Tag Archives: photos

May, 1st: Soviet Labour Day.

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1984 marochkin May, 1st: Soviet Labour Day.

Parade of 1984, city of Ufa. Photo by N. Marochkin.

Day of Inter­na­tional Sol­i­dar­ity of the Work­ing Class, or Labour Day — was cel­e­brated in Rus­sia on May, 1st  from 1919 to 1990. A pub­lic hol­i­day for each every city, every town­ship or vil­lage had a parade organ­ised: flags were car­ried, posters and ban­ners were up, kids had red bal­lons and por­traits of the gov­ern­ing men were on dis­play. The atten­dance usu­ally was com­pul­sory, but judg­ing by the pho­tographs now, I don’t think any­body minded: it looks like peo­ple had fum there. By May the weather was usu­ally sunny and crisp, and this hol­i­day was a lit­tle more that a pro­pa­gan­dist activ­ity: it was a uni­fy­ing event. Please read on to see some faces behind the crowd.

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Summer in Gorky Park, Moscow of late 1960s

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We are very for­tu­nate to have gained the access to the col­lec­tion of pho­tographs below — they have come from a pri­vate col­lec­tion of Eugene Orlov, a keen pho­tog­ra­pher of 1960s, scanned by his grand­son. Por­trayed is a series of shots from a sum­mer walk in the Gorky Park, an iconic fam­ily recre­ational venue in Moscow. Please click on the mag­ni­fy­ing lens image for the close up and if you like it — tell your friends!

park gorkogo1960s 21 500x303 Summer in Gorky Park, Moscow of late 1960s

Images cour­tesy of Eugene Orlov. Late 1960s.

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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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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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The Patriotic Education in USSR. Part 2 — Pioneers, Soviet Boy Scouts

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pioner1 The Patriotic Education in USSR. Part 2 Pioneers, Soviet Boy Scouts

We are the pio­neers, sons of work­ing class (a pop­u­lar song)

As you remem­ber from the pre­vi­ous post, at the age of 9 the Soviet Kids grew out of their Octo­ber Kids affil­i­a­tion. The next ide­o­log­i­cal rite of pas­sage was pio­neer­ing which the Soviet coun­try placed a huge impor­tance on. Loosely based on the Amer­i­can Boy Scout’s move­ment, pio­neer­ing cov­ered all kids till the age of four­teen and worked in close rela­tion with schools. Just like any­thing else Soviet style, it had its idiosyncrasies.

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A Glance at the Soviet Lifestyle, Captured by Marc Riboud.

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RU45 500x333 A Glance at the Soviet Lifestyle, Captured by Marc Riboud.

A singing class, 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.

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

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