D and E?
Soviet Bloc was a recognized concept – the USSR and it’s Eastern European satellites (and sometimes a few other countries, such as Cuba and Mongolia).
There were several Communist bloc countries that weren’t part of the Soviet sphere of influence – China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.
D is a passable but low grade, and E a failing grade?
That makes sense. I thought he was making some kind of arcane Latin grammar reference. Dative, and E… ?
Just FYI, we don’t have E grades in the U.S. It goes A, B, C, D, F. That’s probably why it didn’t occur to me.
/me scribbles down yet another interesting place to visit.
I really need to win a lottery … I need to visit Poland, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Britain and now Albania sigh My list is getting longer and my bank account is just not cooperating:(
One of those smarties who actually* enjoyed* looking at maps, were you? And you probably still do. (So do I.)
Geography was always fun. Even that semester of Texas Geography we all took. At home, we often subscribed to National Geographic–which often included big maps. So I knew that stuff about the different SSR’s–& the other countries behind The Iron Curtain.
Graduated high school in 1966–so I did some Duck & Covering in my day. But my father had served in SAC, so Mom took us to see Doctor Strangelove. No respecter of The Brass, she found it hilarious. Even as kids, we knew that there were a couple of fingers hovering over The Button.
I’ve met quite a few ethnic Kazakhs who speak Russian far better than they do Kazakh.
While Kazakhstan was under Soviet rule, people were encouraged to speak Russian, and if you wanted to get a quality education and get more opportunities, you had to speak Russian.