Weird Russian Postcards
Sometimes we see Japanese drawings with some crazy signs on them, but look how old Russian postcards looked like. Especially those signatures (translated).
The one above for example has a moto: “Not a single victim would WATER gets from us. OSVOD”.
“And mother would forgive me”
“Let the ideas of peace programs reign the world”
Fair of art. Russian Winter. (Wow it’s a normal one).
“Forest of Belovezha”. Also ok.
A TU-154 plane. There were also cigarettes in Russia with the same name. So maybe it’s an ad for both.
“The Socialistic Industry”
No comments.
Moscow 1980.
One more, Moscow 1980. The year of Summer Olympics in Moscow, ignored by USA team.
HELMET would save you life.
Lottery. Sport Lottery.
“Main Jewelery Trade’ the name of the one and the only Soviet Russian jewelery vendor. Belonged to state.
Get friendly relations with:
Raindrop and Dewdrop
They are our JOY
They are our LIFE.
…
“Friendly guys”. Yeah he looks really friendish.
VOK. We invite you to join BOOK-LOVERS society.
That one is cool: “Prepare your kid from a childhood for a LIFELONG JOB of PEDESTRIAN. Meaning that he is gonna be pedestrian forever.
“Sack of apples”.
“It’s now 5 year anniversary for Soviet Volunteers of Book-Loving”
Aeroloflot. Soviet airlines. Only Russian airlines at that time.
Life of party member in Kazakhstan. Did I say B… word?
Call 01, tell exactly: What’s being on fire 2. Exact address.
“Ara the bumblebee”. A Magazine for Political Humor.
“First time on stage”
This one is short and crazy: “Use radio!”
“Use obligations as a convenient form of money savings” OK.
No comments on the postcard. In general that’s St. Petersburg’s famous bridges which are open at night so none can cross the city. Though these days they erected a first 24h bridge.
“Duxmobile”. What’s that?
That’s cool too:
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Russian Balalaika”
“Thanks to blood-donor!”
“Penguin the Emperor”
“Buy mail-stamps!”
“A Program of Socialistic States: InterSpace”. Where is it now? Was that something like SDI ?
“Route TAXI”. It’s kind of taxi but it goes only by defined route. So why is it called taxi?
Moscow Subway Scheme. It was smaller that days.
“Cooperation in Space of USSR and France”. France hides something from us?
“Read “Friendly Guys” book!”. Oh yeah we had one “Friendly guy” a little bit before. Is this a whole book on him? A dossier?
Aeroflot Airlines at KOMI ASSR. It’s like saying “Lufthansa” at Alaska.
No comments, but this thing is also from St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg doesn’t use letters.
“Save Kids!”
“Lenin’s Change” ..is coming they mean.
“Guys! Clubs for young Mail-Post-Stamps lovers wait for you!”. Wow.
“A Fox and a Bear”. Preved, isn’t it?
“A Guy-Who-Knows-Nothing on a trip to Sun City”. What can you say on this?
“USSR National Census. Please cooperate with census workers”.
All the inscriptions are exactly translated from Russian, thus this makes them sound even more strange. Or not. If you are Russian.
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Here is a mistake - it is not a Moscow but Saint-Petersburg subway, so it’s somehow smaller…
Moreover, some meanings are definitely perverted in translation
That metro map is of the Leningrad metro system, not Moscow. It has grown since the map, but not as big as the Moscow metro is now.
Looks like there is a HUGE opportunity to make and sell postcards in Russia. Was these are very strange and funny.
Well, for a person who never lived in USSR/Russia some items may seem funny, but if you lived here, read books & magazines, then there is nothing funny in most cases. And again, in some cases the translation did its bad job.
nah, its still damn funny
Yeah, these translations are HORRIBLE.
Like, A Guy-Who-Knows-Nothing on a trip to Sun City”. What can you say on this?
The name of the character is actually a popular children’s character, it’s not just something random.
I know what to say: I won’t play Sun City!!
There’s no such a game “Sun City”. That was a children’s book series about this guy. This particular book was called “Neznayka (A guy-who-knows-nothing) at Sun-City”. All these books were ideologic and told kids about communistic utopia and (in another book of this series) so-called “western life” (it’s called “Neznayka on the Moon”), capitalism and classes oppression.
Funny books, you know. There’s also animated motion picture on the plot of the last one.
Neznayka is actually translated to English as Dunno.
“Route TAXI”. It’s kind of taxi but it goes only by defined route. So why is it called taxi?
