Author Archives: Lena Traer

Happy Birthday Dear USSR! The Great October Socialist Revolution. November 7th 1917.

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serov1918 provozlashenie sov vlasti 376x500 Happy Birthday Dear USSR! The Great October Socialist Revolution. November 7th 1917.

The Announce­ment of the Soviet Gov­ern­ment. By Vladimir Serov, 1918.

The Soviet Union was offi­cially cre­ated in 1922, how­ever, if there was a date which could be con­sid­ered as a birth­day of the USSR, that would have had to be Novem­ber 7th of 1917  — this was the day when in St Peters­burg the Bol­she­viks — the organ­ised mil­i­tary rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, who later became the Com­mu­nist Party of the USSR — came to power. The Russ­ian Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment which were the head of the coun­try after the Tsar Nicholas II had resigned, was over­thrown and the Sovi­ets, tak­ing the gov­ern­ment build­ings one by one, had finally cap­tured the town.

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Social Advertising on Soviet Matchbox Labels

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Matches in the Soviet Union were an impor­tant part of every­day life. Many apart­ments were not con­nected to the cen­tral gas, power or elec­tric­ity sys­tems, so peo­ple needed matches to light a stove to make food or to boil water to take a bath.

Thus, match­box labels served as a daily reminder of the socially accepted rules of behav­ior or life wis­dom advice, most com­monly in the form of a friend rec­om­men­da­tion from the Soviet state. So let’s have a look at this prim­i­tive yet very quaint form of social advertising.

95fbeb5541 Social Advertising on Soviet Matchbox Labels

Honey is good for doing sports. 1959.

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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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