1947 Stalingrad; American Journalists’ Viewpoint
The early spring lasted. Little by little city was getting better after one of the stiffest battles that the land of the USSR has ever seen. City, which at the present time is called Volgograd (yeah, that’s exactly the place where the Mother Russia monument is located), but back then at times of the USSR it was called Stalingrad and was totally leveled by the German army during Battle for Stalingrad in 1942-1943. In 1947 the Cold War didn’t started yet, so the relations between 2 military allies, the USSR and the USA, allowed such “exchange” trips. In this article you will see lots of different things, most of them are really horrifying, but still, they belong to the history of the USSR and no one can blot them out.
Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
This monument called Worker and Kolkhoz Woman (Rabochiy i Kolkhoznitsa) was made for one of studios in VDNKH and first time displayed in Paris in 1937. There was hold a competition for the post of a chief architect and one of the famous Soviet architects at that time, V. I. Mukhina, won the contest. The memorial of an impressive size was created. But while transporting the statue from France to Russia after the exhibition it was heavily damaged.
Paris 1970
The USSR adopted a not very friendly foreign policy and its realations between western countries were rather strained (we have already written about it here) France’s relations with the Soviet Union have experienced dramatic ups and downs in 70’s. France was a popular destination for Russian migration for two reasons: cultural interest, which was reinforced after the Russian occupation of Paris; and liberalization, which made it easier for Russians to settle in the country. Even though there were still political problems and in October 1985 previous Soviet president Gorbachev made a visit to France in order to fix the strains in the Franco-Soviet relations.
London, 1970
Maybe that’s a bit less known fact, but in Soviet Union citizens couldn’t go abroad. The iron curtain had been working two way - not letting stuff and information in and not letting anyone out.
In fact the abroad travel had existed still but only for the best of the best comrades. The controlling authorities, like KGB wanted to be hundred percent sure that the lucky visitor of the foreign state would:
a) get back and won’t ask for a shelter abroad;
b) would behave himself really well - won’t drink all that capitalistic whiskey all night long with strange people like hookers;
c) won’t be seduced by foreign secret services and turned into a spy overnight;
d) won’t buy different banned stuff like porn and jeans and then won’t smuggle it back home and sell it to friends;
e) and finally they needed those who won’t spread stories of admiration of capitalistic style of life upon arrival, but on contrary expected people would tell anyone that life abroad, frankly speaking sucks a lot.
Also, the trips abroad were divided into two categories. First category included the socialistic countries with friendly regimes like Eastern Europe or Cuba. It is strange but even those countries were forbidden for a free visit of a “free” Soviet guy, though it was much easier to get there if compared to a trip to any country of a second category - the capitalistic hell like USA or England. In order to get a chance of such visit one could submit a claim expressing his will to pay a visit to Socialistic neighbour. Then such claims were thoroughly studied by many organizations starting from local police, then a place of work had to make a proclamation then it was escalated to KGB which could approve it or reject it.
But there were no such way to get in London except to a few categories of highly trusted people, one of such were pilots of “Aeroflot” the only Soviet Russian air flights company.
Those pilots who were able to reach forbidden places were considered to be just white bone blue blood amongst their fellows. And there were plenty of reasons why. They could BE THERE and could BRING STUFF from there.
And those are the photos of one of such elite pilots having luck to visit the places that 99.9999% of other Soviet people couldn’t reach ever. London back in 1970s looked different, but it looked totally different for Russian people at all - not anything they had a chance to see at their Motherland.
Soviet Russia, 1977
Shots from Russian streets back from 1977, probably the most prosperous time of the Soviet society.
Russian Girl Katya
This scanned book is being popular among the Russian bloggers lately, the links circulate among people and appear here and there.
This book is one from the series, called something like “Children of the World”. This one is devoted to Russian girl Katya, her everyday life and activities she experience. And yes, the captions are in English.
Another Music Video
This Russian music video is being popular in Russia lately. Some think it’s popular because of it’s nostalgic nature - they say it has been made mainly of the submitted photos from the family archives of Russian people.
The Soviet Exotics Museum
In Latvia they have a special museum for those who would like to dive into the now not present world of the Soviet exotics. Every visitor has to wear Soviet Russian prisoners cloths and when enters is being humiliated by the staff dressed as Soviet army soldiers. They yell on and almost beat all the visitors, force them to do things, wear gas masks, run distances and many many more things to do. Hard times he experiences there until this guided tour is ended.
USSR Again
Another set of photos from the Soviet Russia…
Life in Soviet Russia: Private Moments
Are you ready to make an immersion into the glorious life of Soviet Russia? If yes scroll down, this one today differs from other retrospective series we had before by the manner of compilation - it’s not a one collection but is assorted mix came from different sources. Each photo is an individual shot from the fate of some random human who lived in Russia at that times, sometimes those moments were sad, sometimes joyful and photos share this mood with us now:
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