Speaking about street ads and it's abundance in the streets of Russian cities now people always append to the Soviet Era when there were almost no ads on the streets. Well, it's true that during the Soviet reign they didn't advertise any goods or services on the streets, because there was no competition and Russian people had no choice
what to buy, so there were absolutely no need to ask them to buy. What amuses me most, is that during Communist Party rule the most advertised stuff was the Communism itself. People were constantly reminded about the absolute necessity of Communism in their lives and about that it is the only right way.
Such photos always fascinate me. I mean the color photos from the past, the older the better. These ones is no exception. We got used to see only black and white photos from the World War 2 - the color photography was very expensive at that times
and actually was not widely implemented, and especially usually nobody took the expensive equipment to the battlefront. Still there are some color photos from the times where our grandfathers were young, like 70 years ago.
Categories History, Photos, Russian Art, Society
There is an ancient tomb situated on the Red Square of Moscow, right in the centermost point of the city with a real mummy inside. Yes, it's not ancient of course, it's only 70 years old, but still there is a tomb and a mummy. A mummy of Lenin, the leader of the first Russian communists who lead the country to the revolution and broke out the Tsarist reign thus wanting to establish the freedom to all, like, poor people. This is what every Soviet Russian kid was taught at school from his early age. The name of Lenin was considered the most sacred word, together with his depiction. If the schoolboy got as bold as, like, drawing some funny whiskers in the text-book for the Lenin's portrait he could be severe punished, his parents summoned to school and then the special report could be sent to their job which could cause them being fired or even imprisoned. In other words everything concerning Lenin's name was a holy cow. Same way was about his tomb. This place was a real shrine for the multi-national people of Soviet Union. Hundred thousands people when came to Moscow just had to visit the so called "mausoleum" and to get a fast glance on the mummy of the Lenin lying under the bullet-proof thick glass. To do that people had to stand many hours in line through
all the Red Square, but it was considered worth of this. It's interesting but even now, twenty years later after the Soviet Union started collapsing, the tomb is still at it's place right on the Red Square and the mummy body of Lenin is still inside. And there are even still lines of visitors waiting for their turn to pay a visit to the Communist leader. The tomb itself was build of the red stone which was mined only in one place in Russia, in the village Shoksha of Karelia, and is being highly estimated by the luxury architectural designers from all over the Europe. They order this stone even to Paris for some decorations, and so from this stone this Lenin's mausoleum was built. First it was made of wood though, we've told about this in our "Lenin Tomb History" post looking like a stairway pyramid with a platform on top, which was used by all the Soviet Leaders to greet the Soviet People while on parade: This modern look of this structure wasn't born at once. There was a special Russia-wide contest for the best design of the future "mausoleum" structure. Some of the photos of those works from the archives are here today, this is how it could look.
"The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis (Nazi) powers to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The siege lasted from September 9, 1941, to January 27, 1944, when a narrow land corridor to the city was established by the Soviets. The total lifting of the siege occurred on January 27, 1944. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest and most destructive sieges of major cities in modern history and it was the second most costly." - from Wikipedia. During nine hundred (!) days a few million people city of Leningrad suffered from cold and hunger, being deprived of almost all supplies of food and fuel. Many thousands died, those who
survived remember this not very willingly. The situation with food was so heavy, no food was sold/distributed among people except a few grams (not even tens or hundred grams) of bread, and not each day, that people had to eat stuff that they would never eat in normal life, like making soups of leather boots (because leather is of animal origin) or boiling the wallpaper because the glue with which they were attached to walls contained a bit of organic stuff. Of course many occasions of cannibalism occurred. On those photos you can see some pieces of those old photos made during those black days overlaid to the modern city views, respecting the place and angle of view.
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.
In 1930s Russian army was ... by the idea of creating huge planes. At that times they were proposed to have as much propellers as possible to help carrying those huge flying fortresses into the air, jet propulsion has not been implemented at those times yet. Not much photos were saved since that times, because of the high secrecy levels of such projects and because a lot
of time passed already. Still on the photo below you can see one of such planes - a heavy bomber K-7. Now modern history lovers in Russia try to reconstruct according the plans left in once to be top-secret Russian army archives their look in full color. This is one example based on ideas of Russian aviation engineers of that times.
Role playing is hobby for some young and not so young men and women in Russia too. The storylines are different, amongst most popular are World War 2 and the War with France of 1812. This
time the photos from the WW2 simulation. Was taking place in Ekaterinburg city, and that's not something about shooting the movie - just a pure fun of dedicated people.
From time to time we have "Guess who?" posts. I think this one is easy. I mean, everyone knows this handsome young man in
pro-Palestinian kerchief, well at least how he looked like later. If not, maybe the next picture would help...
Christian Dior is one of the most expensive luxury cloths brands. It is so now, and it was so 30 years ago too. But what have they done 30 years ago according to those LIFE photos was an organized trip to Russia for a group of model looking ladies wearing all-new Dior luxury stuff walking on the streets of Moscow. Of course, as I understand the main purpose of this action was to shoot so cool-looking ads when the so expensive looking Dior models shot on the streets of the dully dressed Russian women, but what did those Russian ladies felt - they were for years deprived from any designer cloths. Not even they couldn't buy
the luxury expensive designers dress but they neither couldn't buy ANY dress designed for someone else except a Communist Designers Company - those people there didn't care much about design - they had no any competition - so the cloths available in Soviet stores was far away from being called stylish, and any, just any item which got inside the iron curtain from the abroad was treated as an icon, the pair of just simple blue levi jeans were just an unachievable dream for many Russian people at that times. And in such an atmosphere those girls were walking around the Moscow.
