More pictures of USSR
More historical pictures of USSR in the 70-s. For the most part in color.
| Tags: 70s, seventieth, soviet era, soviet union, ussr |
Tip: To get daily entertaiment news like this one, bookmark englishrussia.com or get 
if it's more convinient for you.
if it's more convinient for you.
Our friends publish:Bloggers, send your links! |
Back to English Russia Main Page for more articles like this
3:29 am
Loading ...
1
It is really a shame that such a big and organised country like USSR was torn apart by Masonry. Of course they felt obliged to dismantle it since it was they (Masons) who brought communism to life. After the french revolution the next experiment was communism. And of course since Masons are essentially satanists the communism was trying to build a society without God. Because it didn’t work the way they planned and the country was essentially hijacked from their control by Stalin (this is why Lenin didn’t want Stalin to overtake power) they have been planning to end communism for decades and eventually succedeed. Now they will try to take control of the world by other modern means: building a ultra-technological society based on dictatorship(see Bush’s latest actions, if it doesn’t work now they will put the mechanism in place some time later anyway). The result will be only one: NEW WORLD ORDER, takeover of the world, coming of antichrist and then the much awaited END- Apocalypse.
You are certainly NotAProphet.
It was not the masons. It was the jewish people that killed the USSR. Also, they did 9/11
It were jews that created a USSR and jews that killed it)
Dude, what are you smoking and please consider stopping.
@notaprophet:
Dude. Are you insane? That’s the biggest load of tripe I’ve seen in ages.
you can really see that the people had an other mentality…better than now.Only thing that didn’t change is that people read VERY VERY much books (as you can see on pic 30). I’ve heard that George Bush read just one book in his whole life…thats pathetic espacially for a president (ESPACIALLY for US)….G.Bush is for USA the same as Jeltsin was for Russia.
You’ve been missinformed. George Bush CANNOT read!
…nor speak in complete sentences.
Q: How many leftists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None, they would rather sit in the dark and bitch about how it’s Bush’s fault.
And you will be there too cursing his name.
You are misinformed. More people in the USA read books than now in Russia.
The average american thinks that Spain is part of Mexico. They read a lot of porn magazines, nothing else ;).
Really? I thought the average american didn’t know what Spain was!
I am American!
There are some smart ones here;
I read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky so you need give me some credit at least… Perhaps the president isn’t the smartest, and sure it was the people who voted for him. But there are some civilized!
As for an actual comment. These pictures are amazing!
Look at those children paying attention! That doesn’t happen in America!
When Russia was hidden from the whole world by a large Iron Curtain, misconseptions exited on both sides. The Russians thought that people would do anything for money in America, and the Americans thought that the Russians were slaves married to fat ugly babushkas. : )
Hello Natasha i thing that Russians are great!! i was in Rusia in 1990 in Artek it was a lot of years ago now i am 31 years old. I learned a lot in Artek about cultures Please contact me i want to know if i can contac some persons that i knew in Artek
Mate, if u know Russian (or ask someone to help) you may want to join russian socail site ‘odnoklassniki.ru’, it’s very popular, you add artek 1990 to the list of places you’ve been at and you may want to find some of your mates.
Cheers
Well, you can’t really generalize 300 million people.
The photos are amazing… I was too young to remember -but brings back memories from the ’80s about the life behind the Iron Curtain.
Look at those children paying attention! That doesn’t happen in America!
It’s amazing what a sending a few million off to the gulag does for classroom discipline.
I laughed so hard at that comment a little russian fell out of my ass.
Hello texas1.
Please refrain from commenting on Bush’s intelligence until, like George Bush, you hold a degree from Yale and Masters from Harvard.
I do have a graduate degree from Yale, and an MBA from Harvard. In my opinion, GW Bush is the worst President the USA has ever had, with dayligt coming in far behind.
NOT TRUE!
I read Maxim and Sports Illustrated TOO!
Most Americans think that Taco Bell is a Mexican telephone company
An average American somehow manages to understand the real world, even if by senses rather than intellect, to keep improving his/her life, always looking forward, and with each generation living more fulfilling and longer lives. An average Russian has at best only academic pretense of intellectually understanding the world and has absolutely no sense of it, lives measable short lives and always looks backwards.
For example, an average Russia, probably even above average one, compares Russian presidents with American one, without comprehending that an American president hardly runs the country, the country runs itself through individual daily initiative of the people. Bush can be an total fool, and it would hardly matter.
That’s because there are 290 million people in US and just 144 million in Russia.
You can really see what the beautiful, if false, picture of former Soviet Union remains in all that old propaganda files. Especially, the picture of communist slogan in VERY, VERY lame ukrainian spelling reminds me of the old times when dirty soviet soldiers occupied half of the Europe. Never again!
Thank God, the russian tribe went under spell of KGB trained little fella “putin”, leading them again to the cold war, they already lost twice.
Russia’s petrorouble would be far better spent on education and health. Nevertheless, the can, and are, developing truly competitive military technology that can neutralise present US weapons systems. Hence the degree of apprehension in Washington and London these days.
You are dirty Ukrainian Nazi. Ukraine was already cleaned once from creatures like you. It will be cleaned again.
This is very true. I’ve been over in Leningrad for about 6 months now and I am still shocked by how many people I see reading on the metro and out in the parks. You don’t really see that in America, which is kind of sad really.
Yes we are all over here wasting our time playing crossword puzzles and sudoku!
There are some really amazing photos here. I really enjoyed the whole set!
Great photos!
I have always wanted to see pictures of the USSR circa 1970’s. I had much unsuccess with google searches. Until now you can find them on this website. Great job!
Best Post Ever.
hooray for Slavic people;
really great photo. may be all of these are propagandize, but in fact nobody can tell us the whole feeling of people who lived in soviet union.
