Category Archives: 1971-1980

Gaddafi Really Had It Coming

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Leonid Brezh­nev meets Leader of the Social­ist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Muam­mar al-Gaddafi in Vnukovo air­port, late 1970s.

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Photo TASS / Vasily Yegorov; Valentin Kuzmin

And one more..

Colonel Muam­mar Gaddafi ©, leader of the Libyan Jamahiriya,with  Brezh­nev, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the Soviet Com­mu­nist Party (3rd-L) smile while mem­bers of del­e­ga­tions of both coun­tries sign agree­ments. Brezh­nev and Gaddafi are sur­rounded by (from left) Andrei  Gromyko, Soviet For­eign min­is­ter, Niko­lay Pod­gorny, Chair­man of the Pre­sid­ium of the Supreme Soviet, and Alek­sey Kosy­gin. (AFP/Getty Images).

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1976

Really, no comments.

City of UFA: Then and Now

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blue on pushkina 500x312 City of UFA: Then and Now

A merchant’s house. Early twenties.

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A her­itage build­ing now

The city of Ufa, the cap­i­tal of Bashkiria, is a town with the pop­u­la­tion of just over a mil­lion, at about 1500 km dis­tance from Moscow. It is beau­ti­fully set at the con­flu­ence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, on low hills to the west of South­ern Urals. The city was founded in 1574 at the orders of Ivan the Ter­ri­ble, and the name mean­ing “small” in Tur­kic. It is a well kept city with lots of green­ery, wide alleys, parks and plen­ti­ful his­toric buildings.

Today’s post is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from our usual for­mat, as the mod­ern pic­tures of the city are, well, mod­ern and not of the Soviet epoch. It is still nice to see, how­ever, how the city has been chang­ing over the past hun­dred years  —  and the old pho­tographs are still full of life and very easy on the eye.

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Oleg Popov, The Sad Clown

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In about six weeks this remark­able man will cel­e­brate his 80th Birth­day. Who is he? The most pop­u­lar clown of the Soviet Union, also known as the Sun­shine Clown, Oleg Popov is true icon of its own. Born in 1930, he had on of the tough­est upbring­ings ever — yet he man­aged to become one of most recog­nis­able peo­ple of the 20th cen­tury: he also was in Guin­ness Records Book for “being pop­u­lar in the West and in the East”.

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On top of his game. Oleg Popov in 1976.

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A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

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1 500x306 A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

The Gri­boe­dov Chan­nel. The bridges St Peters­burg is so famous for.

By many, St Peters­burg (Leningrad  in 1924 – 1991) is often con­sid­ered to be so beau­ti­ful due to its archi­tec­ture of Ital­ian ori­gin. Quite strange to see these fine build­ings embell­ished by the sym­bols of the Soviet Era. Let’s take a walk around this fine city in the sum­mer almost 30 years ago.

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We Bet Peter Jackson Never Saw This Hobbit!

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A fun post for you today — a series of illus­tra­tions for a Russ­ian edi­tion of The Hob­bit, 1989. The artist Belom­lin­sky por­trayed the char­ac­ters in a funky man­ner. The book was pub­lished at 300,000 copies and it was a suc­cess —  I had itas a kid and it had me scared. I could never get over the fact that some­one needs to leave their won­der­ful cave full of jars with pickles!

See how you like Bilbo, Gan­dalf, Gol­lum, the Trolls, the Big Peo­ple and the Dragon — let us know if it makes you smile.

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The Hob­bit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. The cover.

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May, 1st: Soviet Labour Day.

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1984 marochkin May, 1st: Soviet Labour Day.

Parade of 1984, city of Ufa. Photo by N. Marochkin.

Day of Inter­na­tional Sol­i­dar­ity of the Work­ing Class, or Labour Day — was cel­e­brated in Rus­sia on May, 1st  from 1919 to 1990. A pub­lic hol­i­day for each every city, every town­ship or vil­lage had a parade organ­ised: flags were car­ried, posters and ban­ners were up, kids had red bal­lons and por­traits of the gov­ern­ing men were on dis­play. The atten­dance usu­ally was com­pul­sory, but judg­ing by the pho­tographs now, I don’t think any­body minded: it looks like peo­ple had fum there. By May the weather was usu­ally sunny and crisp, and this hol­i­day was a lit­tle more that a pro­pa­gan­dist activ­ity: it was a uni­fy­ing event. Please read on to see some faces behind the crowd.

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