Tag Archives: soviet cities

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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Behind the Myth Veil

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Please wel­come our new author Vadim Costyrin with his first but seri­ous post on the present days of those born in the USSR, brought up by the Yeltsin’s coup and now left to seek their national and cul­tural iden­tity all by themselves.

54 500x348 Behind the Myth Veil

A per­for­mance at a kindergarten.

Once the USSR inspired us with fear, now this coun­try does not exist. We have the big Rus­sia and a lot of small and not so small, whim­si­cal republics, for the right to include which in the sphere of their influ­ence there fight politi­cians of the super­pow­ers. Together with the Soviet Union we have lost Rus­sians — our antipodes — against whom we willy-nilly matched. It may seem that it is a vic­tory — but Rus­sians want the USSR back, and after only two decades there are much more fears and threats.

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A Swissman in Moscow: Leonard Gianadda, 1957.

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It is always inter­est­ing to see how for­eign­ers per­ceive Rus­sia. This time there’s no excep­tion — in 1957, dur­ing the 6th World­wide Fes­ti­val of Youth And Stu­dents, a Swiss reporter Léonard Gianadda spent a few hot sum­mer days in Moscow, cap­tur­ing not only the Fes­ti­val pro­gramme, but ran­dom faces of Moscovites in the streets. 50 some­thing years later, when we look at these shots, we for­get for a moment about the pol­i­tics, and repres­sions, and all the mis­for­tunes the coun­try has been through — we can only enjoy the life cap­tured in these split seconds.

24 500x333 A Swissman in Moscow: Leonard Gianadda, 1957.

The sum­mer of 1957

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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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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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Novosibirsk: Then and Now.

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komm most 500x329 Novosibirsk: Then and Now.

The Com­mu­nal Bridge, back then (late 1970s)

komm mostt 500x375 Novosibirsk: Then and Now.

The Com­mu­nal Bridge, nowadays.

The unof­fi­cial cap­i­tal of Siberia, the city of Novosi­birsk was founded in 1893 with the ini­tial pop­u­la­tion of only 8,000 peo­ple. By the time of the Great Octo­ber Social­ist Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917,  it grew to the pop­u­la­tion size of 80,000. The name, lit­er­ally mean­ing New Siber­ian City, was adopted in 1926 — and since then, the town had become to grow and prosper.By 1962, Novosi­birsk became the youngest city in the world to have the pop­u­la­tion of 1 mil­lion — it only took about 70 years. Now it is an impor­tant indus­trial, cul­tural and socioe­co­nomic hub of the country.

We realise that today’s post is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from our usual for­mat, as the mod­ern pic­tures of the city are, well, mod­ern and not of the Soviet epoch. It is still nice to see, how­ever, how the city has been chang­ing over the past hun­dred years — and the old pho­tographs are still full of life and very easy on the eye.

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