The next part of historical pictures of USSR in the 70-s, submitted by our visitor Firsak.
If you live in Russia you can submit too via our forum or feedback form.
See also: USSR in the 70-s, part 1
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60 Responses to “More pictures of USSR. Part 2”
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THANK YOU!
awesome pictures!
btw: the guy on pic 77 sorta looks like the (former East-)German soccerplayer Michael Ballack
This is a very very good post.
Great photos that remind (me, at least) Russian folks have new babies, buy dresses, work, play, and bleed when cut.
I would greatly appreciate a running “Russian Faces” article that you would update constantly: one that would remind us that governments are our enemies, not people.
If the top photo of 5 girls would have been shown in the U.S.
in that time the soviets would have won the cold war. The only photos of Russian women we saw were fat babushkas. This was more frightening than all the nukes.
Yo there were some sexy shorties in those pics!
I WANT USSR BACK
maybe you shouldn’t have killed all those people than.
Interesting to see pics about normal life, not just propaganda etc
Looks like propaganda pics to me. I don’t think too many people wip out the old polariod to snap shots of their buddies capering in bio-hazard suits. Looks more like the glorious technical and social achievements of the motherland to me.
You are propaganda.
Actually, this seems to be propaganda to me too.
Hollywood it’s a real propoganda… Here it’s normal life of those times.
whats the picture with the girl with the bowling ball all about? If looks like a coal workers place but with girls in swim suits walking around? :huh: ?????? what?¬!
A bowling ball mine, duh. Where else do you think bowling balls come from?
Those are fishing boats and the ball is a glass sphere used for floating fishing nets.
I almost don’t dare to say it but if you look at these pictures, one would almost wish for the USSR to come back. Unfortunately, these photographs are only momentary recordings so you can’t say whether the people there are genuinely happy.
we WERE really happy!!
I was born in 1967 and lived in USSR incredibly happy, so as the all other people around me.
Да здравствует СССР!
Well i lived there and i was happy, much more happy than now.
I layed in the same buggy as on picture 117 !
Notice the relative lack of cars in the photos of large russian cities. Compare that to shots of New York around the same time. Only the ultra rich had cars. The rest of them had to ride the bus. They also don’t show any photos of the food lines. Non-party members used to stand in line for hours just to get basic items.
“ultra-rich” was, for instance, my father, simple worker, who HAD the car.
By the way, I still has no one. Don’t think that a man obligatory must have a car. I don’t need it, imagine.
It looked the same in the ’90s too.
Food lines, as opposed to American ‘will work for food’ signs.
Whatever idiocies and atrocities their governments commit, people are still people. It’s easy to throw stones at the USSR, but remember we all live in one giant glass apartment building.
When these pictures were taken, the US was busy expelling crazy people from sanitariums to live or die on the street as may be. The archetypal ‘shopping-cart-pushing-madman/woman’ is a new cultural artifact, and it came from that policy.
Everything from Ohio to California became a US state because of a deliberate campaign of genocide perpetrated by a president who’s face is still on the money. We revile Stalin, and we should. We should also revile Grant.
I agree with Voidgazing.
There’s an old joke:
Governments are like soup – the scum always floats to the top.
We’d all have alot less trouble without our governments always trying trying to scare us about eachother and starting fights.
i like all these photos, although they show only happy people and not all of them show a real life in ex-USSR. actually, there were not so many cars in the streets and people used public transport to go to work, there were food lines almost everywhere but, in spite of this, people weren’t unhappy. (who can tell he/she’s absolutely happy?)
why we divide this world into bad guys and good guys and why we advise others how to live.
Yeah idyllic as these are the reality is somewhat different. No freedom and control by a group of people who lived off the others. Too bad absolute power corrupts absolutely. The idea of equality for all and a huge safety net for all is not bad and something we should strive to arrive at.
http://englishrussia.com/images/more_pictures_ussr_70_2/73.jpg
That pic looks surreal. USSR looks nice there.
I’m surprised how many people link the number of cars on the road to quality of life. I can only wish that more people rode the bus around my city.
I’m also surprised by how many people still only want to look at the negative images of the old USSR. What images of North American life have they been looking at? Anyone been down to a food bank line up in any North Amercan city? The welfare office? We’ve had pleny of un happy, suffering people over the decades. The main difference is that in the USSR it was a general policy to make sure that every single person got what they NEEDED. Free health care, free education (through university) and a roof over their heads. Many people may not have had everything they WANTED, but everyone had what they NEEDED. The same could not be said of the west.
Very nice, but unfortunately no info about photographers. I recognized V.Gende-Rote photos (http://www.gende-rote.com/rus/ ) and so on.
