Stamps From The Arab Nations.

Is it worth buying stamps from the Arab nations? I heard they mass produce those and they lose value fast.

Not sure that doesn't apply to most countries! The key, as elsewhere, is to collect what you're interested in, and, in the case of most stamps, to accept that the financial value is limited. Stamps from the Middle East and North Africa are interesting, covering as they do the colonial/mandate and post-independence periods. Some on here also collect the stamps from the Gulf States that aren't usually catalogued because of lack of genuine postal use.

I should think the dubious reputation of some Arab states is largely due the Gulf States and Yemen and its emirates. I would say the other Arab states are not into mass production. Whether you collect them or not them is a matter of personal preference.

Geoff has hit on the nub of the issue. Yemen and Qatar became the bad offenders when they hooked up with postal agencies in the mid-1960s, producing a flood of wallpaper stamps and dubious errors (often deliberately produced). That's not to say that the stamps themselves are unattractive, but they are mass-produced for the philatelic market in vast quantities. I collect Yemen up to around 1966 (the approximate end of the civil war) and it is interesting to put the stamps into historical context of a country tearing itself apart. This is a perennial problem for Yemen... Saudi Arabia and Oman have been much better the quality and quantity of their output, and with Saudi especially, you can dedicate an entire career. It's like Yemen in reverse, as the country builds itself up from the fractured remains of the Ottoman Empire. Jordan is also fun, but I would argue it is best collected in conjunction with Saudi Arabia to put things into good postal historical context. Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have interesting colonial pasts which can really enhance a well-written up collection. Hell, Iraq has a bunch of collecting potential especially if you can get hold of recent genuinely postally used material.

My advice would be to select your country carefully, put some time-line on things to collect based on the sheer volume of wallpaper available, and then enjoy yourself collecting. Unless you're an investor, don't collect for value, collect for the aesthetics of what is on the page.

I'm actually thinking about starting a USSR stamp collection. How many exactly were produced?

Over 7000 face different general issues (not counting Back-of-the-Book, locals, former republics...).

Tim's spot on. You can trace matters from the newly independent Hejaz ( with TE Lawrence-designed stamps) and Faisal's short-lived Arab government in Damascus to Ibn Saud's conquest if Western Arabia and the disasters of the British and French mandates in Greater Syria. And see the Hashemite kingdom established in Transjordan by Abdullah become surprisingly long-lasting. And you can take in Britain's creation of Iraq's boundaries and its short-lived royal family. Reading the history in parallel with collecting the stamps is well worth the effort.