It is called “taxi” because it could stop in any place on the route, not only at bus-stop or something like that…
Now it is most popular public transport type in Russia and Ukraine.
It’s called “jitney”…
Right, but it’s a bad translation again.
“Jitney” in Russian literally sounds like “Route taxi”.
If the translator knew that he would translate it correctly.
Sure. Except that there is no such term in English as “route taxi”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=route+taxi&go=Go
On the other hand, “share taxi” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi (that includes “jitney” that is used to describe such operations in the U.S. and Canada) is the term that reflects the meaning of “marshrutka” precisely.
…which only underscores my contempt for translator’s English (or what passes for it, anyways).
Pretty damn good selection. I recall having seen at least one. A few comments:
“And mother will forgive me” is actually a line from a kiddie poem.
“Lifelong job of a pedestrian” sounds like a shitload of sarcasm to me, to be sure.
As for the book lovers… I just have to quote an old verse:
Если мальчик полюбил
В книжку тыкать пальчик
Значит он - библиофил,
Извращенный мальчик.
I think the “lifelong job of pedestrian” means that they will use the skills for the rest of their life, so they had better be taught the right way to do things instead of trying to learn by themselves.
But I’m an optimist.
Did you forget that there were no personal cars in USSR?
Bullshit.
Some pictures not postcards. There are pocket calendars.
“A Guy-Who-Knows-Nothing on a trip to Sun City”. What can you say on this? - this is famous russian book and cartoon.
A TU-154 plane. There were also cigarettes in Russia with the same name. - cigarettes TU-134
“Sack of apples”, “First time on stage” - russian cartoons
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor” - corporate pocket calendar of soviet newspaper.
“Lenin’s Change” - local communist newspaper.
“Правды нет, Известий нет, Россию продали, есть Труд за три копейки…”
“Фима, я-таки устал щугиться”;-)
We don’t understand your albanian;-)
По-английски пиши.
Well, gee, you want me to explain the backstory to this joke, and translate the names, too? Nope, I ain’t gettin’ paid for it. Toughski shitski, as they say in the Polish Army, learn some Russian, will ya?
Пиши тогда по-русски.
А советских анекдотов я и сам тебе могу рассказать.
Ты бы лучше вообще ничего не писал, если написать нечего.
+1
We don’t understand your Albanian…
“The Socialistic Industry” - was a newspaper too.
Pocket calendars for soviet kids was like baseball card for american kids.
Most of these are not post cards but small calendars that are still so popular in Russia. Calendars a lot of times would be a marketing technique for ideas, places, events, etc. And you can’t expect people from other countries understand the meaning of characters and places that are only known to former USSR citizens.
I am sure you are right. That’s why they are all so fascinating.
Almost always interesting images on this site, but translations/commentary are often laughable.
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
“Labor”
That’s a Newspaper. But for those who think they are so smart listen to this:
In the USSR, the 8-hour work day was protected by the constitution. Do we have anything like that in the US? Here people work, work, work. And all they think about is: work, work, work…
“That’s a Newspaper. But for those who think they are so smart listen to this:
In the USSR, the 8-hour work day was protected by the constitution. Do we have anything like that in the US? Here people work, work, work. And all they think about is: work, work, work…”
Yes, we DID. The Adamson Act of 1916 created a legal 8-hour work day, and anything beyond this was time-and-a-half. Ironically, fears during the Red Scare that unemployed people or people not working enough would become communist and support the USSR.
in Australia people work an 8 hour day. its pretty strict here with that. aust has actually got a pretty well-developed social system. too bad its being taken advantage of by newcomer-immigrants, primarily by muslim arabs
Developers
Developers
Developers
Developers
Developers
Developers
Developers
Each nation has it’s own specifics! =))
“Prepare your kid from a childhood for a LIFELONG JOB of PEDESTRIAN. Meaning that he is gonna be pedestrian forever.
Yeah!
Isn’t it nice to drive everywhere and turn into a fat blob by the age of 30?
It was normal state programm of educating the citizens. What have you found strange in it?
2the master of this site: You better get a bit more info before you offer a comment. Otherwise you will be spotted in everyones eyes as a short in IQ.
By the way, no means that I was/I am loyal to the state of USSR and also to the present foreign policy of Russia.
Preved
eto ne mai atkrytki ja prosto dal ob’javu
+1.
The “Duxmobile” is actually an Oldsmobile. It was poorly translated. I guess it would properly be more like “Oлдзmoбиль.” One of the first American cars. That would be the “Curved Dash” model, made about 1903.
