Monthly Archives: October 2009

Technological Advance of the Classic Rocking Horse

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Wooden Toys Horse On Wheels1 500x375 Technological Advance of the Classic Rocking Horse

The Wooden Horse on Wheels

This myth­i­cal crea­ture of the Soviet kids’ child­hood, some­thing between a Cen­taur and a bicycle, has come into being within a Soviet man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try dri­ven by an over­pow­er­ing desire to “give all the best” to chil­dren. Most bril­liant minds of the Soviet sci­en­tists were work­ing on the cre­ation of the ideal cross-breed. The mutant was offi­cially labeled a “Pedal Horse” and its large-volume pro­duc­tion was finally kick-started by the end of 1950s. It became very pop­u­lar quite fast as it was really excit­ing to own a “real” horse that could move around in the street, a horse more real than a wooden rock­ing horse.

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The Patriotic Education in the USSR. Part One: the October Kids.

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0 de34 9660ec72 XL 500x361 The Patriotic Education in the USSR. Part One: the October Kids.

Only those who like to work get suc­cess­ful in this world.

The young Soviet coun­try could not grow and flour­ish with­out the sup­port and patri­o­tism of its peo­ple. From the early days of the Soviet Union, the ide­ol­ogy organ­i­sa­tions aimed to tar­get cit­i­zens of all ages, oblig­ing them to belong in order to do well in life. So the pes­ter­ing had to start early: when kids start school (the school age 7 years old in the USSR), the school ide­ol­ogy organ­i­sa­tion would take them under the wing, with the prospect of nur­tur­ing the future mem­bers of the Com­mu­nist Party.

The very first move­ment every child would belong to was called the Octo­ber kids, after the Great Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917, after which the new gov­ern­ment came into power.

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AWOL Tigger, or a Soviet Take on the World-Famous Cartoon Characters

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Apart from the Soviet writ­ers’ pro­lific input into the chil­dren lit­er­a­ture, a great deal of sto­ries was trans­lated into Russ­ian, so the kids of the USSR grew up on the sto­ries by Hans Ander­sen, Charles Pier­rot and the Grimm broth­ers. Often the trans­la­tors took the lib­erty of chang­ing the plot of the sto­ry­line: this is how the famous book by A. Milne “Win­nie the Pooh” in its Russ­ian ver­sion fea­tures no Tig­ger yet there are some extra char­ac­ters not from the orig­i­nal script. Arguably, it allowed the trans­la­tor to become some­what of an author and hence their name went onto the book cover (this is what hap­pened to the Russ­ian ver­sion of The Wiz­ard of Oz). As car­toon mak­ing was one of the most devel­oped (and cer­tainly less cen­sored ones) graphic arts, it can be of inter­est to see how the Russ­ian ani­ma­tors saw the tra­di­tional West­ern fairy tales characters.

vinni 500x375 AWOL Tigger, or a Soviet Take on the World Famous Cartoon Characters

Piglet, Win­nie the Pooh and Rab­bit. 1969

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Viticulture of the Soviet Union in Old Ad Posters

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The cul­ture of wine mak­ing had a long and rich his­tory in the Soviet Union, and its high prof­itabil­ity always ensured an incred­i­ble deal of gov­ern­men­tal sup­port. Due to the cli­mate restric­tions grapes suit­able for wine-making grew in the South­ern areas of the coun­try: Crimea in the Ukraine, the val­ley of Ararat in Arme­nia, as well as the republics of Moldova, Geor­gia and Azerbaijan.

After the war there was a spe­cial devel­op­ment plan of get­ting the coun­try to the top of the world wine lead­ers — which was a suc­cess. By 1969 the USSR was on the fourth place in Europe by the amount of wine pro­duced (right after France, Italy and Spain). The vast ter­ri­to­ries of the country’s South allowed for almost 10% of the total amount of wine pro­duced in the world around that time. This was the Golden Era of the Soviet viti­cul­ture: the assort­ment of wines went up to 700, with about 37 types of sparkling wines and 88 of cognac-type drinks. Many wines were of excel­lent, prize-winning quality.

Sadly, start­ing from the 1970s, the qual­ity was to be sac­ri­ficed for quan­tity: the pri­or­ity to grow was given to higher-yielding sorts of grapes and not the rare, more valu­able ones. The pro­duc­tion lines were grad­u­ally being switched to cheaper, stronger, more generic ranges of wines made from low in sugar but more endur­ing sorts of grape vari­eties. The Pro­hi­bi­tion bylaw of 1985 aim­ing at elim­i­nat­ing the drink­ing prob­lem was the last straw: the grapes and raisins were to be used for mak­ing juices, which led to a even­tual skill short­age and over­all indus­try recession.

Noe­the­less, we have found a few old com­mer­cial posters pic­tur­ing the range of wines of 1950s. Despite the plain bot­tles, this is a neat col­lec­tion of vin­tage posters for you to enjoy. Click on the pic­ture to see it in detail. Let us know how you like it — we value your feed­back. Thanks!

alcj 388x500 Viticulture of the Soviet Union in Old Ad Posters

Start­ing from the right: Soviet Cham­pagne, a trade­mark for many years and an iconic drink; table Geor­gian wine (batch 19, what­ever that means for the Soviet wine­mak­ers); two bot­tles of whine port.


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From Admirals to Dictators: Prominent Soviets on the Cover of Time Magazine.

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Here’s our lit­tle some­thing for your Mon­day — a com­pi­la­tion of Time mag­a­zine cov­ers with a USSR focus, 1925 — 1991. The promi­nent Soviet and Russ­ian politi­cians, gov­ern­ment lead­ers, poets, com­posers, writ­ers, philoso­phers, sci­en­tists, astro­nauts, dis­si­dents, admi­rals and a few dic­ta­tors — the list of 110 remark­able cit­i­zens of the Soviet Union; those who made the West cringe — or laugh for that matter.

The faces are cer­tainly repet­i­tive, yet some cov­ers are a piece of art –this col­lage is worth a good look, so click on the flash bit below, zoom in and explore.

If you would like to learn more please do not hes­i­tate to click the fancy carousel. Thanks for being with us.

Declassified: the Great and Powerful Stalin.

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first 500x333 Declassified: the Great and Powerful Stalin.

Joseph Stalin is always with you.

Joseph Stalin was prob­a­bly one of the most mul­ti­fac­eted, con­tro­ver­sial and yet unknown per­sons in the course of the world his­tory. In Jan­u­ary 1943 Time mag­a­zine fea­tured Stalin as the Per­son of the Year, saying:

The year 1942 was a year of blood and strength. The man whose name means steel in Russ­ian, whose few words of Eng­lish include the Amer­i­can expres­sion “tough guy” was the man of 1942. Only Joseph Stalin fully knew how close Rus­sia stood to defeat in 1942, and only Joseph Stalin fully knew how he brought Rus­sia through.

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