From now on each Wednesday Real USSR will try to bring you entertaining rather than informative posts – let us know how you like it.

Surreal NKVD: Catch me if you can

These photos are from a private collection of a typical Moscow family. They are dated back to 1936–1940 -  the years known as the  period of Stalin’s most cruel political repressions.  Several million people are said to be affected: sentenced, shot or sent off to labour camps.

There is a Russian movie about those times – “Burnt By The Sun” (Utomlennye Solncem), which in 1994 won the Academy Awards as the best foreign language film (imdb rating 7.9/10). The story is about love in the times of political turmoil, the love that survives all fears of purges and uncertainty. Surprisingly enough, people still managed to try and have a few laughs during those harsh times.

The method is known as “double exposure”, when the aperture opens twice but the photo element stays in place. You might remember the principle from the days when you had a film camera and forgot to rewind the film. Neat, really.

Playing cards

Close-up: Pack of cigarettes

Freeze!

Details: Toy pistol

Another one?

Details: Famous in those days vodka ‘Zubrowka’

Would you like a cup of tea?

Close-up: Tea pot

Listening to the music

Got a lighter?

Hard to pick one

Afterparty

All by myself!

A card game

Chess was very popular in Soviet Russia

Dancing

A band

Men are all the same

Embroidering

Check and mate

We would appreciate your comments, backlinks and retweets on this weirdly beautiful pieces of photography.

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Related posts:

1. Picturing the Soviet Republics: Moldavia
2. The Beauty of a Soviet Body
3. The 50th Anniversary of the Soviet Union in Old American Mags