Tag Archives: family

Glass Negatives circa 1928

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Chem­i­cal pho­tog­ra­phy as we know it today was not invented in a day — one of the stages in devel­op­ing was the glass neg­a­tives pho­tog­ra­phy, when the   glass plates were cov­ered with a pro­tein emul­sion — invented in 1841, the process was clunky and dif­fi­cult to repro­duce. Those images can now be iden­ti­fied by the uneven coat of emul­sion, rough edges, thick glass and maybe even photographer’s thumbprint on it.

All in all, below are the 20+ images from the glass neg­a­tives — the shots of Soviet coun­try­side life, shot around 1928. Peo­ple, har­vests, views, tools — what­ever the pho­tog­ra­phy afi­cionado encoun­tered.  Con­sid­er­ing that this is pre-film, the spirit of these pho­tos is mind blow­ing. We hope you’ll share our excitement.

111 375x500 Glass Negatives circa 1928

A fash­ion­ista.

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Summer in Gorky Park, Moscow of late 1960s

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We are very for­tu­nate to have gained the access to the col­lec­tion of pho­tographs below — they have come from a pri­vate col­lec­tion of Eugene Orlov, a keen pho­tog­ra­pher of 1960s, scanned by his grand­son. Por­trayed is a series of shots from a sum­mer walk in the Gorky Park, an iconic fam­ily recre­ational venue in Moscow. Please click on the mag­ni­fy­ing lens image for the close up and if you like it — tell your friends!

park gorkogo1960s 21 500x303 Summer in Gorky Park, Moscow of late 1960s

Images cour­tesy of Eugene Orlov. Late 1960s.

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Russian Ice Cream In Winter — Bring It On!

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In the USSR, the very first ice cream fac­tory was opened in 1932 — when the Min­is­ter of Food Sup­ply (if trans­lated not too lib­er­ally) Anas­tas Mikoyan vis­ited the United States of Amer­ica and was so impressed with their ice cream, he decided that Rus­sia needed some­thing of the kind. So the ice cream mak­ing tech­nol­ogy and equip­ment were imported and the ice cream sup­ply to all and every­body began. The process was highly reg­u­lated and, indeed, the qual­ity of Soviet ice cream was envi­able. If  in 1932 the total amount of ice­cream pro­duced was about 300 ton, then 10 years later it grew about 270 times — in 1940 there were  82 thou­sand ton of ice cream produced.

habarr 497x500 Russian Ice Cream In Winter Bring It On!

The city of Khabarovsk, 1970.

This num­bers were lost dur­ing the WWII as the fac­to­ries had to cease work — but it quickly recov­ered and by 1950 there was a 20% increase of what was made before.

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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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Interior Design and Furniture in the USSR

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housewarm 337x500 Interior Design and Furniture in the USSR

Wel­come!

As pre­vi­ously stated, the major­ity of peo­ple in the USSR lived in the apart­ments. Unfor­tu­nately, due to the the time con­straints, they had to be built in a speedy rather than com­fort­able man­ner. After the war, when accom­mo­da­tion was extremely scarce, a three bed­room flat could accom­mo­date up to 16 peo­ple (four aver­age fam­i­lies), with one shared kitchen and one shared bath­room.  The qual­ity of liv­ing there was truly hor­ren­dous.  So when Khr­uschev started his build­ing binge in 1960s, a joke went that the legacy of those com­mu­nal flats was ago­ra­pho­bia – the fear of open spaces and the ten­dency to hoard things. Well, if you spent your for­ma­tive years in a pokey flat where you’d have to dry your laun­dry next to the stove, you’d be just as agoraphobic.

So let’s look at the main trends in the inte­rior design Soviet style.

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Breakfast Time in Paintings by Russian Artists

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Here is a twee col­lec­tion of paint­ings by var­i­ous Russ­ian artists pic­tur­ing break­fast time in Rus­sia of dif­fer­ent peri­ods, from 1918 through­out to late 1970s. It pro­vides some insights into an every­day life of sim­ple peo­ple and their meals on the go, before work, very low key and casual.

k petrov vodkin utrennij natyurmort 181 500x377 Breakfast Time in Paintings by Russian Artists

Still life: Morn­ing. By Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, 1918. Just like any­where else in the world, eggs are pop­u­lar and the dog is hungry.

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