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.
Once some music composer said that “There are only seven notes which compose all the music in the world. No wodner some songs sound alike”. Undoubtedly, all cars have got four wheels, so plagiarism in the automobile industry is hard to pinch. In this article we deliberately ignore a popular Soviet point of view that a steam locomotive, an airplane and the radio were not invented in Russia. All we attempt here is to make a small digression into the history of Soviet automobile industry in order to identify its origins and its development.
ZIS-110
A Russian philosopher Vasiliy Rosanov once noted that in Russia every single case of wealth originates from theft or extortion. Historically, the economy of the Russian Empire before the 1917 was so deeply integrated into the European economy that the exchange of ideas, something, which now would have been hugely copyrighted, was very common. Like, in 1901 in St Petersburg the carriage factory Freze and the Riga bicycle factory Leitner successfully assembled the French oil engines De Dion Buton as part of Russian carriages. Another factory Aksai in Rostov-on-Don purchased the license for the production of the American Oldsmobile Carved Dash. In 1906 a Russian engineer Boris Lutskoy organised the assembling of Mercedes cars for the Russian market. At last, the main pride of Russia – the automobile Russo-Balt — was made from foreign parts – the chassis with four-cylinder engine was adopted from a Belgian company with a Swiss name Fondu.
The great shortage of almost everything required for normal well being was one of the most distinguished features of the Soviet economy. Surely, there was food, clothes and some cosmetic goods in the Soviet shops in 1950s-1970s but the variety was incredibly poor.
However, the philosophy was that the Soviet people were used to comparing their life standards with the ones of the Second World War – so any small-time luxury was very warmly welcomed. Being a nation of plain tastes, the Soviet people were happy to be buying things made in the USSR – they understood that even not so long before, it was impossible.
Many people still associate the fragrance “Red Moscow” with their childhood. All women, especially those who wanted to be elegant, were in love with this perfume. “Red Moscow”, created exclusively for the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna, in 1913, had quickly become a tremendous success both in Russia and abroad. Henri Brocard, the owner of the largest Russian factory of pomades, perfumes and soaps before the Revolution; had created the perfume “The Empress’s Favourite Bouquet”. When in 1917 his factory was nationalised and renamed into the “Zamoskvoretskiy Soap Factory No 5”, the perfume was also renamed as “Red Moscow”.