Monthly Archives: July 2009

Experimental Soviet Homemade Photography

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From now on each Wednes­day Real USSR will try to bring you enter­tain­ing rather than infor­ma­tive posts – let us know how you like it.

0e59b 500x288 Experimental Soviet Homemade Photography

Sur­real NKVD: Catch me if you can

These pho­tos are from a pri­vate col­lec­tion of a typ­i­cal Moscow fam­ily. They are dated back to 1936 – 1940 -  the years known as the  period of Stalin’s most cruel polit­i­cal repres­sions.  Sev­eral mil­lion peo­ple are said to be affected: sen­tenced, shot or sent off to labour camps.

There is a Russ­ian movie about those times – “Burnt By The Sun” (Utom­len­nye Sol­ncem), which in 1994 won the Acad­emy Awards as the best for­eign lan­guage film (imdb rat­ing 7.9÷10). The story is about love in the times of polit­i­cal tur­moil, the love that sur­vives all fears of purges and uncer­tainty. Sur­pris­ingly enough, peo­ple still man­aged to try and have a few laughs dur­ing those harsh times.

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Wanted: Astronauts. Pay: Average. Perks: World Fame.

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In the late 1950s, when the Cold War between the USSR and the USA was at its peak, the next step of flex­ing the power mus­cle was the space explo­ration. Since both coun­tries were try­ing really hard to outdo each other, it was only a mat­ter of time before one would take over.

The way it hap­pened, the USSR got ahead. When in April 1961 the first man went into the outer space and orbited the Earth, the world went berserk over the new, well, horizons.

kosm11 500x400 Wanted: Astronauts. Pay: Average. Perks: World Fame.

We are the cham­pi­ons, my friend.

But what took him so long?

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The Very First Miss USSR

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The very though of women com­pet­ing for the title of the most beau­ti­ful was a fairly adver­sar­ial con­cept for the Soviet ide­ol­ogy. A woman, first and fore­most, was a worker, an achiever, a mother and a wife, and nobody would con­sider judg­ing one on the phys­i­cal attrac­tive­ness — let alone allow women spend the valu­able time and money on point­less fash­ion, cos­met­ics and hair styling.

fashion4 The Very First Miss USSR

A uni­form parade was the clos­est thing to a beauty pageant in the USSR. It was an hon­our to par­tic­i­pate in one.

That’s why, when across the globe beauty con­tests became pop­u­lar and wide­spread after the Sec­ond World War, the USSR had its ban on such events. Until 1989, when the very first beauty con­test took place in Moscow — try­ing to find the pret­ti­est of them all.

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The Soviet Video Arcade Machines

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While the chil­dren from Europe and USA used to play with Mickey Mouse and Don­ald Duck, their Soviet coun­ter­parts enjoyed the char­ac­ters of Souzmultfilm’s car­toons – the ana­logues of the Amer­i­can Tom and Jerry – the Hare and the Wolf. The Soviet slot machines were an inte­gral part of enter­tain­ment in the USSR. For an ordi­nary Soviet cit­i­zen these slot machines were insep­a­ra­bly linked to walks with par­ents and friends in the amuse­ment parks,  eat­ing ice-cream and candy floss, and feed­ing end­less coins to the slots to get some great enter­tain­ment value.

1Magistral 500x375 The Soviet Video Arcade Machines

Soviet Slot Machines

These slot machines were pro­duced at the for­mer mil­i­tary fac­to­ries par­tially con­verted into the civil­ian pro­duc­tion in 1970s.

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An Italian Affair: Vyatka vs Vespa

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After the Sec­ond World War in Italy the car­mak­ers realised that it would be a long time before every­one who needed a car would be able to afford one. So the smart Ital­ians switched to design­ing and pro­duc­ing motor scoot­ers: these light, afford­able, ergonomic Ves­pas, a low cost prod­uct avail­able to everybody.

Need­less to say, Vespa was the brand of the time (and arguably still is) and it grew more and more pop­u­lar across Europe, until, in early 1950s, it reached the USSR. All of a sud­den this youth­ful and cheery means of trans­porta­tion coin­cided with the Khrushchev Thaw and it was decided to launch the Soviet line of motor scoot­ers. Machin­ery wise, it was viable: since the war times, a few fac­to­ries had been idle, so it was only a mat­ter of design.

v 1 500x410 An Italian Affair: Vyatka vs Vespa

Mod­ern girl with a vin­tage scooter. She is prob­a­bly gloomy over the petrol price.

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USSR, the Birthplace of Feminism

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From the very dawn of Soviet power and devel­op­ment,  due to a series of tragic events, women sig­nif­i­cantly out­num­bered men by about 20 mln. The Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917, first World War, Stalin’s polit­i­cal repres­sions, sec­ond World War, tough recov­ery peri­ods — all of this con­tributed to the num­ber of men steadily decreas­ing. Not only it affected the mar­riage mar­ket — it had a few more severe impli­ca­tions to the can­vas of the Soviet life altogether.

milk 350x500 USSR, the Birthplace of Feminism

Love is in the air.

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