Warm kitty, Sleepy Kitty, Purr Purr Purr.
For those of you who found the previous post a tad too serious (and we always welcome you feedback!), here’s a set of illustrations for a childrens’ book Look At These Kittens! by Georgy Karlov. Please retweet and stay tuned! Cheers
Cowardy
…and we are back on air after our short break! Sorry it was unannounced, but very much needed — and we are delighted to reconnect with you again. We’ve got lots of great stuff coming — from kids summer camps through to some amazing amateur photography as well as we shall look at each decade in detail — what 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and so on meant to the Soviet Union, and how it lived differently to the rest of the world. So — thanks for your feedback and stay tuned!
Just a very light post for today, before we dig any deeper — a very neat collection of humorous postcards — great to see some good natured jokes all the way from 1950s and 1960s.
Future Champions. By G. Valk.
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. Usually away from home, this period of time was meant to train and educate the men should there be a war. It included physical training, political orientation, current affairs, weaponry and so on — a good many posts can be written on life in the army! Today, however, we want to take a different look on this subject. 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. This particular one has a very neat selection of wee hand drawn episodes of the army realities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Honey is good for doing sports. 1959.