I lived in the Soviet Union. These photos reflect the mood of that times pretty well. Treated by your western propaganda, you probably inclined to believe only negative information about the Soviet Union.
More links to similar pictures: http://englishrussia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3700
Nice pictures, especially the girl with the basket of peaches…
One other question - I noticed in one class picture that there was a black girl present. I was told that in the USSR, African persons were almost unheard of. I wonder if that is true?
There were very few but some did come on exchange programs and such. There was an institute of Patrice Lumumba in Moscow which had a lot of foreign students. Also there were a couple of renowned so-called “pioneer camps” like “Artek” where kids from friendly African countries could have come on vacation.
Soviet propaganda told that all people are equal and that blacks are equal to whites.
That’s not true.
is this person talking to herself or what?
Perhaps it was a girl from Africa, who came for a visit . We did not have black people in schools, but Colleges, yes. We liked them, especially because we thought they were unfairly treated in the USA ; ) It was true for the 60-s. In reality though the Blacks did not ask for any special treatment…
This photo was apparently taken in international camp Artek, so that could be a girl from some African country friendly to USSR at that time.
There were some black kids, who usually were children of african students studying in USSR. There was one boy in my school, and he actually was very popular because he was the only black boy for the whole neighborhood.
in 10 years of living in russia as a child, i had seen one black person, some ambassador. the first place i lived in america? south bronx in new york city, as black as it gets.
Amazing photos. For me show that despite the system people wanted to build up their personal lives the best possible way. That happens everywhere.
Ummm……Except that those pictures were released BY the system.
That’s why everyone was so happy in every picture. That’s why it’s always sunny. That’s why even in the soviet union ANYONE could do the same things as in the west (ie go water-skiing, buy western-style clothes, etc). Except that nobody did.
And you know that because you lived there !? You know there are people in this site who actually ware alive in that time.And yes you could do all the things that “westerns” did.The only difference is that everybody could afford it and people had more free time…
Your american propaganda must really be very good.You have a completely distorted view about what the soviet union really was.People warn`t starving and there ware no homeless….
I would not say you’re right. The system was corrupt, and borrowed on my generation’s future. And we are paying the bills now. The Soviet system was plain dumb sometimes, and very oppressive most of the times. One thing’s for sure: everybody got the minimum to live by, and the education was excellent.
Yeah, moron, I _DID_ live there.
I was born in the Leningrad (later St. Petersburg), and lived there until I emigrated to Canada in 1995.
And unless you were blatnoy, you did NOT have all the things that the westerns did. Was life HORRIBLE? OF course not. Everyone got by, like you said. But huge aspects of daily life that people in the west take for granted were simply NOT available to the average russian. And that’s not propaganda. That’s the truth.
ok smartiepants, and what has really changed? the huge aspects of daily life that western people take for granted are still not available to an average russian. and that’s the truth. Moreover, certain aspects of daily life that a soviet person took for granted are not anymore available to an average russian. In effect, the poor average russian is deprived not only of the much-praised western lifestyle, what with the three cars, house, mortgage, credit card, 9to5, unemployment, obesity and depression, but also of the much-bashed soviet lifestyle, what with the steady pay, no inflation, no market crises, and some savings security, not to mention an employment guarantee and a pension. Oh wait, the new russian gets the best of both worlds - he or she surely get depression.
I was born in 1977 spending my childhood living in USSR. For me it was great times and these pictures making me crying. I was not ‘blatnoy’ neither my parents, but they worked hard and were trying to give me good education. I had everything I nedeed and wanted and never seriously thinking about to move to another country even after collapse. I visit different western countries 10-15 times anually. I see living there from the good sides but nevertheless I’m counting the days to my return home. And I can’t recall any “huge aspect of daily life of westen people” that i neeeded.
Sometimes I meet people like you, Nikita, and it is so common for these people trying to explain the reasons and advantages of their immigration. Looks like they live trying to find reasons to convince themselves in necessity of such act. And these reasons becomes wishful thinking for them which has nothing to do with reality.
“And yes you could do all the things that “westerns” did.The only difference is that everybody could afford it and people had more free time…”
Oh, boy!!! I would laugh at your statement if this actually would not be so sad! I lived there.
I remember people standing in long, block long ques to by a piece of meat, _any_ meat, and not getting any, because the shop runs out of it and nobody knows when the next shipment will be.
I remember my uncle saving all of his money and waiting in a queue for 10 years to by the crappy Moskwitch car. There were so few cars those days, because few could afford one. If you had a used car, you very rich.
Lady I know, when she first came to the West in early nineties, she entered the supermarket and burst into tears, because she could not believe that she is seeing what she is seeing. The shops were effectively empty in Soviet times, except for some unusable crap not wanted by anyone even for free.
Freedom of speech, personal liberties? Forget it! Terrible! And even more terrible is the fact, that there are persons like you who adore that period.
Looking at old pictures like these always makes we wonder what became of these people?
Are they still the same happy smiling people we see here? Did the children become what they wanted to become?
david, as nikita points out above, these were pictures set up, shot, and released BY THE GOVT! these were for the most part not real people, or rather, people pretending to be other - happy - people. no, factory workers did not chart out mechanical engineering equations in chalk on the factory floors, etc. these people were told where to show up and when, then were told what to do. i even knew people who did this for a living. they would ‘accidentally’ bump into foreigners and tourists in red square and tell them how wonderful life was in the soviet union.
I’m this person. Stil happy and stil smiling…It’s not so bad to live in Russia as you probably read in American newspapers…
In 1970’s Soviet Russia, picture takes YOU!
X^P
I am an American, and I am offended by the fact that the people at the top of the comments said that Most Americans are dumb.
