Ear­lier this year, a unique in its pecu­liar­ity museum was opened in Novosi­birsk, the Siber­ian cap­i­tal of Rus­sia. Pri­vately owned, this museum offers an insight into the days long gone, yet long­ing to be remem­bered: a col­lec­tion of the Soviet every­day arti­facts; sim­ple things that still matter.

Please wel­come our new author Maria Yukhi­menko, who has vis­ited this place and and pre­pared this report exclu­sively for the realussr readers.

The USSR Museum: the facade.

The museum occu­pies a 1917 villa and is opened by appoint­ment only. The story goes that a long time ago this build­ing was used as an NKVD head­quar­ters (the KGB pre­de­ces­sor, that is). Well, it cer­tainly feels like it – the atmos­phere is gloomy enough: dark rooms, high stud ceil­ings, squeaky wooden floors.

How­ever, it turns out to have quite a bit of character…

As always, please click on mag­ni­fy­ing glass to see in detail.

An Old curio­suty shop indeed!

A TV with an clas­sic clock on it.

The Soviet art deco: a cast iron clock Young cou­ple flirting.

Inside it feels like a trea­sure chest, with all the impos­si­ble relics brought together: from old cam­eras and type­writ­ers through to crock­ery, clothes and pro­pa­ganda posters. Most of the appli­ances are still in work­ing order, Anna the proud cura­tor  tells me.

Assorted Soviet china

A boy scout with a Ger­man shep­pard, close up.

The stuff on dis­play does not seem to be cat­e­go­rized in any par­tic­u­lar way, nor is it chrono­log­i­cal: it is just there, in almost ran­dom piles, to be touched and looked at by vis­i­tors. Almost each arti­fact has got a tiny sticker with a price on; unfor­tu­nately, apart from the door charges (USD$2), this is the only way for the museum to stay afloat.

Rub­ber toys, mostly fairy tale characters.

The direc­tor of the USSR museum is Idea Lozhk­ina. Back in the days, pro­pa­gan­dis­tic names were trendy (Firstof­may or Rev­o­lu­tia, and so Idea is one of them). And she was, indeed, struck by an idea of open­ing a Soviet ver­sion of a curios­ity shop. “My house was full of old mem­o­ra­bilia, and peo­ple liked it, so I though, why not? – says Idea. -  It is very impor­tant to cre­ate some­thing use­ful in this life.   Some­thing, which will help to remem­ber those days, oth­er­wise the risk that the stuff will be dumped is very high”.

The inter­view with the direc­tor Idea Lozhkina.

The Museum tries to stay neu­tral in its polit­i­cal posi­tion. Idea says they are not try­ing  to pro­mote com­mu­nism or com­mu­nis­tic pro­pa­ganda; they are only try­ing to keep the mem­o­ries alive. The younger ones, who come to the museum, do not always know who Lenin was. Nev­er­the­less, the museum has been opened for two months only, and it has been very pop­u­lar with the public.

Busts of Mao, bronze; Lenin, cast iron. Note which one is taller, this is Made in the USSR for you.

There is a study-like room, which is just ask­ing to be labelled as “Lenin’s study”. His por­traits on the walls, com­mu­nis­tic flags, a type­writer on the desk, an opened book on Marx­ism and com­mu­nism prin­ci­ples… Just next to it there are doc­u­ments of that era: pass­ports, mem­ber­ship dock­ets, let­ters. A guy in the huge por­trait on the wall seems almost unrec­og­niz­able: young Brezh­nev, it turns out. A rare shot.

Young Brezh­nev.

Another Soviet toy, a stuffed teddy.

The “Smena” cam­era (“Change”, no less!) in its glory days made it to the Guin­ness Record Book as the most pop­u­lar cam­era of its days: the sales were skyrocketing!

USSR money: the rou­ble is yel­low, three is green.

At 6 pm after the war, a film of 1944. The IMDB rat­ing is 7.2÷10

In the future they intend to open a small cin­ema to show films of the Soviet era and to allow the older peo­ple to social­ize and feel a lit­tle nos­tal­gic over it. The Museum team also plan to cel­e­brate major Soviet hol­i­days, orga­nize get-together par­ties, sing old songs and lis­ten to the old music.  “After all, — says Idea, — this place strives to bring peo­ple together. Rus­sia is a great and pow­er­ful coun­try which I believe in, but Rus­sia was born out of the USSR, and it would not have been pos­si­ble for Rus­sia to be born with­out the USSR.  And we are here to praise its legacy, even on such a small scale as every day items”.

Related posts:

1. Exper­i­men­tal Soviet Home­made Photography
2. Fun­time with Soviet Playthings
3. The Patri­otic Edu­ca­tion in USSR. Part 2  —  Pio­neers, Soviet Boy Scouts
4. Sign­boards of Soviet Stores
5. Sexy Soviet Under­wear. Not!

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback