Tag Archives: Thaw

Take Me To The River!

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Late 1950s was an inter­est­ing epoch for the Soviet Union. The death of Stalin was like a begin­ning to a new era, “the Thaw” of Khrushchev, the very first signs of the Cold War and the famous Ful­ton speech of Churchill — all of those were the signs of uneasy times com­ing up. But just before the Iron Cur­tain fell heav­ily, Rus­sia was the place to visit — and we are very grate­ful to the Life mag­a­zine pho­tog­ra­phers who took plen­ti­ful pho­tos for us.

So we are going to make a 50 year leap into the past to the mid-Russia region of the Volga river — here, the sparkly brand new ships were mak­ing their first cruises. So — full throttle!

Krylov ship capt palkin 322x500 Take Me To The River!

Cap­tain Palkin on a Maiden Voy­age of Krylov Ship. 1958.

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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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Christian Dior in Moscow: a Fleeting Sense of Happiness

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19 500x329 Christian Dior in Moscow: a Fleeting Sense of Happiness

1959. The offi­cial photo shoot, images cour­tesy of LIFE archives (Howard Sochurek)

The Khrushchev’s Thaw was to bring change to many aspects of the Soviet life, and fash­ion was  one of them. The deci­sion to allow the Soviet fash­ion design­ers to learn off their French coun­ter­parts was made as high as at the gov­ern­ment level, which implic­itly put fash­ion above pol­i­tics or inter­na­tional ide­o­log­i­cal regimes. The colour of the Soviet Union, a generic grey, was about to be mixed up with the mot­ley and lithe palette of the French fashion.

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An Italian Affair: Vyatka vs Vespa

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After the Sec­ond World War in Italy the car­mak­ers realised that it would be a long time before every­one who needed a car would be able to afford one. So the smart Ital­ians switched to design­ing and pro­duc­ing motor scoot­ers: these light, afford­able, ergonomic Ves­pas, a low cost prod­uct avail­able to everybody.

Need­less to say, Vespa was the brand of the time (and arguably still is) and it grew more and more pop­u­lar across Europe, until, in early 1950s, it reached the USSR. All of a sud­den this youth­ful and cheery means of trans­porta­tion coin­cided with the Khrushchev Thaw and it was decided to launch the Soviet line of motor scoot­ers. Machin­ery wise, it was viable: since the war times, a few fac­to­ries had been idle, so it was only a mat­ter of design.

v 1 500x410 An Italian Affair: Vyatka vs Vespa

Mod­ern girl with a vin­tage scooter. She is prob­a­bly gloomy over the petrol price.

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