I believe the contrary, I believe America holds no more or less idiots than any other country. The difference is the World’s hatred for America.
Being in all Advanced Placement Classes throughout High School, and Honors Programs in College, I can say that most Americans have the desire and the thirst for knowledge, but It’s not the people that stop them, it’s the government.
Our government, at the moment, is concerned with war instead of peace. Lies instead of Truth. Propaganda instead of Knowledge. I blame this on George W. Bush. I believe he is single-handedly ruining our country.
I really don’t appreciate the generalization, as a civilized human being, you should be above that, especially after knowing of the Widespread Generalizations and Propaganda that the Soviet Government released. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, it’s just a fact.
Just by being on this website, you should have the common decency to refrain from such things.
I’m also an American who considers himself decently educated, however I unfortunately have to agree with the others on this.
I may only be 23 years old, but I have lived and worked in many cities throughout the country and I am perpetually amazed at the unprecedented level of ignorance I observe. A simple way to measure this deterioration of intellect is to review the many nationwide basic knowledge polls conducted each year.
Even more telling, as you infer in your posting, is to consider how many of these people voted for that lowbrow in the whitehouse and to what extent said witless cretin is able to actually deceive such a large group for such a long period of time. Only now, seven years later are some of them starting to become weary of that charlatan and his sidekick cheney.
I have been living in US and unfortunately it is not the same country anymore. High tech is hoke full of Indians and Chinese. This has absolutely nothing to do with race - those countries provide better education. I am yet to find a decent school for my children in US. Apparently, learning names of states is more important that science, even in private schools. Yes, a lot of images are propaganda. But free good education, including universities was available in USSR. Still is available in Russia. Riches country in the world does not want or is unable to provide education and even basic free medical services to its citizens. Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Don’t be surprised that so much is getting outsources to India and China. Now US even is about to ground space shuttles. This is sooooo far from nation that could fly to the Moon. Now everyone is cares about how to get bigger SUV, bigger house, bigger TV and bigger portion in the restaurant.
Perhaps US does need Soviet Union to keep in shape.
“free good education” - I am willing to agree to you if you will add “technical” to the “education”, well, possibly that would cover wider range of “practical” and “nature” sciences like medicine etc. because anything that was not “technical” in a wider sense, like economics, sociology, history etc, was extremely stuffed with marxist-leninist dogma and propaganda and could hardly be considered “normal” education. sooner that was an indoctrination. and there were also what would now be called “pesudoscience” fields like the infamous Scientific Communism. If you did not pass the final State Exam in Scientific Communism, you could not graduate ANY university. You could be a rocket science genius, but if you failed at Sc.Com. - you were out!
If you were a rocket science (or other science genious)you could easy pass Sc. Communism exam, it was simple. That was the rule of the game and we were playing on their field. We always playing on somebodies field.
beautifully said! you words are for ages, my friend. i’m sorry, but i’m going to quote you from now on, when a conversation about things like this comes up.
imply
Blind patriotism is great.
It’s the idiots that jump on their high-horse as soon as their superiority is challenged that perpetuate the notion of Americans being self-centered and stupid.
I agree with only one part of your comment, that America is not as a whole, dumb. But, your comment: “I blame this on George W. Bush. I believe he is single-handedly ruining our country” would make any reasonably intelligent person think quite a bit less of your intellect. I am not sure if you have figured this out yet, but in a democracy, even in an instance like ours where it seems like our country is coming to ruin, one man does not make all the decisions. A government consists of many people that all make decisions that in one way or another affect the lives of many people. It is quite fucking retarded of you to believe that George Bush is single handedly ruining America. All this shows is how much of an impact the media has on affecting the feeble minds of so many Americans.
Yes, Bush did not single handedely ruin the U.S., he is a mere sock puppet for the neo-conservative oligarths who are plundering the country.
I hate to say it but you are wrong in this case, Bush has (with Chaney and his ilk) brought this country to dispair. This administration is the most secrative goverment the US has ever seen. The American people lost more freedoms and rights during his administration than any other time in history, more than all of our young history combined. With education….. the US still leads the world in research and scientific advances. We still work more hours per week and acomplish more per work hour than any other country (this reaserch was done by a third party research company not a US one)we still have the most Nobel prize winners. BUT Russia is a great nation of great people. If their universities had our fasilities the world would see the US and Russia neck and neck in all discoveries. Remember a lot of medical proceedures we use today came from Russia. Laser eye surgury for one. Both countries are full of highly intellagent people and both are full of idiots.
You say you are smart… How can you suppose that Bush is single-handedly running the country? How can you even suppose (knowing he is an idiot) that he is capable of this?? Isn’t it obvious that a well organised group of people is behind this sh*t that is going on with american policy?? Always ask questions my friend. Always challenge what they feed you saying it is the truth… In other words-think, or to put it bluntly -don’t be an american! Do you know what is the reason behind the Iraq war? It’s the money!! The systems that are measuring how much oil is being pumped out of iraq have been destroyed in 2003. Since than the ships are loading with oil in iraq’s ports all the time and NOBODY knows how much oil is been looted (the oil is actually taken for free). Except for those who sell it on the american market. Americans say the oil is to pay the bill for war. But no one have ever seen a oil company put a penny into the american public budget for the oil they are stealing. So the american taxpayers pay the bills for the war, private companies steal the oil and sell it sharing profits with political elite, and the iraq remains a mess because nobody is really interested in building a normal society there (a normal organised society wouldn’t allow their natural resources to be taken for free). So now you know why bush is so keen on keeping the war running…
Although you are certainly NotAProphet, you are certainly right here.
Among the best content anybody can find on the Internet.
I wish the world one day sees again such wonderful nation as the Soviet Union.