Heh, I thought it looked vaguely familiar. But I think there’s more to the story: there used to be a Dux (”Дукс”, however it was spelled in the original Latin alphabeth) bicycle and aircraft factory. I can imagine they might have been building a Curved Dash under license, or an Olds-derived local design.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dux_(Auto) If you read German at least as well as I do, I think you’ll find that Dux built Oldsmobile licensed designs early on. I didn’t know about that before.
Interesting, those space stamps have few words in Latvian! :O
Intercosmos is surely not the equivalent of the Strategic Defence Initiative, aka Star Wars.
Intercosmos was something like the European Space Agency: bringing together Czech researchers, GDR cosmonauts, and Soviet rockets, etc. Every one had a share.
On some few occasions, it also included co-operations with the US (Soyuz-Apollo), France, etc.
The “Socialist Industry” card from 1978 looks like a cartoon man who has been irradiated so much that his bones glow like an x-ray. It could be a travel ad: “Visit sunny Chornobyl!”
Those translations are quite terrible, like you’re really really bitter about Russia and you lash out by mistranslating good natured postcards….
Oh, and really, you don’t even know who neznayka is?
You’re not really Russian are ya?
I mean, I had my doubts when you didn’t recognize the cartoon which the second picture references, but really now, You don’t know Neznayka?
Guess you don’t know Jack… about Russia
To translate the stuff you have to live THERE at THAT TIME — understand the context.
One comment on translation: “Use Radio!” actually could be translated as “Use abonent radio”. Abonent radio was a wired network that broadcasted 3 programs, one of which could be received by just connecting headphones to the wires. These were almost mandatory to the new houses.
And even more, the my attitude to these slogans, etc. was (and is) as follows: На сарае “Х#Й” написанно, а там — дрова лежат.
I love this site!
Long may it be.
Why are they weird?
Perfectly normal postcards for soviet era.
Also, whooever translated them shoul just kill himself.
LOL definately. Learn english before attempting to translate anything. It seems you just went through the Russian/English dictionary and looked up word by word without actually knowing any English whatsover.
Some translations does not match originals.
First that’s not Russian postcards, but Soviet ones. Most of them are perfectly normal. I don’t see anything funny about ‘em. Second, you have poor translation of the most of them.
I guess you never lived in USSR, so you won’t understand what was going on.
“Read “Friendly Guys” book!”. Oh yeah we had one “Friendly guy” a little bit before. Is this a whole book on him? A dossier?
“Friendly guys” or, probably, better translation would be “Tight-knit children” is a newspaper for children and teenagers in Soviet Kazakhstan. Actually, it’s still exist today. I used to work there, and it’s still professional among the same type of media over there. That’s only one nation wide children’s newspaper in the country.
You should brush up your Russian and learn more about culture of the country before posting this!
Not Moscow metro map, but Leningrad
Who wrote those highly useful and intelligent comments about which pictures are “normal” and which are not? Yes, the children have to be prepaired to be pedestrians for their lives long because you don’t spend all your life in a car!! You sometimes go for a walk, don’t you? And what’s that rubbish about “St Petersburg doesn’t use letters”??? St Petersburg has been a key center of culture and art for centuries and still is! If you’ve got nothing interesting to say just shut up!!
Next, about the “guy-who-knows-nothing”. It is the name of the main character of a very famous book for children. The character is nick-named like that because, at the beginning, he is lazy, he never has enough patience and perseverence to learn a job. But then, he starts to travel, scores of things happen to him,he understands the true value of friendship and of work, etc and so, at the end, he is not that ignorant anymore. That’s the general idea behind any book for children that is supposed to teach you moral values!!!!!
The “guy who knows nothing” is the guy who wrote that the St-Petersburg metro was in Moscow!!!
Most of these are not postcards,- they are just a little “calenders”. I have a small collection of these!!
I hope, you’re a russian yourself to comment on these postcards. It’s pretty stupid, I must say, just to laugh on them, cause they all have logical explanation. Good job, though. You made me laugh at you)
огромное спасибо что посмеялся над русской культурой 80х,
когда люди жили так как им говорили и боялись за свои жизни,
а не так как им хотелось:Ъ
Please, do not confuse Soviet postcards with Russian postcards.
These are Soviet.
Some cards remind my childhood. Thanks a lot.
Translation sucks!
Nice collection, strange comments.
