Monthly Archives: December 2009

We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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If we were to pick one  the most con­fus­ing ques­tion from the his­tory of the USSR, no doubt it would have to be the Christ­mas date issue. Despite the fact that the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church branches out of the Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity, the tra­di­tional day to observe Christ­mas is dif­fer­ent to the rest of the Chris­t­ian world. The Russ­ian Christ­mas day is cel­e­brated on the 7th of Jan­u­ary, not Decem­ber 25th, and it is not easy to explain why it is so.

The xpla­na­tion comes from the two dif­fer­ent cal­en­ders. In the Tsarist Rus­sia Christ­mas was cel­e­brated on Decem­ber 25th, althouth there was a dif­fer­ence in days — as the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar was accepted after the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917 — on 24 Jan­u­ary 1918 the new Soviet gov­ern­ment  issued a decree that Wednes­day, 31 Jan­u­ary 1918 was to be fol­lowed by Thurs­day, 14 Feb­ru­ary 1918. But the Church, due to its open con­flict with the newly pro­nounced state, decided to keep the day where it was — and so ever since Christ­mas is cel­e­brated in early Jan­u­ary. Go figure.

Nev­er­the­less, the team of Realussr is delighted to announce our very first fes­tive sea­son together — we are a very young blog yet we have ambi­tions to grow and pros­per. We were only born in June/July this year, yet we see a won­der­ful life ahead of us. And today we present you with a present — a col­lec­tion of Soviet Christmas/New Year’s Eve post­cards. Please click on the flash bit below, zoom in and explore.  A bunch of warm wishes from all of us! Thank you.

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

Wrap Your Baby in Old Newspapers — the 70 Years of Deficit of Everything.

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1111 500x375 Wrap Your Baby in Old Newspapers the 70 Years of Deficit of Everything.

A typ­i­cal Soviet shop with bare shelves.

One of the main criti­sisms of the Soviet Union now, from an every day per­spec­tive, was the huge deficit of every­thing. The planned econ­omy failed to sup­ply a con­stant flow of goods nec­es­sary for the well being of peo­ple. It was not the mat­ter of inca­pac­ity — no, the means cer­tainly allowed to build space shut­tles or cre­ate extra strong tanks.  The short­age for goods was cre­ated arti­fi­cially — due to the rea­sons of the strange Soviet ideology.

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Best of Fall 2009

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A Glance at the Soviet Lifestyle, Cap­tured by Marc Riboud.

RU44 500x333 Best of Fall 2009

Museum, Moscow, 1960s

This is our third post devoted to Marc Riboud, an out­stand­ing French pho­tog­ra­pher, who trav­eled exten­sively through­out the Soviet Union.  His images cap­tured an array of every­day life episodes from the lives of the Soviet peo­ple.  Here is the first lot — and here is the sec­ond one. As always, click on the mag­ni­fy­ing glass icon to see the pho­tos in detail.

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Labour Riots in Novocherkassk: Soviet ‘Tiananmen’

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1962 maslo1 500x332 Labour Riots in Novocherkassk: Soviet Tiananmen

Meat, but­ter, pay rise!

Novocherkassk is a small town in the South of Rus­sia, also known as the unof­fi­cial cap­i­tal of the Cos­sacks, the Slavic mil­i­tary com­mu­nity. Unfor­tu­nately this town was the place of a huge tragedy, when in 1962 the civil­ian demon­stra­tion was opened fire on.

The tur­moil started on June, 1 when the Soviet gov­ern­ment announced the gro­cery price increase of about 30 per cent. The riot began at the pro­gres­sive elec­tro loco­mo­tive fac­tory: just before the price increase, the salary had been low­ered, which already was below the liv­ing min­i­mum (about a hun­dred rub­bles). The work­ers demanded an expla­na­tion, and threat­ened to strike. Faced with an ulti­ma­tum, the CEO Kurochkin mounted the plat­form and demanded that peo­ple went back to work. ‘If you do not have enough money for meat, buy the liver pie’ answered Kurochkin with the snarl.

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So! What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

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rKKoclZozp1 370x500 So! What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

You will be quite a craftsman!

A Review of Occu­pa­tions in the Soviet Soci­ety: the high, the low and the marginal.

The Pro­fes­sional Ori­en­ta­tion in the USSR meant, first and fore­most, a process of advis­ing the youth on the future career choices. A group of teach­ers and fresh grad­u­ates of a col­lege would go to high schools to give talks to school kids in order to deliver the first hand infor­ma­tion on voca­tional choices. Every occu­pa­tion is regarded highly in the Soviet Union  — well, this slo­gan turned out to be quite untruth­ful. Please read on find out about the dif­fer­ences in social lad­der between the dif­fer­ent occu­pa­tional groups. The hier­ar­chy of labour was a prime ele­ment in social dis­crep­an­cies in this country.

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