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.

Arkady Shaikhet’s life story is one of the most remark­able ever. A fourth kid in a Jew­ish fam­ily from the South of Rus­sia, with no school edu­ca­tion or spe­cial skills, he was called in the army to serve in the WWI. How­ever, the out­break of typhoid saved him and so, being dis­charged at the age of 24, he moved to Moscow in search of great oppor­tu­ni­ties. And there they were: after get­ting a job at a local paper, Arkady tried his luck with a cam­era — only to realise that he got a spe­cial tal­ent. It was all uphill ever since: pub­lish­ing in the most influ­en­tial news­pa­pers, the hon­our of duty to pho­to­graph Lenin and Stalin, busy exhi­bi­tions and so on. He had the most remark­able shots of the Sec­ond World War events, which we hope to pub­lish here in the future.

And here’s some of the less life-assuring images of the new country.

Related posts:

1. Pho­tos of Moscow and Sur­round­ings by Marc Riboud, 1960s
2. Best of Win­ter 2009  –  2010
3. Pho­tos of Moscow and Sur­round­ings by Marc Riboud, 1960s
4. Enthu­si­as­tic Pho­tog­ra­phy from Soviet Rus­sia, 1950s  —  1960s.
5. More pic­tures of Soviet Moscow 1960s by Mark Riboud