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

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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Fashion in the USSR. DIY.

Dur­ing the Soviet times fash­ion was first and fore­most, an instru­ment of pro­pa­ganda of hard work atti­tudes and edu­ca­tion of good taste. There­fore the way peo­ple were dressed was very strictly reg­u­lated – just like any­thing else, fash­ion had to be “planned” and “approved”.

Offi­cially the most pop­u­lar designs were the clas­sic ones. Not only were they set out to pro­mote the good taste of the clean cut and reserved ele­gance, it was also a very con­ve­nient way of pro­duc­tion:  once designed and approved, the clas­sic dresses and suits were not as respon­sive to changes in the trends and hence inex­pen­sive to main­tain. The often boring-looking pieces of cloth­ing were labelled as never going out of fash­ion and pro­moted as “eter­nally youthful”.

fashion8 Fashion in the USSR. DIY.

Eter­nally youth­ful, isn’t it?

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