Tag Archives: Soviets abroad

The Wall: the Unaccounted Tragedies.

Posted on by
5

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.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Oleg Popov, The Sad Clown

Posted on by
4

In about six weeks this remark­able man will cel­e­brate his 80th Birth­day. Who is he? The most pop­u­lar clown of the Soviet Union, also known as the Sun­shine Clown, Oleg Popov is true icon of its own. Born in 1930, he had on of the tough­est upbring­ings ever — yet he man­aged to become one of most recog­nis­able peo­ple of the 20th cen­tury: he also was in Guin­ness Records Book for “being pop­u­lar in the West and in the East”.

levit9 445x500 Oleg Popov, The Sad Clown

On top of his game. Oleg Popov in 1976.

Con­tinue read­ing →

The Victory Aftermath. Russia in Second World War.

Posted on by
8
den pobedy 500x385 The Victory Aftermath. Russia in Second World War.

The V-Day. Copy­right unknown

On May, 25th 1945 Joseph Stalin made a cel­e­bra­tory speech devoted to the end of the Russ­ian Great Patri­otic War. The Sec­ond World War was com­ing to an end, but the Soviet Union was done fight­ing. The Russ­ian troops had exited Ger­many and ahead lied a long road of rebuild­ing and reha­bil­i­ta­tion. So in Krem­lin, at the V-day Meet­ing, Stalin had said the following:

Do not expect me to say any­thing extra­or­di­nary today. I have a very sim­ple, very ordi­nary toast to make. I would like to raise a glass to health of those peo­ple who are low in rank and invis­i­ble in the hier­ar­chy. Of those who we con­sider to be the “small screws” of our huge state mech­a­nism — they might be small but with­out them us gen­er­als, mar­shals and other top army lead­ers wouldn’t have made it. They are plen­ti­ful, they are a legion, it is tens of mil­lions of peo­ple who have not been heard of — yet they hold us together, as the base holds the top. To their health!

Today we have brought to your atten­tion a frag­ment of the inter­view with Yelena Bon­ner, a human rights activist, a dis­si­dent, a writer, and a widow of the late Andrei Sakharov — dur­ing the war she was a teen and now, cour­tesy to the Internet-magazine Snob.ru, she tells us about her expe­ri­ence dur­ing the war.

So — We did not fight for Stalin or the Soviet Union. We fought because we had no other choice.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

Posted on by
11
kurilov2 Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain

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.

Since his child­hood, Slava Kurilov had been very keen on swim­ming and he loved the sea so deeply, he made it his career — he was an oceanog­ra­pher, a deep sea diver. He knew the sky — all the major con­stel­la­tions, he knew mete­o­rol­ogy, he had a vivid inquis­i­tive mind  — he also spoke good Eng­lish, had a sis­ter liv­ing in Canada and his father was in a Ger­man prison camp dur­ing the WWII, which also con­sid­ered some­what of a treach­ery. A few times Slava applied for a per­mit for research trips out­side the coun­try, but to no avail — the rea­son being “endan­ger­ing the secu­rity of the USSR”.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Labour Riots in Novocherkassk: Soviet ‘Tiananmen’

Posted on by
2
1962 maslo1 500x332 Labour Riots in Novocherkassk: Soviet Tiananmen

Meat, but­ter, pay rise!

Novocherkassk is a small town in the South of Rus­sia, also known as the unof­fi­cial cap­i­tal of the Cos­sacks, the Slavic mil­i­tary com­mu­nity. Unfor­tu­nately this town was the place of a huge tragedy, when in 1962 the civil­ian demon­stra­tion was opened fire on.

The tur­moil started on June, 1 when the Soviet gov­ern­ment announced the gro­cery price increase of about 30 per cent. The riot began at the pro­gres­sive elec­tro loco­mo­tive fac­tory: just before the price increase, the salary had been low­ered, which already was below the liv­ing min­i­mum (about a hun­dred rub­bles). The work­ers demanded an expla­na­tion, and threat­ened to strike. Faced with an ulti­ma­tum, the CEO Kurochkin mounted the plat­form and demanded that peo­ple went back to work. ‘If you do not have enough money for meat, buy the liver pie’ answered Kurochkin with the snarl.

Con­tinue read­ing →

More pictures of Soviet Moscow 1960s by Mark Riboud

Posted on by
8
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!

Con­tinue read­ing →