Amazing photos, makes me wish I lived in Russia actually. Perhaps I will have to visit. Not all Americans are illiterate and uncultured, just the majority. I am American, but the America I grew up pledging allegiance to is not the America I live in now.
Not all Americans are stupid or complerely idiotic. there are probably people in Russsia who are incredibly ignorant and yes, the Soviet Union was an incredibly STUPID idea. In America it actually depends on your race whether you are around intelligent people or not and even what part of America you live in. As an American I am offended that all you immigrants are so ignorant about what is going on with Bush because he is a moron. I agree with you Dan but for me, Russi has always been a fascinating place for me with alot of history and culture
Wow, I have been looking through this site for the last month or so. Growing up in the united states in the early 80’s I had heard a lot of rumors about russia, and I will be the first to admit, the words “commie bastards” uttered from my lips quite a few times. I was literally taught to believe that the soviets were our sworn enemys. I am glad to have found this website so I that I can reform my opinions. I was fed a lot of bullshit back then. In fact, thank god for the Internet, cause without it we may not have been able to cross some of the boundarys that still exist from the past.
I am just posting because I noticed the anti-bot word is “comrade”.
Sometimes it is vodka.
Thank you for posting these magnificent photographs of the people who saved the world from Hitler and Nazism; I cannot view such images without tears welling into my eyes.
Note not only the contentedly studious children — something now unknown in the U.S. (save in the wealthiest private schools) — but the proud faces and body-language of the workers, a commonplace here too in the long-ago days of strong unions, but now gone forever, replaced for all eternity by the dull eyes, sullen faces and oppression-slumped shoulders of the ever-more-exploited wage slaves of the Global Sweatshop Economy.
Thus was the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest and most ruinous defeat of humanitarian values ever — not that the USSR was the humanitarian utopia it claimed to be (it surely wasn’t) — but as long as the USSR existed, the United States was forced to keep the tyrannosaur of capitalism securely caged, lest it savage the entire planet and all the world’s peoples embrace Communism in desperation.
And now that the USSR is dead — now that there is no alternative to capitalism, and the tyrannosaur itself has again been freed to run amok — we see the results everywhere: mass media that lies and distracts rather than informs and focuses; public schools that deliberately degrade our children into illiterate dunces; access to higher education determined by money instead of intelligence; healthcare based on privilege of wealth rather than on human birthright; the impoverished elderly and disabled slain by the euthanasia-by-neglect implicit in the Bush Regime’s DemoPublican Medicare Prescription Drug Lord benefit; the growing legions of homeless children, women and men; the obscene and genocidal class-and-race warfare methodically waged against the residents of New Orleans; the carnage in Iraq; the final destruction of the remaining vestiges of American liberty; and over it all the imposition of Abrahamic theocracy — Christian in the West, Islamic in the East — to guarantee “God’s divine plan” safeguards the ruling class and subjugates all the rest of us until humanity itself perishes.
Study these pictures closely; cherish them as sacred ikons of a blessed time now eternally lost, a time when humanity could still reasonably hope to achieve the economic democracy without which liberty is meaningless. If you lived then, as I did, be thankful you were so blessed, and now raise your voice in lamentation, that the late-born might at least hear — before the advancing tyrannosaur silences all protest forever — the final expression of the heartfelt passion evoked by the infinite promise that once was.
O sancta simplicitas!
dear loren
it seems you may have missed your calling. your maudlin, sappy, misguided overly dramatic verbal diarrhea makes me think you were meant to write greater things than your posted missive. like dog food labels.
“…magnificent photographs of the people who saved the world from Hitler and Nazism; I cannot view such images without tears welling into my eyes…” Oh, Jeepers Creepers! I can’t bear reading that!!! Help!!!
Thank you Loren. Did not expect to here such things from American. Agree with all that you said.
Very nice. Thank you very much.
(p.s. - most Americans do not read very much)
Propaganda trash.
No, this is not propaganda.
I’m a New Zealander and these pictures look like propoganda. I’d be very surprised if more than 10% of the soviet union lived like this.
ok, then how do you think the last 90% lived? maybe they were drinking vodka with bears, playing balalaika all day long and praying on the Lenin photos? of course photos are better than a real life in USSR was, but they truly describe the lifestyle of soviet people!
I remember those cards with numbers kids raise in class!
That thing was flawed. As not everyone was raising them at the same time, but maybe over a period of 1-2 seconds, it was quite easy to see what others were raising, see what the most common number was, and then raise the number yourself and still not be the last one.
I suggest reading “The Russians” by Hedrick Smith
http://www.amazon.com/Russians-Hedrick-Smith/dp/0345317467
HAHA - My anti-spam word is “KBG” woot!
These pictures are propoganda. They go up there with Bush saying that Iraq has weapons of mass destrution, or tobacco companies saying they didn’t know cigarettes were bad for you. When can we see the suffering of the millions of people who died when Stalin tried to ‘modernize’ Russia?
Don’t let the pictures think for you people. Think for yourself.
Some of the pictures are staged. But majority is normal photos accurately reflecting reality. I was born in 1967 and lived my life there. I have plenty of photos like that in my family album.
Oh piss off. Not every mention of the USSR needs to be accompanied with images of gulags.
Stalin wouldn’t even be relevant. You’re thirty years off.
“stalin wouldn’t even be relevant.”
holy shit. dude, i’m sure i’m not the first to suggest that you are a fucking moron.
Hello New Yorker,
Let me quote you:
“your maudlin, sappy, misguided overly dramatic verbal diarrhea makes me think you were meant to write greater things than your posted missive.”
“holy shit. dude, i’m sure i’m not the first to suggest that you are a fucking moron.”
