nostalgia

Thinking about my last post has called this one to mind. I was pondering the popularity of Soviet era kitsch, that has been in demand to some degree or another since the fall of the Soviet Union and the iron curtain. There are tons of markets which sell vintage, as well as newly made reproductions of all sorts of things - military hats, pins, flags, etc. In the near future I'm planning on paying a visit to a second hand store that sells toys and knick-knacks from the 60s and 70s.

First of all, why is this stuff so popular in the west? And secondly, is this okay, or normal?
Many still are fascinated with the SU because it was our main adversary, politically, militarily and ideologically for 70 years. And we prevailed, and they didn't. (Others can argue what role Reagan played in this. I offer no comment on that). I, personally, am fascinated and enamored with all things Soviet. Duh - I study it, I speak the language, I live here, and we won't even go into my tattoo. The other day, I was in the Metro and a tour group from Japan got off at the same stop, and almost ALL of them were wearing fur hats with the hammer and sickle, which they had picked up at a market....it was the funniest sight. But I digress....
People here also feel nostalgia for the Soviet Union, for as many personal reasons as there are people, but they don't collect the trappings of it. They sell it to us crazy tourists who snap it up. I've had gatherings of friends sing childhood songs to entertain me. To them, that was their childhood, which at the time was normal.

But where I'm going with this is that, why is it, for example, considered not out of the ordinary to engage in such behavior (as a non-native Russian) in relation to the Soviet Union, where it is absolutely not okay to rummage through markets looking for the trinkets left from Nazi Germany? I am not elevating Nazi Germany, I want to know why the Soviet Union is so damn innocuous for most of us, including myself, a person who is more intimately acquainted with the horrors of the regime than most people?

Its a very interesting historical, anthropoligical, economic and even psychological question. I have my own thoughts and possible answers to this, mostly from the historical side, but I thought I would broadcast my random musings for the rest of the world.

Yeah, so that's what I was thinking about today, even in the midst of the visit from the cable modem support guy.