Tag Archives: stalin

Moscow Underground Without Stalin — See the Gaps

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The Moscow under­ground metro sys­tem, opened in 1935, is well known for its ornate dec­o­ra­tions, out­stand­ing archi­tec­ture and art­work. Most of that art is in the social­ist real­ism style, which has its pur­pose of rein­forc­ing the goals of social­ism and com­mu­nism. In 1932 Joseph Stalin intro­duced the decree “On the Recon­struc­tion of Lit­er­ary and Art Orga­ni­za­tions”, thus mak­ing social­ist real­ism state pol­icy. Under­stand­ably, Stalin became the face of this move­ment — due to strict cen­sor­ship rules,  artists had to obey in order to avoid the pun­ish­ment. So the majes­tic Moscow met­ro­pol­i­tan sys­tem had bear­ings of many stat­ues, por­traits, mosaics of the man himself.

How­ever, after his death, the Thaw and alto­gether the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the cult of his per­sona, images of Stalin were removed — no longer he was the face behind the social­ism goals. Please read on to see the scars on the body of the finest exam­ple of the Soviet archi­tec­ture — the Moscow Under­ground System.

Kurskaja kolcevaja 1944 369x500 Moscow Underground Without Stalin See the Gaps

Kurskaya Cir­cle Sta­tion, 1944. Stalin by Tom­skiy. After the statue was moved, the place was taken by a kiosk.

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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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A Rough Guide to Moscow from the Daughter of the American Ambassador

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Joseph E. Davies was the sec­ond Ambas­sador to rep­re­sent the United States in the Soviet Union in 1937 – 1938.

His daugh­ter, the twenty years old Emlen Knight Davies, took some pic­tures of the sur­round­ings. These images, cour­tesy of her pri­vate col­lec­tion, were on dis­play in Moscow for the anniver­sary of the Spaso House — the offi­cial diplo­matic residence.

These 19 images por­tray Moscow in a slightly dif­fer­ent view — the entire pre-war epoch ended was just about to end, and those times, still full of life and char­ac­ter, still look very charming.

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Emlen Knight Davies, at the age of 20 (ish)

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The Fearsome Threesome – Lenin and His Lovebirds

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437px Lenin in Paris Poster Lenin v Parizhe Youtkhevitch Yutkevich Claude Jade 364x500 The Fearsome Threesome – Lenin and His Lovebirds

Paris, city of love, brought them all together. A Russ­ian movie of 1981.

The offi­cial his­tory often misses a very impor­tant and inter­est­ing point in the course of the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion – not every­body knows that Vladimir Lenin, a for­mi­da­ble mind behind the Great Octo­ber Patri­otic Rev­o­lu­tion and the leader of all com­mu­nists, had less than straight­for­ward love life – apart from a wife, he had a mis­tress – and not only that, these two women knew each other and got on very well!

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Best of Fall 2009

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

RU44 500x333 Best of Fall 2009

Museum, 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.

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