Can you not respond without using abusive language? You call yourself New Yorker. We all know you have a dirty mouth, but your name might suggest all New Yorkers have a dirty mouth. It is because of people like you Americans get a bad name. Your comments are not welcome here. Go back to the ghetto you come from.
I find these photos to be an interesting looking glass into a country that always seemed to be somewhat mysterious. It would be nice if there were some text to place these photos into some context.
Ну вас на хуй, совки!
amen
+5
Сегодня в России лучше чем раньше, лучше чем пять лет назад, лучше чем в прошлом году… и ехать куда-то за границу, в те же США (с вашим ебанутым призедентом) мне не хочется, меня и в России заебись кормят.
Кто тебя тянет в США? Скорее наоборот, нам и так мексов диких хватает, не знаем куда их девать. Понаехали тут.
Гы, вот и живите со своими мексами…
Great pictures, thanks for sharing.
What is the purpose of the structure on picture 14.jpg ?
It looks like a huge excavator to me. With rotating blades. Used in open mines/quarries. Possibly one of those called “walking” or “step-taking” (shagajuschij) excavators.
Excellent pictures!! Thanks for sharing. I had a penfriend in the USSR back in the 80’s and even used to call her everynow and then.
What is it like over there nowadays though? Some day I wouldn’t mind visiting Russia.
Some of those pictures are propaganda, it’s true, but that’s part of life in any country. Just like some of the pictures of Americans doing “proud” work during the depression was propaganda.
This was life behind the iron curtain in all of the eastern european countries back then, it no longer exits there just as life here has changed since then.
Education in the US is terrible, regardless of your “honors” programs. I know, I was in them too. They are repetative, unintuitive, and useless.
One man cannot ruin an entire country, unless the rest of us allow it.
The USSR looks so great in these pictures? Do you have photos of the worst parts of your life? I doubt it. Photos by their very nature create a sense of nostalgia because we take them of moments that we want to remember and cherish.
These pictures are great! But stop overthinking them people!
Twenty five years ago, I would never believed that I would miss it so much.
LOL
people going sobby over some ancient Sovjet propaganda!
Drones. If 30 year old propaganda works on you, it’s easy to imagine why you believe everything told in the media now =D
great Pics! I have seen that some people mantioned that this is propaganda, and it is interesting to see that the people who were there readily admit this but make a point of mentioning that the education provided was good. I think this is such an important point because this is one of the many ways in which the rest of the world has moved ahead of america. India, China, Russia, and most countries of this planet are producing a huge amount of VERY well educated and hard working people, while america’s youth learns only american history, only stupid patriotic propaganda. Who do you think will be employed by the big companies in the future? Fat lazy americans or hard working educated people from other countries? The Capitalist environment that was in no small part created by america is what is going to crush us in the end.
If any of you people don’t realize that all of these pictures are very, very posed propaganda shots, you are retards beyond all hope.
Buch of Commies!
Did you say Bush is a communist?
Iam pissed of from people calling the pictures propaganda.These are just regular pictures of happy moment and celebrations, it is normal people to ba happy.In the first picture we see people celebrating Lenin`s 100year birthday.There are some pictures of people getting married,afcourse they`ll be happy.We see e picture of a father holding his newborn son,what you expect him to be crying ? The military pictures look staged to me too,but the others are just regular pictures taken by regular people….Oh yea,you could own a camera and take pictures in the soviet union,can you imagine!?
all that is in those pictures is so obviously propaganda. the commies stuck to common themes… schoolchildren in showcase classrooms, workers at work in showcase factories, citizens at rallys in support of the workers paradise, and happy couples at home reading. how many folks in the pictures were free thinkers or renegades? how many of them had any control over their destiny? if those kinds of images bring tears to your eyes, then the party line photographers did their job. russians didnt buy into it unless they had guns to their heads.
You should stick to spectating without comment.
Americans are so brainwashed that they still can’t believe the pictures are real if there are no crying people in chains there. Wake up! Most of these photos are true image of Soviet reality.
Soviet people in 60-80th lived a normal life! Not so luxurously as some rich people in USa or some guys from the government but just fine.
And I’d say modern American photos are no less propagandistic, with all these spooky office workers - smiling zombies.
And stop telling crap about school photos. I studied in Soviet school and it was exactly like that. We were proud to be schoolchildren, there were very little animosity between kids, almost no bullies (it depended on school of course, but as for me I was never bullied and the worst thing I encountered in my 10 years of study was calling names. While the modern “free” school is a nightmare, and gives very little knowledge too.
I was a child back then, in kindergarden and then 1st and 2nd grade before moving to the US. I remember my childhood fondly, with mostly pleasant memories. Now I’m here working on my phd, so that’s where I ended up.
great photos!!!
I WanT USSR BBAACCKK!!
Very cool pics…but obviously propganda that only a liberal would fall for. My wife and father (recent Rus immigrants) laughed at them….Russia was nothing like the pics…..at all
Thank for posting these propaganda photos. I haven’t seen them in years. They phoniness made me laugh back then and it makes me laugh now. Those poor people! They were just cattle.
Yes, somewhat like the cattle in Hollywood movies and Network TV series in which all the judges are African American, not to mention the police chiefs etc. The American dream is still a nightmare for those of us in the free world who live outside the US (ie continental Europe, Great Britain, Australasia and Canada).
Sandra,
Do you know that America claimed that the first satellite launch by the Soviets, the Sputnik, was communist propaganda?
Also, do you know that America once regarded Osama bin Laden as a freedom fighter, because he was fighting the Soviets, till he decided to destroy the WTC?
Who is more phoney?
Think …
has someone time travelling machine?i wanna go back to cccp.how cool days.but another wish i wanna to come true.george w ass bush with me and i fuck all over the time during the travel.