Do you really not know what bridges in SPb opened for?
author is clinical idiot
Нихера не знает а умничает в комментах. Убей себя срань буржуйская! Ж)
Uahahahaaha!!! kg\am!
autor save the planet - kill youself!
но яблоки на ёлке реально жесть
А чё первонахов среди амерекософф нед? хе-хе-хе
:) 
Well, the real issue at hand is that the meaning of most of your postcards is “lost in translation”, either by way of some really bad translations (hint: not sure if it’s your Russian or your English that is limping, but PLEASE be fluent in both the nex time you want to translate something) or by way of unexplained cultural differences.
The subway scheme is not Moscow one! Its Leningrad (St.Peterburg). Of course its smaller.
The “And mother would forgive me” postcard comes from the animated film with the same name. A picture with a thousand words. So, look at the film and feel the power of simple feelings between mother and son.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4101427227366031767&hl=en
Ha… Author has some knowledge on the subject, but only some.
Many of these are not post cards, but posters or just some kind of cards.
Trud - Labour - Labour - Labour - refers to a federal newspaper. It is the header of the paper which you see many times on the poster.
Smaller subway schema - it’s Leningrad subway, not Moscow.
Use radio - use fixed radio broadcast points. These are wired radio boxes. Signal would come over wire. Similar to TV cable. No longer in use.
Route Taxi: even though it has a route, between the route’s end points it stops only on demand. You have to waive a hand when you see one or tell its driver where to stop along the route.
There are more corrections to be made, but who cares….
Fixed radio broadcasts was global defence alarm network, which has special modes of operations at the nuclear warfare. Wired radio do not fade in event of the nuclear explosion, still working and guiding peaople what to do.
I’ts really funny and ridiculous that USA do not have such network, which simply can’t be damaged with nukes.
USSR was superior and ths is the reason that USA destroy USSR with help of the Gorbachov.
Переводы,большей частью неправильные. А некоторые комменты вообще идиотские.
Отличная подборка, комментарии в самый раз, именно они и создают нужный диссонанс, и следовательно юмор.
Whoever made this web site has got some serious issues and certainly knows nothing about Russia, Soviet Union or its culture. “Weird postcards”??? To your information , whoever you are, these are very, very old style Soviet postcard, aplicable to that time. There is certainly nothing weird about them. I wonder if you have ever seen morden postcards, I mean the postcards we have nowadays. I don’t even want to say anything about the translation. It’s just like retryx commented “some meanings are definitely perverted in translation”. Anyway, most of the translation is twisted. Unless, it’s one of those web sites that says nothing good about Russia, then I suppose, I can understand. Sort of understand. What I don’t understand, where does this hate come from? Surely, someone who started writing about a foreign country does some research first. Otherwise, you look like a bloody amature.
I guess it realy stupid man wrote comment for this pictures. And a lot of this isn’t postcards.
““Route TAXI”. It’s kind of taxi but it goes only by defined route. So why is it called taxi?” - Meybe because it’s following defind route it’s called RUTE TAXI, you idiot.
This site a full of shit..
hei guys…95 % of them DO make sense if you know russian history, fairy tales, etc. You have to be born there to understand…..They were not written for foreigners, soorry…Don’t even try to understand, and don’t laugh while in Russia, can end up in big shhiiit from local hooligans… haha
These are not cards, these are calenders. By the way, I have all the original calenders of these pictures. These pictures are made from my calenders.
What stupid comments for those pictures! The one who posts this stuff and comments on it doesn’t seem to know a shit about Russia! All of his/her comments are real stupid sarcastic remarks of an ignorant person who seems to dislike/hate Russia. Now go to hell!
THIS WEBSITE MUST DIE! Don’t take it seriously, don’t read this bullshit
SAVE children was also wrong… correct to translate TAKE CARE… seams that the translater know Russian quiet a bit…((( just basics, but not a good specialist(((
Two comments:
1) The guy on image http://englishrussia.com/images/old_soviet_postcards/3.jpg has “25th congress of the CPSU” on his pocket. Communist Party used to have those congresses at regular intervals and every one of them was touted as an extremely important event going to bring the country to new fascinating achievements. New great plans were announced etc. Mostly it was just a hot air, part of weird USSR daily culture. (You can understand USSR best, if you think of it as of theocracy, which it was to certain extend)
2) If we want to be precise, the image http://englishrussia.com/images/old_soviet_postcards/25.jpg does not show exactly a radio. It is so called “radio translation point/node”. It was a kind of cable radio. Flats, offices, hotels etc. used to have them as a standard. There were sockets in the walls where you plugged in the receiver. In earlier Soviet times they were used mostly for propaganda. You can remember film 1984 where a voice keeps mumbling in background about the increase of steel production by x percent or military success etc. It was just like that. But the primary purpose of the system, I guess, was population warning in case of a sudden nuclear war. In late years of USSR the systems went neglected, receivers went silent and sockets in many places were painted over, though the situation should have been rather different throughout the various part of former USSR. I guess it might be well up and running in many places.
