Tag Archives: famous people

The Victory Aftermath. Russia in Second World War.

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den pobedy 500x385 The Victory Aftermath. Russia in Second World War.

The V-Day. Copy­right unknown

On May, 25th 1945 Joseph Stalin made a cel­e­bra­tory speech devoted to the end of the Russ­ian Great Patri­otic War. The Sec­ond World War was com­ing to an end, but the Soviet Union was done fight­ing. The Russ­ian troops had exited Ger­many and ahead lied a long road of rebuild­ing and reha­bil­i­ta­tion. So in Krem­lin, at the V-day Meet­ing, Stalin had said the following:

Do not expect me to say any­thing extra­or­di­nary today. I have a very sim­ple, very ordi­nary toast to make. I would like to raise a glass to health of those peo­ple who are low in rank and invis­i­ble in the hier­ar­chy. Of those who we con­sider to be the “small screws” of our huge state mech­a­nism — they might be small but with­out them us gen­er­als, mar­shals and other top army lead­ers wouldn’t have made it. They are plen­ti­ful, they are a legion, it is tens of mil­lions of peo­ple who have not been heard of — yet they hold us together, as the base holds the top. To their health!

Today we have brought to your atten­tion a frag­ment of the inter­view with Yelena Bon­ner, a human rights activist, a dis­si­dent, a writer, and a widow of the late Andrei Sakharov — dur­ing the war she was a teen and now, cour­tesy to the Internet-magazine Snob.ru, she tells us about her expe­ri­ence dur­ing the war.

So — We did not fight for Stalin or the Soviet Union. We fought because we had no other choice.

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Celebrities of the 1960s: Queen of Belgium et al

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I find great plea­sure in look­ing at the faces of peo­ple from the days long gone. Read­ing the fine lines is like try­ing to map out the events that took place before we were even born — or were too far away from where it hap­pened. Please enjoy a fine col­lec­tion of the images below — some are just reg­u­lar faces in the crowd, some were the mighty lot. Click on the pic­tures to see the larger images and as always — spread the word!

queen belg 500x450 Celebrities of the 1960s: Queen of Belgium et al

Queen of Bel­gium, Moscow 1962

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A Swissman in Moscow: Leonard Gianadda, 1957.

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It is always inter­est­ing to see how for­eign­ers per­ceive Rus­sia. This time there’s no excep­tion — in 1957, dur­ing the 6th World­wide Fes­ti­val of Youth And Stu­dents, a Swiss reporter Léonard Gianadda spent a few hot sum­mer days in Moscow, cap­tur­ing not only the Fes­ti­val pro­gramme, but ran­dom faces of Moscovites in the streets. 50 some­thing years later, when we look at these shots, we for­get for a moment about the pol­i­tics, and repres­sions, and all the mis­for­tunes the coun­try has been through — we can only enjoy the life cap­tured in these split seconds.

24 500x333 A Swissman in Moscow: Leonard Gianadda, 1957.

The sum­mer of 1957

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British Fashion in Moscow, June 1956.

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1 424x499 British Fashion in Moscow, June 1956.

All images are by Lisa Larsen, for LIFE magazine.

In 1956 an array of British design­ers were try­ing to expand their mar­ket share into the Soviet Union. So a fash­ion week of some sort took place — in Moscow, Gorky Park, twice daily the shows took place. What a huge suc­cess it was! Every day it was a full house, and the pub­lic were in love with the British mod­els and the fash­ion. Jeans, for instance, were very trendy and could cost as much as a month’s salary — yet one still had to queue up to get a pair.

How­ever, after so much ado, not a sin­gle British cloth­ing com­pany ever received any Soviet  offers of coop­er­a­tion. Sad,  really — just like Chris­t­ian Dior in Moscow, it could have been a begin­ning of a beau­ti­ful friendship.

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Best of Winter 2009 – 2010

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Mil­i­tary Dis­charge Hand­made Scrap Book and Comics Album

11 365x500 Best of Winter 2009 2010

You’re in the army now

The com­pul­sory two years of mil­i­tary ser­vice was a rite of pas­sage for every Soviet guy. When one turned eigh­teen — unless for sick­ness or injury — it was time to be called in for the mil­i­tary life — two years in the bar­racks. The guys usu­ally bonded well and dur­ing their spare time cre­ated so called “Dis­charge Albums” — like scrap­books, they were full of pho­tos, songs lyrics, quick notes from the bud­dies etc.

Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbe­liev­able Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

kurilov2 Best of Winter 2009 2010

The only per­son to escape the Iron Cur­tain by swimming.

By job he was an oceanog­ra­pher, by heart he was a dreamer, by nation­al­ity he was a cit­i­zen of the planet Earth — in short, he was an extra­or­di­nary guy. Yet his per­sonal file in the USSR was stamped as “not wor­thy of an exit visa” so he was not allowed to leave the coun­try, even if it was for a hol­i­day. So in Decem­ber, 1974 he jumped a cruise boat “The Soviet Union” off the coast of the Philip­pines islands — and he swam to freedom.With no food or drink, no swim­ming equip­ment apart from flips and gog­gles, he swam to the shores about a hun­dred kilo­me­ters for three days — com­pletely alone at sea.

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Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

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kurilov2 Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

The only per­son to escape the Iron Cur­tain by swimming.

By job he was an oceanog­ra­pher, by heart he was a dreamer, by nation­al­ity he was a cit­i­zen of the planet Earth — in short, he was an extra­or­di­nary guy. Yet his per­sonal file in the USSR was stamped as “not wor­thy of an exit visa” so he was not allowed to leave the coun­try, even if it was for a hol­i­day. So in Decem­ber, 1974 he jumped a cruise boat “The Soviet Union” off the coast of the Philip­pines islands — and he swam to freedom.With no food or drink, no swim­ming equip­ment apart from flips and gog­gles, he swam to the shores about a hun­dred kilo­me­ters for three days — com­pletely alone at sea.

Since his child­hood, Slava Kurilov had been very keen on swim­ming and he loved the sea so deeply, he made it his career — he was an oceanog­ra­pher, a deep sea diver. He knew the sky — all the major con­stel­la­tions, he knew mete­o­rol­ogy, he had a vivid inquis­i­tive mind  — he also spoke good Eng­lish, had a sis­ter liv­ing in Canada and his father was in a Ger­man prison camp dur­ing the WWII, which also con­sid­ered some­what of a treach­ery. A few times Slava applied for a per­mit for research trips out­side the coun­try, but to no avail — the rea­son being “endan­ger­ing the secu­rity of the USSR”.

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