Cute. Music reminiscent of Pink Panther beginning at 3:24.
I’ve watched three YouTube segments of “Beware of the Car,” which will be the 3rd Eldar Ryazanov film I’ve seen.
When I saw this (in segment 2) I thought the guy on the left might be Ryazanov himself. But I guess it’s not.
The scene is in an insurance office, and the main character of the film (on the right) is an insurance agent. The guy on the left is his boss.
I was taken aback by the idea that there was such a thing as property insurance in the Soviet Union. It seems such a capitalist thing. In fact, the following paragraph in an academic journal article about Soviet insurance almost took the words out of my mouth, except that my thoughts on the subject weren’t quite this clear:
Insurance is closely related to the origins and growth of modern capitalist economy and the insurance contract has been identified as the springboard by which small-scale itinerant commerce of the early Middle Ages vaulted into large-scale enterprise of modern capitalism. How, then, can insurance be fitted into a non-capitalist framework and what role can it play?
The quote is from “A Survey of Insurance in the USSR”, by Paul P. Rogers, in The Journal of Insurance, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1963), pp. 273-279, published by the American Risk and Insurance Association.
This Paul Rogers also did other writing on the topic. I read a couple of his shorter works, including this 1963 article as well as one published in 1980.
A few things that I learned:
Insurance was a government monopoly, run by an organization called GOSSTRAKH (General administration of Government Insurance.) Insurance was available for agricultural and transportation. Even in a welfare state there was such a thing as life insurance and disability insurance. Insurance was also available for personal property. The purchase of insurance was mandatory for some purposes, and a matter of individual choice in others.
I presume the insurance agents did not work on a commission.
Regarding auto insurance, Rogers’ 1980 article says this:
Citizens may insure vehicles under a separate policy. The policy insures automobiles, motorcycles, mopeds, snowmobiles, sailboats and rowboats for property damage. There is no liability insurance coverage.
I suppose if there had been liability insurance, the premise of that other Ryazanov film, Railway Station for Two (Vokzal dlya Dvoikh) would have been different.
BTW, I am trying to figure out how to use Cyrillic characters in a WordPress blog set up for use primarily in English. So far I haven’t learned a way to do it.