I use to work with a guy who got out of USSR in 1977. He worked for The Party back in the Motherland. He had everything. He had a refrigerator. He had a toaster. He had a vacuum cleaner. He had a blender. He was also very near the top of the list to get electricity. Such a paradise!!!
Gosh, you still live in the 60’s. I bet you even built one of those bomb shelters when Kennedy told you that Russians are coming.
Everybody, and I repeat, everybody in the Soviet Union had a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner, a gas or electrical stove, hot water, a bathtub, a sink, a toilet, a bed, a TV set, a choice of sweaters. True, we couldn’t travel much, but anybody could afford to go to one of the Black Sea resorts (which were pretty good) or to one of the eastern European countries, or to Cuba (hey, if it was good enough for Hemingway, I’d say it was good for a working class Soviet citizen).
And besides, would you call USA a paradise? How much money do you owe for all the gadgets that you are so proud to “own”? Do you have a bumper sticker on your car saying, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go”? Will you ever be able to pay off your mortgage? Are you sure? How big is your nest egg? If (God forbids) you get seriously ill, will you have enough cash to save your pity ass? Are you still young? Watch out for that Patel, pretty soon he’s gonna take your job and will send you straight to the unemployment office line. And when you will finally be ready to claim your social security benefits, you will be very near the BOTTOM of the list to get it. Paradise? I think not.
Well spoken. Many people don’t seem to realize the difference between what you need and what you want, nor when enough is enough…
Lovely photos of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Thank you.
Good old USSR
those rearends of nuclear bombers… still frightening me :O
yup, these long long lines for food, and when it`s your turn to buy sausages (and you had a limitation, you cannot get, for example, all sausages), somebody before you bought the last ones. and you spent 4 hours in line, go home without food. you go to bar and you drink vodka, one, and one more.. you get drunk.
and these occupation things and deportations in 1941th and 1949th … so many innocent people died in syberia, so many innocent people died because they had farms, land, firms, their own business..
yeah, sweet USSR!
You are talking about the early 90’s. These pictures are from the 70’s, you dope. If you had enough money to buy hard liquor at the bar, you could go to one of the privately owned grocery stores and buy all the food you needed, you Latvian Nazi scum.
Dear all.
I have to admit that pictures of 70s in Russia had awaken memories from my childhood for a while (yes, I raised in communism). The area/country/system in which our childhood took place stays in our memories better than it was real.
Now, when I am 30+ y.o., I feel uncomfortable looking at some of the pictures presented above. Why ? The observed earlier picture of Russian soldier, so happy with his Kalasznikow machine-gun in the hands, says with all his face and eyes : “I will defend communism/socialism to death…. mine or yours”. For me most of the pictures are total propaganda, showing how “other people” spend their time. People are kissing each other, having children even in Somalia or whatever nice country with GDP equal to three BIgMacs. In reality of 70s and 80s in communism/socialism : long queues for food, necessity to have basic membership of communist party (without it you cannot be the manager…), the general unavailability of most of the basic goods.
Somebody mentioned free clinics/hospitals : if you called the customer-service at the clinic at 6:00 AM and reserved the place for two days in advance : yeah, it was free. If you wanted to go to real doctor on convenient time : you had to pay (I was treated by private doctors, as official and free doctors quality was awful). Ohhh, how happy we were to praise in the school the Russian (military, politics and 100% state owned business) presence in east Europe block.
Why nobody mentioned how much USD average Moscow worker earned by month at 70s? Was it more than 20 USD ?
How many cars has been sold per annum in Russia in 70s ?
How many new flats has been sold/given p.a. and how long the queue for that was in 70s?
How often there were shortages of power and water in major Russian cities at 70s ?
Why you had to had visas to visit each west Europe countries ?
Why so many USSR soldiers had to stay in east Europe ?
How many women has been raped and how many smart men has been shot to death by Red Army in east Europe after WWII ?
Why Beriozka was existing and why free USSR citizens were penalized so heavily for owning the USD ?
Guys : from my and my family point of view it was horrible time, and especially prepared photos made by KGB consultants does not change anything. East Europe has lost 50 years due to communism. Russia lost 70 in my humble opinion. I am trying to read as much as possible about old Russia (before october revolution), and I am fully convinced that smart governments would lead your beautiful country and hard working people into very high level of comfort lifes. Unfortunately it has not happened and nowadays your government can offer the world only gas/oil prices rise and nuclear warheads targeted into Vienna/Prague/Warsaw.
