Tag Archives: leisure

Good Soviet Kids Go to Heaven? Nope, They Go to Artek!

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198 500x348 Good Soviet Kids Go to Heaven? Nope, They Go to Artek!

Kids in the tra­di­tional uniform.

The most famous PR image of the pio­ne­ria of the Soviet Union was a sum­mer vaca­tion camp sit­u­ated in the Crimea (Ukraine), next to Gurzuf town. Founded as a sana­to­rium for the kids suf­fer­ing and recov­er­ing from the TB by the Russ­ian Soci­ety of the Red Cross, it first opened doors in 1925, June 16th, accom­mo­dat­ing about 80 kids from Moscow and the near­est Ukrain­ian towns.

Then it was just a step ahead of a basic camp­ing ground, with kids sleep­ing in tents out in the for­est. How­ever, it grew rapidly until in early 1930s a few per­ma­nent build­ings were built. It was then Artek started work­ing all year round due to its mild Mediterranean-like climate.

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Soft Kitty, Small Kitty, Little Ball of Fur

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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

karlovcats05 500x348 Soft Kitty, Small Kitty, Little Ball of Fur

Cow­ardy

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21+ Depressing Photos of Post-Revolutionary Russia by Arkady Shaikhet

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When the new Soviet coun­try was born, the peo­ple were promised a won­der­ful future under the social­ism — just a few more years, the bill­boards boasted — and we’ll live in a glo­ri­ous state. How­ever the early days were more than gloomy: the  run­down econ­omy, dis­ori­ented soci­ety, the reek of fear and uncer­tainty — and that clearly can be seen through the pho­tos of a promi­nent Soviet pho­tog­ra­pher Arkady Shaikhet.

This col­lec­tion of pho­tos starts off with nice, clearcut images of what the coun­try was por­trayed as by the media and pro­pa­ganda — and pro­gresses to a unsweet­ened world of the sim­ple folk, vagrants, and peas­ants. Please let us know if there is a photo below that has touched your heart — we always value your feedback.

photoshare 003 500x373 21+ Depressing Photos of Post Revolutionary Russia by Arkady Shaikhet

Gym­nasts. Red Square. 1924

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Technological Advance of the Classic Rocking Horse

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Wooden Toys Horse On Wheels1 500x375 Technological Advance of the Classic Rocking Horse

The Wooden Horse on Wheels

This myth­i­cal crea­ture of the Soviet kids’ child­hood, some­thing between a Cen­taur and a bicycle, has come into being within a Soviet man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try dri­ven by an over­pow­er­ing desire to “give all the best” to chil­dren. Most bril­liant minds of the Soviet sci­en­tists were work­ing on the cre­ation of the ideal cross-breed. The mutant was offi­cially labeled a “Pedal Horse” and its large-volume pro­duc­tion was finally kick-started by the end of 1950s. It became very pop­u­lar quite fast as it was really excit­ing to own a “real” horse that could move around in the street, a horse more real than a wooden rock­ing horse.

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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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AWOL Tigger, or a Soviet Take on the World-Famous Cartoon Characters

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Apart from the Soviet writ­ers’ pro­lific input into the chil­dren lit­er­a­ture, a great deal of sto­ries was trans­lated into Russ­ian, so the kids of the USSR grew up on the sto­ries by Hans Ander­sen, Charles Pier­rot and the Grimm broth­ers. Often the trans­la­tors took the lib­erty of chang­ing the plot of the sto­ry­line: this is how the famous book by A. Milne “Win­nie the Pooh” in its Russ­ian ver­sion fea­tures no Tig­ger yet there are some extra char­ac­ters not from the orig­i­nal script. Arguably, it allowed the trans­la­tor to become some­what of an author and hence their name went onto the book cover (this is what hap­pened to the Russ­ian ver­sion of The Wiz­ard of Oz). As car­toon mak­ing was one of the most devel­oped (and cer­tainly less cen­sored ones) graphic arts, it can be of inter­est to see how the Russ­ian ani­ma­tors saw the tra­di­tional West­ern fairy tales characters.

vinni 500x375 AWOL Tigger, or a Soviet Take on the World Famous Cartoon Characters

Piglet, Win­nie the Pooh and Rab­bit. 1969

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