Only a small portion of the pictures can be considered “propaganda”, like that soldier reading a newspaper to other soldiers (yeah right). But nobody in the USSR took it seriously or believed it anyway. In fact, in the 70’s people were very cynical about propaganda material like that. What really worked were the reports about America. Like how stupid Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan was, or how homeless people had to live on the streets in cardboard boxes. I remember my father once told me in an argument, “How can you be so obtuse? You are like Reagan, simply cant’ listen and try to understand what you are told!”
The majority of the pictures is just normal photojournalism and look absolutely real to me. When I was in elementary school (in Moscow), I often thought to myself, “How happy I am that I live in the Soviet Union. I could’ve been born in America, horror”
I still moved to the US even before the USSR collapsed, but why do you think I did that? For search of a better life? No, trust me. I was simply very curious, that’s all. I didn’t like the US reality at first, and even though I have to admit that I cannot live without Tex-Mex food now, I still truly believe that it is impossible to say that one country is definitely better than the other, whether we are comparing Soviet Union and America or Russia and America.
PS I moved back to Russia after living in the US for almost 20 years. No real reason, just another experiment
i can’t believe people on the net…
always arguing….
idiots all of you!!!
shut up and enjoy the pictures!!!
*goes back to looking through gallery*
Comment by Bobbie
“great Pics! I have seen that some people mantioned that this is propaganda, and it is interesting to see that the people who were there readily admit this but make a point of mentioning that the education provided was good. I think this is such an important point because this is one of the many ways in which the rest of the world has moved ahead of america. India, China, Russia, and most countries of this planet are producing a huge amount of VERY well educated and hard working people, while america’s youth learns only american history, only stupid patriotic propaganda. Who do you think will be employed by the big companies in the future? Fat lazy americans or hard working educated people from other countries? The Capitalist environment that was in no small part created by america is what is going to crush us in the end.”
This just amazed me. How ignorant. Your hatred of the US is obvious. Captialism was not created by the US. If you were truly educated you would know this. The entire west is capitalist. The US is made up of people from all over the world. MANY of the highly educated people from the nations you mentoined come to the US and other western nations to work and make better lives for themselvs. I have been blessed enough to have had many close friends from India and China. I have spent some time in both countries. Those I spoke to who were in schoold of higher learning wished to move to the west where they could make more money and live a better life. Communism failed in the USSR for a reason. Well that isn’t entirely true. There has never been nation governed under true Communism. What usually happened is that they would get corrupted by power hungry people much like what happened in the USSR and what we see happening in China. Communism is the ideal form of government and life but it is not compatable with human nature.
If you like USSR that much, simply make a revolution. If you dont like that much enjoy your current government
I think USSR was clean of Mafia, what we see today there.
Awsome pics! these are the Russian People, not Propaganda, and it shows that they are normal human beings. However they have suffered greatly at the hands of a government that betrayed them. Sad tale. A Beautiful people.
very cool collection of pics. keep it up.
These pictures are all illustrations of our unprecendented history. Of course, I wouldn’t deny that a lot of stuff in the communistic policy was wrong. However, a huge number of people lived in USSR and they enjoyed living in the world’s most powerful country.
I don’t know much about this time ’cause I was born in the year 1991 when the USSR broke up. Anyway, I am proud that my country had such a period in its history. And Russia will always be the world’s greatest country,whatsoever.
These look a lot like pictures from America just substituting the Russian language, slightly different clothing styles, different designs for the model rockets, and different flags.
It’s also important to know the Soviet government told its citizens they had a democracy and had mock elections. Which begs the question how do we know we have a democracy?! How do we know we’re not being lied to? Because we can choose more than one candidate? Iran allows multiple candidates, but we don’t call them a democracy.
Our system is rigged. Candidates are narrowed down to candidates acceptable to the establishment. In most presidential elections the two candidates are nearly identical in policy positions, but very different in rhetoric. With electronic voting it’s even easier for them to rig elections.
Free speech? The Soviet Union had free speech in their Constitution. But it was interpreted so narrowly only pro-government people had free speech. While in practice we mostly have free speech if we get loud enough and start catching the nation’s attention the government will plant evidence and have you arrested, or investigate your personal life and ruin your reputation. They used COINTELPRO to do this. This is not a theory. This is FACT. A brave group of people broke the law and stole FBI records to prove this in the early ’70s. I have no doubt they are still doing that.
In both the Soviet Union and the United States democracy and free speech have been farces. We were just more clever at making our country appear democratic and free.
stupid nerds stop being jealolusy and create millions of anti russia sites. Get a life , it will be very helpful.
Sorry SashaVolkov, I meant to reply to Genes post below. But I managed to click your post by accident, and my internet is SO slow that I’m NOT going through the rigmarole of doing it again! :-)…So Gene, I liked your post. Very informative. However, could possibly be summed up with the words <> Oh, dear. What a weird and wonderful bunch that rag attracts!
Oh, BTW, if any kind Russians out there would like a chat (really, just a chat) as I wouldn’t mind some practice at learning Russian from a Russian, instead of a book. Just reply to this comment and we can swap e-mail addresses.
Recently, one of my friends expressed doubt that leftist Democratic ideologues actually hate our government. I advised him to watch the movies of Michael Moore and read the political writings of Noam Chomsky. It is also worth paying attention to writer Art Spiegelman, who claims that our government poses more of a threat to us than Al Qaeda. Then there is liberal journalist Maureen Dowd, who accuses President Bush of leading an American jihad; Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, who compares Bush to Goering; and popular TV host Rosie O’Donnell, who accuses the U.S. government of orchestrating the September 11th attack. And this is not a complete list of the Democratic slanders against the US.