Kind Regards from free country
Great photos – I can’t believe all the ridiculous comments about propaganda! Doubtless some photos are, but does not Hollywood propogate the Great American Dream in films to this very day? Are not all judges in Hollywood films African American? Is this not also a biased representation of US life?
Just look at the photos and enjoy them as the World tries to enjoy inane American movies!
Hi,
I live in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk)… The landscape really hasn’t changed all too much since the CCCP…. more so if you get out of the center of the city (Read: Uralmash). I ride on the same trolley buses in the photos… see the same cars on the streets… the same firetrucks are everywhere… I also live in a fine example of a Krushkov apartment… and I love it. I wish I could go back in time to see this place during the Soviet Union… just for a day. As my Mother-in-law says… “Look, you got payed every 2 weeks no matter what… and everybody got an apartment.”
WOW amazing pix &was nice days 4 Russia
My dear “non-sovietunion” friends! These photos show almost all parts of life SU-citizens. There were propaganda in our country. Propaganda is banners at buildings not in state holidays, many plakats with slogans and portraits of stateboss. But you must separate it from upbringing.
All photos – are true, smiles – are true, lucky people, pretty girls and strong army – are true too.
If you needs more about SU, send messages: PATRIOT_S@UA.FM
No, it wasn’t “propaganda” – it was my life, it was the life of milions. This photos are like photos in my family photo album.
Yeah, spoken like a person who has all his/her basic needs covered. But take a minute to think about the people living in the streets and sleeping under bridges in the US. Sure, they don’t dissappear if they speak out of line and they can read any information they want in any of the newspapers they sleep on, but if I was one of them, I’d choose the free health care, the food and the roof over my head that the USSR provided for everyone. I mean, what’s free speech worth when you’re not alive to use it? Compromises, ladies and gentlemen…
At any rate, you can’t say anything you like in the US anymore. You can’t travel freely either. And many of your moves can be watched, noted and plotted if the authorities think they have a reason to do so. And it worked the same way in the USSR. You would have to be a fool to think they had the resources to follow up on every single person all the time in the USSR. But when they thought they had a reason, and you had ended up on some list, they started to follow up on you. Just like in the US ;).
I still live in a block of flats built in the ’70s. Not in the former USSR, but in Poland.
Stop criticising the ussr propaganda. Propaganda exists all over the world, even now. Communists Showed the capitalism as something evil, and capitalists showed that communism was evil. I still see propaganda all over: in movies, in tv. news. The majority of these pictures show moments of real life.Pictures taken to immortalize HAPPY moments. DO YOU DARE TO SAY THAT ALL USSR CITISENS WERE SAD? OR ALL US CITISENS WERE HAPPY? Live had good and bad parts, today it still has good and bad parts. The society will never reach a point where everybody would be happy. In fact I don’t see any improvement in life as it gets more and more expensive, more violent, and people are becomming sadder and meaner
[...] http://englishrussia.com/?p=1145#more-1145 [...]
Да никакая это не пропоганда. Это обычные люди, обычная жизнь советских людей, советских городов. Причем тут пропоганда и эти фотки? Что плохого, что люди на этих фотографиях довольны и улыбчивы? Разве такого не было в СССР? 60-е … 70-е года это вообще самое классное время было для Советского Союза. И большинство людей были действительно счастливы, живя в СССР В ТО ВРЕМЯ (если говорить про 70-е).
translation for non russian:
Its not a propagation. They are usual people, a usual life of the Soviet people, the Soviet cities. What is the connection between propagation and these photos? What bad, that people in these photos are happy and smiling? Do u think it was not in the USSR? 60… 70th years it were the best times for Soviet Union. And the majority of people were really happy, living in the USSR AT THAT TIME (i mean 70 th).
Propaganda rulezz
[...] in the 70s Some great photos [...]
I used to have a magazine named “Misha”…Anyone knw that..it was from old russia..It was delivered to my home every fortnight…i rember me and brother waiting eagerly for it..we are indians..still seing the pics in Misha we use to admire USSR….anyone having Misha
photo 16,19 Hungarian Ikarus bus
[...] Anys 60, anys 70 1, 2 i 3, i anys [...]
It seems that most women from Russia are very unique and beautiful. I love your Website and your culture…and especially the women!
some bowling balls are heavy and i accidentally dropped one on my foot. it is quite painfull;~:
bowling balls are dangerous on the foot if you mishandle it.*;*
bowling balls are quite dangerous to the hands of a newbie and untrained bowling player*:*
Thanks a lot!
Really great collection of pictures!
The cities built in the soviet union have so much space between the buildings, they are green, a lot of parks and the buildings look so futuristic. Compare that to the crowded western cities…