Tag Archives: old woman

The Wall: the Unaccounted Tragedies.

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As pre­vi­ously stated by George Orwell, war is peace. So when Wal­ter Ulbricht, the Leader of the Ger­man Social­ist Unity Party, on June 15, 1961 said: “No one has the inten­tion of build­ing the wall!”, it took only about two months for the con­struc­tion to begin. The run­down state of the East­ern part was forc­ing peo­ple to flee in the search of bet­ter lives in the West of Ger­many: in the first six months of the year 1961, about 150 000 peo­ple left their houses. How­ever, more stayed — and so the Wall did not only sep­a­rate the city — it cut fam­i­lies in halves.

1 500x333 The Wall: the Unaccounted Tragedies.

On the morn­ing of August 13, 1961 the Berlini­ans woke up to the first layer of bricks being erected.

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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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A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

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1 500x306 A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

The Gri­boe­dov Chan­nel. The bridges St Peters­burg is so famous for.

By many, St Peters­burg (Leningrad  in 1924 – 1991) is often con­sid­ered to be so beau­ti­ful due to its archi­tec­ture of Ital­ian ori­gin. Quite strange to see these fine build­ings embell­ished by the sym­bols of the Soviet Era. Let’s take a walk around this fine city in the sum­mer almost 30 years ago.

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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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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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More pictures of Soviet Moscow 1960s by Mark Riboud

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RU38 500x333 More pictures of Soviet Moscow 1960s by Mark Riboud

Moscow, 1960s

This is our fourth 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.  As always, click on the mag­ni­fy­ing glass icon to see the pho­tos in detail.

Please fol­low us on twit­ter and stay tuned.  Oh, and thanks for being such a won­der­ful crowd!

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