Just like anywhere else in the world, the Soviet youngsters wanted to socialize, to listen to the music and to dance. The nightclubs were unheard of – anything of that kind would have been announced as promoting debauchery or morally wrong lifestyle habits. So the best one would hope for were the discotheques – the special dance occasions, organized by the officials on a weekly basis. They always had a designated supervisor – a school principal or a city council representative in charge.
A Soviet discotheque, most likely late 1960s.
Often enough, especially in the small cities, these dance events were the only source of entertainment. Movies were scarce and arrived in towns infrequently; the circus would visit once a year; and libraries just didn’t do it.
In summer months, the discotheques were usually taken outdoors. Typical dancing grounds.
Knowing the popularity of discotheques, the authorities also liked using it as the sweet part of the “carrot and stick” tandem: for instance, dancing would follow some boring meeting, or a motivational lecture, or some propaganda pep talk. Linking the attendance of the lecture to the permission to come out and dance was an easy way to twist arms of the rebellious youth.
She is feisty! An old movie “Gals”, 1961, an episode on the dance floor.
A set of rules – how to behave on a discotheque – was usually displayed and enforced by the person in charge. For instance, it was suggested that work clothes were not welcome, and the outfit should be light and comfortable. The dance moves were suggested to be well-rehearsed as dancing “freestyle” was not considered appropriate. Women were allowed to express discontent towards males who would make inappropriate advances or dance in a wicked manner. Smoking was prohibited, but at least there was never a cover charge.
An old cartoon, circa 1960
As for the dancing “appropriately”, it was generally accepted that classic dances (waltz and other slower modest moves) were better than tango, foxtrot or swing – these were more of a “dirty Western dancing”. That was what the crowd would long for, though – so the dj was allowed to play such a tune once a night, perhaps. And, just like anything forbidden, it really drove the crowd wild.
A New Year’s Eve Night, a painting by A. Snegirev, 1982.
The propaganda, which was everywhere, stated that in the West people are so overworked, they need their weekly portion of dances to rewind (this was a subtle reference to “Saturday Night Fever”, also banned in the country). The logic was that in the USSR things were different: people went out to dance in order to socialize, not because their capitalist bosses tired them out.
This is an old cartoon portraying foreigners on the dance floor in their unnecessary flamboyant outfits. Note the bottle and their greenish faces — propaganda full throttle!
Quite the contrary, in the USSR dancing was also a part of a harmonious development of a person. This notion was very popular with the movie directors: the working class – electricians, nurses, teachers etc – go dancing because they have too much energy, not to lose themselves in music. The latter one was considered to be wrong and asocial. It is a nice finish for the week, but it is not a desperate, Travolta-like TGIF, it is an active type of rest and a great deal of cultural activity.
Dancing in the Ural Mountains, by G. Sorokin.
Another common feature of the discotheque phenomenon is the same-sex pairs. Oh no, they were not queer – it was simply due to the shortage of men. Fortunately for all, there came the baby boom and this tendency almost disappeared by the end of 1960s.
Girls girls girls
Also, there was the age bar. Firstly, the teenagers were not allowed – you would have to be at least 17 to attend. Secondly, and this is interesting, the oldies were not meant to come and dance – and by oldies we mean the married lot. It was unheard for a married person to turn up to shake their booties – it was frowned upon, and therefore there were themed discotheques “For those over 30”, type of thing.
As for the music, apart from the domestic Soviet bands, the imported stuff from Italy and France was very popular. Adriano Celentano, Toto Cutugno, Romina Power and Albano; Charles Aznavour, Joe Dassin, Serge Gainsborough. Not only were they melodious, oh no. Mind you, both the countries had communism orientation back then, so it was a mere political calculation to approve of their culture. But nobody in the USSR minded — these artists are still a big (even though mildly nostalgic) hit.
Please visit the source at RealUSSR.com
F R T
I S !
Or something like that!
“Organized by officials” should really have been all the warning people needed to know the event would suck.
Why there is no Jewish dancing?
“Venus” was a song by The Doors, actually.
Early seventies there was a hit-record called ‘Venus’, by the band Shocking Blue. [in '80s by Bananarama]
Also very popular in USSR, but known as ‘Shizgara’, since Russians did not know the language of ‘the enemy’ they had to phonetically interpret the lyrics. The chorus’She’s got it, yeah baby, she’s got it’ became ‘Shizgara, ya baby shizgara’. Still one of most popular dance tunes in Russia.
Nice post!
Pic number 6 (foreigners on the dancefloor) includes not only alcohol and greenish faces, but clearly also psilocybin (or magic) mushrooms. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_mushrooms)
Awesome website! No offense, but their clothes looks like 1940, maybe ’50. Just like in pictures of my grandparents. (little white socks on girls with the dress/skirt probably ’50′s-ish. ???
superb article. 1000 thanks for the awesomeness of the site in general, but some articles just stand out, and this is one of them. congrats
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This post is too dirty for me,those sovietskis are being way too provocative with the standards of the soviet union!!!!
Excellent post! The writing seems better than usual too.
not only “the bottle and their greenish faces” – there also are shrooms… rather psychedelic one…
Fantastic post and very interesting!! Many thanks!!
Can anyone tell me what the text is with the cartoon of the sickly American shroom dancers? I am curious to see what they said about us! And if the mushrooms were addressed.
(Interesting that this would figure into the propaganda of a decidedly mycophilic society!)
The “mushroom” cartoon has a satire poem attached to it:
Foreign women? Foreign men?
No! From head to toe,
These are local death caps*,
Home-grown “Broadway”
* death caps are Amanita phalloides, a common variety of poisonous mushroom. Yes, mycophilic society, but it’s very common in Russian culture to use botanical similes.
Presumably, following the dress and dance manners of the West turned one into a bad apple in the society.
This lone site has done more to educate westerners and others to the inner workings of the Soviet- era world than any university could ever do. The site administrator, knowingly or not, has allowed an exchange of emotions and experience to freely flow by the simple act of posting visual cues which at once generate a range of thoughts from the respondents, be they nostalgic, humorous, spiteful, jealous, or just plain creative writings.
I find I can’t let a day go by without checking in at least several times to see what this community is up to and to enjoy the musings of other visitors; as they say in show biz “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”, on this site there’s no such thing as a bad post.
Thanks English Russia.
Yes I agree completely!! I’ve only been following this site for about a year, but I’m now a slighlty less ignorant Englishman. Some of these posts are just fantastic!!
Well done EnglishRussia!! Hip-Hip Hooray!!
Hmm.. Well welcome to the capitalist heaven where your boss tires you out, stresses you out and fires your butt for having a social life!
I was so tired from working I just had to come to this site to wind down before doing some more work.
It was said that swing and RNR were more efficient weapons in bringing down the evil USSR than the A-bomb.
?
And, BTW, how comes the author did not mention “Ricchi e Poveri”
Charming
Sad thing is all the culture and cultural behaviors that were lost by so tightly controlling society in the USSR. Even though it was a short period of time, if compared to a historic time line, the changes it caused are lasting and terrible.
Very sad.
So many traditional ways of life, destroyed for the collective.
How long has disco music been in Russia?
Did the Russians create it?
Well it was nice years….
nothing to worry just happines and joy…..
Charming..
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I am the first time on this site and am really enthusiastic about and so many good articles. I think it’s just very good.
Always yours