It is curious that these people claim to be concerned not exclusively with the U.S. interests but rather with the well-being of the whole world. Yet they are not at all infuriated by the atrocities of real terrorists and dictators. For instance, there was no outcry of indignation over Saddam Hussein’s massacre of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq , including the outright butchery of grinding people alive. They do not ask for a boycott of fundamentalist countries where political opponents are imprisoned, killed, and tortured, and where there is not even an inkling of freedom of speech, press or religion. They do not write any articles protesting the Muslim-Fascist barbarians who cut off peoples’ heads and play soccer with them, videotape themselves as they behead a journalist, ruthlessly murder children in Beslan, blow up schools, subways, airplanes, residential buildings and offices.
The leftist ideologues find it much easier to criticize the US, where freedom of speech reigns supreme and makes this criticism absolutely safe. Moreover, they become heroes of the leftist Democratic masses, who do not want to be reminded of the fact that Iranian fanatics are building nuclear weapons, nor that Al Qaeda calls for the mass murder of Americans, nor of the Palestinians dancing in joy on September 11th , 2001, nor of the millions of Muslim fundamentalists who hate us for our lifestyle, and other disturbing problems.
A left-liberal finds it inconvenient to perceive the real dangers. He would rather believe that the U.S. government is to blame for all problems. Such a vision of the world is much more comfortable. Instead of being opposed to Muslim-Fascist assassins, they are opposed to respectable American politicians, whom they can safely lambaste and accuse of anything they wish. In fact, they believe that all problems will magically disappear as soon as these politicians are voted out of office. Then everything will be dandy, and no wars are necessary!
One gets the impression that among the leftist ideologues there is something like a contest going on - who can insult the U.S. most harshly. The leader in this respect is indisputably Naomi Wolf, a famous feminist and ex-consultant to Bill Clinton. On the 24th of April of this year, the British newspaper “The Guardian” published her article entitled “Fascist America, in 10 easy steps”. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html)
In this article, Wolf asserts that the American government intends to turn the country into a Fascist dictatorship. Wolf writes about regimes that evoke the readers’ hatred - Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, Stalin’s and others, and tries in very possible way to equate them to the United States of today. Wolf accuses the U.S. government of becoming excessively powerful, of persecuting dissenters, of controlling the press, and of random arrests, of persecuting citizen groups, of monitoring citizens, of creating paramilitary groups for terrorizing citizens, of creating a gulag, and of conjuring up the image of an enemy to justify these actions ? piling on the crimes for good measure.
This article is written about a country where recently the political power has changed in both the Senate and the House of Representatives? A country where liberals not only criticize the government regularly but engage in outright slander of the government with impunity.
Wolf does not bother to gives any real evidence in support of her shocking assertions. Instead, she throws a multitude of accusations around, hoping something might stick. For instance, she states that the U.S. engages in “arbitrary detention and release” of citizens and does not cite any statistics. Instead she gives as an example only one individual - a Muslim U.S. Army chaplain named James Yee. He was suspected of being negligent in dealing with secret documents, arrested, and was then released. This example actually goes against her point, because the detention was not “arbitrary” but related to specific charges, and he was released after the charges were dropped, as Wolf herself relates.
Naomi Wolf’s other accusations are no less illogical, and utterly counterfeit. For example, she compares Guantanamo with the Gulags, and terrorists with Holocaust victims.
Wolf should know better. In the Gulags millions of innocent people died , whereas in Guantanamo Prison, terrorists who fought against us are living in quite satisfactory conditions. After asserting that we must help the detained terrorists, Wolf recalls the words of the anti-Fascist pastor Martin Niem?r: “First they came for the Jews and I did not speak… Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” Thus Wolf has equated Muslim-Fascists with Jews who suffered in the Holocaust, and the American army with the Gestapo. Mrs. Wolf needs to wake up to reality - it is not like we came for the Muslim terrorists, but the Muslim terrorists who started killing us.
Of course, any unbiased American can quickly discern the sham nature of Naomi Wolf’s accusations. Sadly, not all Americans are unbiased. Furthermore, her article is read not only in the U.S. but also in Europe , in Russia , and in other countries. Most importantly, there are too many people in the U.S. and in Europe who obstinately refuse to acknowledge that the U.S. did not conjure up the image of an enemy in order to usurp power, but has met with an actual enemy that must be fought if our country is to survive.
Starting in 1972, Muslim fundamentalists carried out numerous attacks on the US, including September 11th , 2007 . Besides attacking the U.S. , they have also attacked Israel, Russia, the UK, France, Spain, Holland, and other countries. Many Americans, Israelis, Russians, and Europeans have died not because of an “image of the enemy” but because of a real and determined enemy.
The leftist liberals who believe that the U.S. is the enemy and seek to tear down America’s ability and will to fight Islamic fundamentalists are endangering our country’s future and that of our allies around the world.
all of you are idiots and think every major event in human history had to do with some conspiracy either it be jewish intervention or the formation of the masons. How about this for an idea: one power crazed man named stalin just happened to be in the right place at the right time and made his way up the ranks to get support from the people using propoganda. He seized control to create the USSR and became communism. One mans belief followed by his actions can change the world. It doesnt have to be some conspiracy. and if i ever hear that the jews were responsible for 9/11 im guna flip out. there were no buddist on board, so maybe it mite be them…. u sound like a bunch of idiots when u make claims like that. ur just following the crowd. it was people like u who just follow the crowds norm out of fear of your own opinion that makes people like stalin and hitler and mussolini come to power…
hi, i’m from egypt..
all i can say about the pics is this = (sigh)
I think Western propaganda machine is the best in the world! It makes folks from the Western countries completely immune to any kind of outside information even if it obviously goes or even screams against whatever the propaganda machine brainwashed them with. Wish the Soviets were half as good.
