Vladimir Vorobyev (1941-2011) is a photographer who, unfortunately, became popular only recently. He was from Novokuznetsk, Russia, the city where was held the first exhibition of his works. Those images are often inside of us, but they remain so deep and almost never come to the surface. They bring Russian people back to the past reviving their abstract memory.
“We congratulate you with the holiday of October!”
As if it was only yesterday…
via photoplay
A Workers’ State.
People look so sad in Communist times.
A slice of life in a socialist paradise… I wonder how can anyone cherish these times and want them back (and there is a significant amount of such people in Russia today).
Why don’t you make one more step and produce a very simple conclusion: for many people, things got even worse since then.
memories…
Thank god it is over!
Honestly, very depressing, but Russia was very poor then, and was the United States, but not quite as bad.
Wow, your not an American I can tell you that. After World War II the US experienced the Baby Boom and one of the most financially rewarding times in US history. In my neighborhood alone there were 7 grocery stores and 15 convenience stores alone not to mention 2 Woolworth department stores, a Sears, and many other stores of various types. I’m sure that there are plenty of pictures of old women fighting over the last piece of pig intestine at a SOVIET grocery store somewhere in my photo files.
We were living in West Germany, in East Germany there was no toilet paper or items for daily living. This is misleading so how wonderful living under ‘Police State’ was when people were dying to escape the KGB.
Futile. Russkies will never understand/admit they only brought backwardness and poverty to Central Europe.
Some even seem to think they had it quite well and question that quality of life was really any better in they West…lols, of course we know otherwise.
Superb collection of insightful images.
The whole country looks like it spent decades as the day after some horrible natural catastrophe. Which it kind of did.
communism ay, you could be a professor, a colonel in the army or a doctor and still share the same sort of flat as a factory worker or a chimney sweep. Give me democracy any day. These flats arent nice ones
Great times
And about photos: Well I can too shoot any shit I want and then put word Reality to it.
Very fascinating if not somewhat dark photos. Thanks for posting this.
Red state or Sad State, depressed state, forced state and tyrant state. Pictures worth 1000 words true!
We in the USA knew almost nothing of life in the USSR except that most things were scarce. I sometimes wondered why people would put up with such conditions, but it was explained to me that life got better after the revolution, and had in fact gotten steadily better ever since then. It was impressive to realize how bad things must have been before.
Oh, love this Russian street photographer! Both great “in the moment” shots as well as good controlled compositions.
The one with the girl in the ballerina-like dress in the sunlight (#10) is awesome, as well as the one with the ghostly girl on the chairs (#31).
More Russian street art!
I just love the comments.
“Oh those people are so sad, maybe because of communism or Lenon or maybe KGB!”.
Crap those are just average russian people they always look like that no matter how happy they are.
“Depressed and sad” people had homes (free) utilities (free) healthcare (good for that time, free). The didn’t know what crime is. They had a very solid future to plan their life in a way westerners can’t even imagine.
Remember, Soviet Union of that time was, first of all, not one of the world’s wealthiest countries, second, devastated bu the world’s most terrible war killing some 20 MILLION citizens and levelling everything on the area roughly equal to half of the mainland US, most it’s cities destroyed.
Those people hed no time or resources for eye-candy, they’ve worked to rebuild the infrastructure and secure their children’s future.
Yes soft toilet paper was scarce, but for city populations consisting mostly of first-generation resettlers from countryside, it was no big deal they were just fine with newspapers.
Your comment lost all credibility as soon as you said “The didn’t know what crime is”. Nobody is drinking that Kool Aid. What a load of crap. The housing stock sucked by western standards too, even if it was the best they’d ever known until then.
One of the worlds wealthiest countries? In what? Natural resources? Because the Soviet economic system completely failed to capitalize on that vast wealth for the people.
bullshits. everybody can post billion of pictures of sad people in western countries.
please before write things like “soviet people was sad”, turn on your head.
Too many in the West photos of Soviet times just look like the same dreary day that never ends. A KGB utopia. Of course it wasn’t always that way. But it still sucked to be a Soviet, even if they don’t know it and saw their standard of living rise after the revolution. They picked the losing horse in the economic race that was the 20th century. Too bad for them! Oh what could have been…
Russia forever.