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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.

The Patriotic Education in USSR. Part 2 — Pioneers, Soviet Boy Scouts

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pioner1 The Patriotic Education in USSR. Part 2 Pioneers, Soviet Boy Scouts

We are the pio­neers, sons of work­ing class (a pop­u­lar song)

As you remem­ber from the pre­vi­ous post, at the age of 9 the Soviet Kids grew out of their Octo­ber Kids affil­i­a­tion. The next ide­o­log­i­cal rite of pas­sage was pio­neer­ing which the Soviet coun­try placed a huge impor­tance on. Loosely based on the Amer­i­can Boy Scout’s move­ment, pio­neer­ing cov­ered all kids till the age of four­teen and worked in close rela­tion with schools. Just like any­thing else Soviet style, it had its idiosyncrasies.

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The case of The Kremlin Doctors and its Consequences: the State of Anti-Semitism

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display diligence The case of The Kremlin Doctors and its Consequences: the State of Anti Semitism

Be Vig­i­lant! Dis­close an Enemy Under any Mask!

1953 was the last year of long and ter­ri­fy­ing gov­ern­ing of Stalin. In Jan­u­ary the huge coun­try although accus­tomed to repres­sions shud­dered from the new hor­ror –  this time the enemies-saboteurs were Krem­lin doc­tors of a Jew­ish ori­gin. The com­menced per­se­cu­tion also applied to ordi­nary doc­tors.  Soviet peo­ple who believed to the polit­i­cally edited sto­ries broad­cast in the media were scared to be patients of Jew­ish doc­tors. On March, 5 of 1953 Stalin passed away and the case of Krem­lin doc­tors was dis­missed. Humil­i­ated, maimed doc­tors were released. How­ever this was only the begin­ning of the polit­i­cal repres­sions of the Jew­ish spe­cial­ists and today we would like to intro­duce you to a strik­ing exam­ple — the story of my family.

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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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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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