Communist Sneakers

When communism in Eastern Europe took a tumble back in the early 90s, according to an article I came across a couple of days ago, folks there shunned the all the brands they knew in favor of the newer and shinier brands from the West.

Now that time has passed, a lot of people in those countries are feeling nostalgic for the brands of yore. You know the drill. It's like when you're grown and you have crazy sentimental feelings over your first pair of kicks (even if they WERE some discounted copy of the real thing) or you get high with a bunch of friends and laugh your ass off over joyful memories of consuming PIXIE STICKS! And what about Pop Rocks....and, and 'member how everyone said how there were spider eggs in Bubblicious???

For Hungarians, the kicks they reminisce on go by the name Tisza Cipo, and here are three current samples, all of which you can purchase, though I'm not sure where:







And here's a excerpt from ze article:

At the George Soros-funded Central European University in Budapest, archivist Robert Parnica is creating an Internet catalog of everyday products under communism.

"Every kid 20 years ago had Tisza sneakers," Parnica said. "The road of remembering the past comes even now if you are 45 or 35--you have a personal relationship to this product."

Communist-era products are so popular in once-divided Germany that the consumer phenomenon is called "Ostalgia," a play on the German word for east.

My grandfather was Hungarian so I have to say, big-up to memories of eating his onion-packed Goulash as a kid (when he came and watched us, he made enough to last a week!) and a special shout to all my Hungarian people and their Tisza kicks.