Tag Archives: traveling

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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City of UFA: Then and Now

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blue on pushkina 500x312 City of UFA: Then and Now

A merchant’s house. Early twenties.

center 20 500x316 City of UFA: Then and Now

A her­itage build­ing now

The city of Ufa, the cap­i­tal of Bashkiria, is a town with the pop­u­la­tion of just over a mil­lion, at about 1500 km dis­tance from Moscow. It is beau­ti­fully set at the con­flu­ence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, on low hills to the west of South­ern Urals. The city was founded in 1574 at the orders of Ivan the Ter­ri­ble, and the name mean­ing “small” in Tur­kic. It is a well kept city with lots of green­ery, wide alleys, parks and plen­ti­ful his­toric buildings.

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 Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

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1 500x306 A Trip Around the USSR: Leningrad 1972

The Gri­boe­dov Chan­nel. The bridges St Peters­burg is so famous for.

By many, St Peters­burg (Leningrad  in 1924 – 1991) is often con­sid­ered to be so beau­ti­ful due to its archi­tec­ture of Ital­ian ori­gin. Quite strange to see these fine build­ings embell­ished by the sym­bols of the Soviet Era. Let’s take a walk around this fine city in the sum­mer almost 30 years ago.

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Yes I Can: Dr Rogozov Performs Self Surgery

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Remem­ber our post about  Slava Kurilov, the guy who jumped off the cruise ship near the Philip­pines islands  —  and swam to free­dom for three con­sec­u­tive days, com­pletely alone at sea? Our today’s post tells a story just as remark­able — a young Russ­ian sur­geon Leonid Rogo­zov, stranded in  Antarc­tica with the Sixth Soviet Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion, in 1961 per­forms a self-operation: under local anes­the­sia, sur­rounded by a bunch of guys whose only expe­ri­ence with med­i­cine was sit­ting in a dentist’s chair, the 27th years old doc­tor removes his own appendix.

rogozovappendectomy2 500x324 Yes I Can: Dr Rogozov Performs Self Surgery

rogozovappendectomy2

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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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Diamond Dog’s Run 4,000 miles long: David Bowie in the USSR.

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Just like John Lennon or Elton John, in 1970s David Bowie was an iconic fig­ure of the West­ern music scene. Nick­named Chameleon of Pop for his flam­boy­ant out­fits, pale make up and eccen­tric tunes, David Bowie made a train tour of Rus­sia, all the way from Vladi­vos­tok to Moscow, eigh­teen days in a sleeper.  Back in the days, when the Cold War was in its prime, get­ting a per­mis­sion to look behind the Iron Cur­tain was an incred­i­ble phe­nom­e­non by itself. Well, did David  enjoy him­self while in the USSR? Let’s see.

DB pano 500x188 Diamond Dogs Run 4,000 miles long: David Bowie in the USSR.

David Bowie in the Red Square, Moscow, April 1973.

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