Pic 22 - most advanced calculator
[...] More pictures of USSR [...]
Is the ship Советская Россия like the newspaper?
great nation
Ya, course, we have to believe in those hollywood movies that used to treat soviet citizens as mental retarded (note the sarcasm)40 long years of lies.Well, if you fellows think these pictures are propaganda, then how do you call those intoxicating movies showing us the “average” american family (always white-caucasian, course)damn happy, permanent smile, like if they were under the effect of drugs.Dad is a Successful Broker, mom a great business woman, good looking and always in high heels, they have two healthy and wealthy kids and they do live in a residential area where everyone is nice to everyone. Is that the american reality for everyone? course not, hell.For god´s shake, you´re the country that invented propaganda. Stop posting negative comments about former Soviet Union, you didnt even live there, you just base your opinion on 4-5 stereotyped facts about russian people.You american people need a great dose of culture. We all know there may be negative aspects never shown in these pictures but, doesnt it happen in every single country? I affirm these pictures are pretty close to the soviet reality.
Idiot, the USSR was a great time. Everything was stable, you were safe, you had everything you wanted if you was good enough in school ( like in all other countries).
PS. The shitty examples you are making come from the 90’s, when only chaos ruled in USSR, because of retarded kids like you.
Jews brought USSR down, because of total control over world through spremacy of USA(which is in their control). But Russia is back you lousy sons of Abraham. Russia is gonna take USA down to 50 states, or even more.
Nice pictures. It is a time of my childhood. I showed them to my mother who is 60 year old and she enjoyed the pictures as well saying: “This is exactly our life in USSR as it was”. Then I translated some of the comments for her (of those who don’t believe that the photos are real). At first she was laughing, then became quite angry and said: “Well, with Americans everything is clear, they are assured that they are gods and live in paradise, while Soviet Union has always been a subject of their hatred. But how could Russians write something of this sort? Where did they live? Maybe in some alternative reality?”
Hi,I am Umar Daud from Pakistan and too much sad at the fall of the once has been great power”The USSR”.The hypocratic,corrupt and unjustified America played havoc with the Communist regime at the expense of we”Pakistanis together with Afghanis”.One day this communist regime will get back its power and integrity and then we will show America what she played the game in the dismemberment of the soviet Republic.I am looking forward to the integration of Asian nations into one orchestrated Russian Block to show our power of integration and unison to the rest of the world.
Umar Daud
092927302846
0923459803932
to the “useful fools” naively claiming the west to be “as bad”as the soviet union. so each had it’s revolution, tho lenin had the benefit of learning from american mistakes and claimed to better correct injustices , he in fact laid the groundwork for the political imprisonment and deaths of over 10 % of his own people and destroyed common trust amongst russians through widespread informants with coercive use of food shortages,although the ukraine suffered over 7 million deaths through deliberate starvation and he wiped out over 25% of islamic kazakhistan , destroying the ecology of the other islamic republics in the process(whiners bitch later that a few arab nomads getting displaced by jews reoccupying a postage stamp sized desert-promised by england- that hasn’t a teaspoon of oil-so uncle sam does everything for oil?)-meanwhile not a word how putin slaughtered for oil in chechnya.or how about the unprovoked ‘78 afghan invasion which created conditions for the taliban in the first place? or was both wtc attacks done by jews?and islamic schools of hate are figments of the imagination?
revisionists in the media would have us believe that the u.s. is the prime bad guy when any non retarded historian knows the us was in isolation when muslims where getting really shafted by communists.1950’s americans developed arab oil systems and split the profits with whoever was in charge- russia forcefully seized oil and the british earlier cheated persia of oil.
our bottom line is;who in living memory related to you was informed on, arrested by thought police in the middle of the night to be sent by cattle car to the arctic circle-because that shit happened to a member of each soviet family on average over 4 decades with nasty repressions done on eastern european satellites right up to prague and solidarity-long after stalin was promoted to hell.escaping east germans where still being shot at the berlin wall. cubans, vietnamese,tibetans,cambodians, north koreans, chinese,etc all shared in common a worker’s paradise that required permission to leave(on pain of death).can people really stupid enough to equate western life with the “collective borg?”
don’t waste their breath bringing up slavery-that predates history, was practiced everywhere(including amongst natives in africa and america)and was settled with a million white deaths and offer of paid passage back to africa.originally they were sold as POWs by tribes already owning them and weren’t citizens let alone looking anything like fellow americans.u.s. slave traders are reviled and osticized-can russians say the same about their soviets who killed millions of their own people?
These pictures are wonderful. I am American, I was born in the mid-80s. I grew up in a world without the USSR, but I have been fascinated with the Soviet Union. I have spoken to a few Russians that immigrated, and not a one of them ever really had a bad thing to say about the Soviet era. They said some things are better now, and some are worse.
I have a love of history, and these pictures capture moments from that history. They are a priceless reminder, and feel as you will about the politics of that long ago day, these were real people. Maybe they agreed with the Marxist system, or perhaps they hated it. Who knows? Either way, they lived and someone thought enough of them to take their picture…
To steal a line from the former Soviet Anthem to go with these images: Long May Our Crimson Flag Inspire, Shining In Glory For All Man To See.
Great photos as an example of soviet 1970’s propaganda. Flowers and smiling faces everywhere, at work and at play. Everyone is well dressed and in ‘modern’ if conservative fashion for the 70’s.
The pics are beautiful. The comments leave me a little awe-struck that people feel free to make up history to suit their prejudices. How about from now on, everyone who blames Jews/Masons/Communists/Muslims/leprachauns for the USSR has to cite at least one academic source and not just the voices in their heads?
Very nice blog post I like your website keep up the great blog posts