“A Program of Socialistic States: InterSpace”. Where is it now? Was that something like SDI ? - basically they took a guy from some other Communist block country for a ride and called it international space research program. Mostly propaganda. Nothing to do with SDI though. Not this one.
“Route TAXI”. It’s kind of taxi but it goes only by defined route. So why is it called taxi? - Because it stopped and picked you up, if you raised your hand. Just as a regular taxi does. Though the route was pre-defined and could not be changed. They still exist in former USSR countries and are quite popular because are generally faster then a regular bus. Still, possibly you might want to call it some other name, like “minibus”, “shuttle” whatever…
“A Guy-Who-Knows-Nothing on a trip to Sun City”. What can you say on this? - It was a children book character very popular amongst kids. If I remember correctly, there were three books about him. Again, we can see that it was a “Communism for Kids” kind-a thing. It portrayed a fictional happy Communist commune type society inhabited by adult-like kids, who were scientists, mechanics, poets etc. The City of the Sun (remember Campanella’s City of the Sun !) is kinda Communist Utopia. The third book tells about kids flying to the Moon in anti-gravity spaceship, finding a capitalist hell there and, as much as I remember, staging or helping with a Socialist Revolution!
Communist indoctrination for the kids (not so much the first book).
But the stories read well and were quite interesting.
See some more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neznaika
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_the_Sun
““Lenin’s Change” ..is coming they mean” - yes, “smena” meaning “shift”. “Lenin’s shift” possibly meaning something like “New shift of young people brought up in accordance to the teachings of Great Lenin is coming to take over and carry on caring about the country as lead by Communist Party and the Government of the Soviet Union”.
That might been the message. I lived then and there, but I can not tell you what exactly they meant. Because all that “agitation and propaganda” saturated your everyday life. It basically consisted of standard symbols - graphical, verbal or otherwise. It addressed your subconscious mind. It did not necessarily carry any meaningful information. You should not try to understand, analyze (God forbid!), or resist it. You just had to relax and let it flow through you or around you, maintaining your inner core were you kept your understanding how false all that is, but preventing those two of getting into conflict, because it meant trouble by kicking you off the status-quo. George Orwell called it “doublethink” and it was exactly the way he describes.
It also provided sublimation, re-direction for negative emotions people used to have because of poor living conditions.
So even people who loath Communism often feel warm emotions seeing these symbols. It is programmed deeply in their minds and can not be removed. Just controlled. “Brainwashing” - I guess it was that.
It should be very interesting field for sociologists to study. I just wonder if someone has done it. Please say it here, if you can provide some link.
P.S. For those who have not done it yet. Go read George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four :
http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/ (read online or download free) .
Or watch the film if you can find it (it was rather good and close to the book) : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087803/
just note:
who comes to us with a blade, die from it.
“The Guy Who Knows Nothing”
it’s almost Zen)))
and the “first time on stage”
great
Medvedev
eh))
thanks
more cards
http://www.plakatmuseum.dk/PostersUK/postkort/Sovjettiske/sovjettiske_uk.html
http://www.panoramio.com/user/295487/tags/postcard
http://mazaika.tripod.com/postcard01.html
http://www.mazaika.com/postcard/aerospace0.htm
“St. Petersburg’s famous bridges which are open at night so none can cross the city.” What a stupid comment - they are open to pass the ships.
Great PostCards !!!!!, but the stupid author does not translated correctly, it used a on line translator, word by word or some stupid dictionary. A good advise: read books, learn the languague and understand the different culture and awesome people of Soviet Union/Russia, poor iliterate idiot, for sure you are american….I hope you die fucking bastard
cigarettes were tu-134 (not 154) and metro map is of Leningrad not Moscow (the one which was smaller then
mnogije horoshije obrazci otli4nogo dizaina, kotorij v sovetskije vremena bil lu4se razvit i stilnee, nezeli sei4as v rossii.
starnnostej ne o4en i nasel.. bolsinstvo otkritok s kontekstom
This is a very interesting article. Thank you.