign will do. Gum, any clothes, even pens and pencils. Electronics. A good VHS player (in the 80s) could cost as much as a fucking car or a flat.
There was whole nerworks of obtaining and distribution of foreign goods among Soviet citizens.
Any Soviet position that allowed you to travel abroad was a fucking gold mine as you could literally make millions this way.
People sent abroad on business saved money on anything, ate cheapest food, spent all these money on Western goods, and sold them when they returned (to friends or relatives, and they sell it further).

>People sent abroad on business saved money on anything, ate cheapest food, spent all these money on Western goods, and sold them when they returned (to friends or relatives, and they sell it further).
This is brilliant and funny.

Jeans look like shit unless they are skinny or slim fit and they are uncomfortable

I've heard something similar. My uncle visited Leningrad in the 60s/70s and sold blue jeans on the black market in exchange for a military belt.

Actually he could make even more profit if he could barter them for right goods.
You see, foreign currency was a very fucking big no-no in USSR (actually Khruschev made it a capital offence to exchange foreing currency for soviet roubles). But bartering foreign jeans for some soviet goods was lesser evil and could bring you lesser troubles than outright selling them for money. Foreigners were usually interested in Soviet alcohol, superb optics (if "Lomo" brands rings a bell to you) and photo cameras (but other variants were possible).
Just let me give you example of "brilliant and funny":
Look at the pic. You know what is it? This is motherfucking ELECTRIC STOVE AND KETTLE for soviet travellers. You just take two razor blades, connect them to power line (220V) and put in the water. Handy if you want to boil some tea, coffee or soup. Extremely handy if you save as much money as possible to buy expensive goods and bring them back to your Motherland, as you don't need to overpay in expensive cafees, hotel restaurant or whatever. Thousands of Soviet citizens abroad lived on this motherfucking contraption, heating up instant noodles or some other shit in hotel rooms.

Attached: 2-49-600x337.jpg (600x337, 60K)

I looked at the picture before reading your post and had no idea what that thing was.

For some reason, Soviet citizens trying to live as cheaply as possible to make extra money is incredibly funny. I think it's because it's such a contradiction of what communism is supposed to be.

Well, the whole motto was through all Russian history (and still is): "we survive the best we can".
Even if this means turning to such... unorthodox solution full of street smarts.

And yes, people want to live better and have more goods than they have at that moment. That's totally in human nature even in communist countries.
Even some of soviet leaders, like Brezhnev, were aware of that, understood that and unofficially were willing to turn a blind eye on corruption, stealing of "socialist property", etc in the country.

Didn't Brezhnev himself have fancy cars and a Rolex?

He had 40 cars. He fucking loved cool cars.
Most famous were:
Maserati Quattroporte V8 1968
Mercedes 600 1969 Pullman
Cadillac Eldorado 1972 and Lincoln Continental from Nixon
and also
Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

No idea about rolex though.

pic related

Attached: Leonid-Brezhnev-Rolex-Datejust[1].jpg (1782x1864, 674K)