Go inside the USSR (56k warning)

[MKSheppard]

Aeroflot Brochure



EDIT: Renamed this to better reflect my modification of it into a general USSR photo thread

[Sea Skimmer]

Dangerously lacking in tail guns and glass nose navigator-bombardier position.

[K. A. Pital]

Cool! Where'd you get that Aeroflot brochure at Shep? I have some Soviet press stuff, perhaps I'll showcase some of it if I buy a scanner in summer.

[MKSheppard]

Aeroflot Building

Soviet Industrial Might





Soviet Military Might








Control room of OSCAR SSGN


Relaxation room of OSCAR SSGN




Childhood in USSR










Marriage in USSR




Snowy Wonderlands





USSR Sports

Sporty Car


Hockey Star

USSR Technology

[Kane Starkiller]

Awwww those kids wearing the red scarf take me back to my childhood.
Back in the first grade schoolkids would wear the same red scarf and a blue hat swearing that:

"Today, when I become a pioneer I give my solemn pioneer word that I will study and work hard, and be a good comrade, that I will love our self governing homeland Socialist Federative Republic Yugoslavia, that I will develop brotherhood and unity and the ideas Tito fought for, that i will appreciate all people of the world that want freedom and peace"

We were called "Tito's Pioneers". I was the last generation, after that the war broke out.

[Stuart]

Dangerously lacking in tail guns and glass nose navigator-bombardier position.

The last IL-86 I rode in still had chaff and flare dispensers on the inner engine pylons. The luggage system was great though, I stole it for the airliners in TBO.

[K. A. Pital]

Shep, that's not an Aeroflot building that's a large Aeroflot advertisment with a phone call number in the end

I'd add some stuff.
"Wedding House" (Civil Status Registration Office), Omsk, 1980s


In a bus

Workers celebrate accomplishing the works plan

Another neon ad, saying "Long live communism"


Soviet street illumination at night:

In the Metro


Hi girls!


Construction worker:


Lab guys (my father used to work in a similar lab)


Red Square Parade:


Kiss! (Riga, 1980s) Private archive photo


A young girl with child


Picnic. 1969. Private archive photo


Demonstration. 1961. Private archive photo


Young guys. 1976. Private archive photo.


Probably the guy's wife and new small "Moskvich" car. Early 1980s. Private photo archive.


Waterski!


A flat


And I sincerely recommend this:
http://ussr.km.ru/foto/
As a photo voyage into my nation

[Zor]

I did not know you guys made speedboats.

Zor

[K. A. Pital]

The USSR produced hundreds of thousands of speedboats each year, which were accessible to private citizens for leisure, travel, fishing and other activities. A park of several million speedboats, made of anticorrosive steels according to the designs from the the Alexeev "Central Hydrofoil Constructor Bureau", was created. In the early 1980s, due to eco-craze, an unwarranted ban resulted in a "kiss of death" for the speedboat industry.

Still hundreds of thousands of them remain and are refurbished, and new ones are slowly produced.

At peak years, the USSR had produced a good hundred thousand speedboat motors per year, for the riverfleet enthusiasts to use.
1977. A morning at Rikord island. A young captain prepares his meal - potatoes. Private collection.

1980. An enthusiast test a "Neptune" motor on an "Oka-4" speedboat. Private collection.

1974. A team of boaters on a "Kazanka-2M" speedboat prepare for a trip around the Gulf of Peter the Great. Private collection.

[Adrian Laguna]

It's interesting how a lot of these pictures wouldn't look out of place as being from the United States. I wonder how it would have affected the discourse if pictures like that, of simple every day lifestyle, had been made widely available for the public of both sides, especially to the ever-paranoid American public.

[Shroom Man 777]

I really love how you guys show "the other side". It's a refreshing take from what is otherwise an information landscape that is massively dominated by the West/America.

[Simplicius]

Those motorboats are just as hideous as the mass-market powerboats produced in the US. I guess the free market doesn't always triumph over all.

[PeZook]

Thanks for sharing those pictures ; It's always nice to see how people lived elsewhere.

Even in Poland, the recent trend is to show the USSR as some sort of dystopian 1984-esque Big Brother state full of ugly drab gray buildings and propaganda on every street corner. Comes with a change of politics, I guess.

Oh, and a lot of these speedboats found their way into Polish lakes and rivers, too. Water recreation was pretty big in the USSR.

[K. A. Pital]

Some more private photos. I've been asked if I have some of my own - I do, and I'll probably show some of them in time.

1960s. Students of the Tomsk Polytechnical institute (my grandmother was learning there). FYI, Tomsk is far deeper into Northern Siberia than Omsk.

School, 1st grade. 1966.

Tourists in a foot travel, camping, Moscow region, early 1960s.

1977. First year after graduating, the classmates' meet again.

1981. The campus of Ulyanovsk State Polytechnical Institute.

1985. Engineers working in agriculture ("potato trips" were common for all Soviet citizens, from students to scientists, to the fields for potato cultivation).

1988. People relax on a dacha in Ryazan region.

End of 1950s, picnic with a patephone!

1967. Private photo, at the October Revolution Day demonstration, so no "propaganda smiles"

1949. "Relatives Day" (when you recall the dead and visit their graves to maintain them in good shape)

Early 1950s. Soviet newsmaker girls. Private collection.

1960s. Vietnamese students of MGU take photo of their kids, apparently.

1969. Snezhnogorsk H.E.P.S. builders (the middle guy looks brutal hehe)

June 1986. Poltava, School #26, physics exam for school graduation.

July, 1983. VIII Spartakiade of nations of USSR. Repetition for the sportsmen teams.

[The Grim Squeaker]

First of all, amazing photos, some of these look like something out of Life magazine. (Even if no-one here actually took them ). It's nice to see a human slice of things, and not just displays of heavy industry (Although that part of the pictures is even more interesting for someone as relatively unsaturated as me).

Secondly, to avoid being completely fluffy, Stas, this sounds odd but, in the first picture of your newer batch, of the Tomsk Polytechnical institute students, deep up northern Siberia, where are the dark skinned people from?

[[R_H]]

Secondly, to avoid being completely fluffy, Stas, this sounds odd but, in the first picture of your newer batch, of the Tomsk Polytechnical institute students, deep up northern Siberia, where are the dark skinned people from?

Probably Africans studying at the studying in the Soviet Union?

[PeZook]

Probably Africans studying at the studying in the Soviet Union?

I'd bet Somalia, there were plenty of Somali students all over the USSR.

[Wanderer]

Stas, a question if I may.

What the Fuck is the deal with those lurid, ugly as fuck crime against humanity, white hairbowsschool girls wore and still wear today at School Ceremonies?

"Shudders"

I'll think I'll wash my eyes out with acid. When my wife first showed me them, I knew what was meant by the Evil Empire.

[Kane Starkiller]

You were looking at their hairbows?

[RogueIce]

Stas, a question if I may.

What the Fuck is the deal with those lurid, ugly as fuck crime against humanity, white hairbowsschool girls wore and still wear today at School Ceremonies?

"Shudders"

I'll think I'll wash my eyes out with acid. When my wife first showed me them, I knew what was meant by the Evil Empire.

I had no idea Kirsten Dunst went to high school in Russia...

Seriously, the girl on the right in the first picture looks so much like her (as MJ in Spiderman) I thought it was from a movie or something.

http://photo-element.ru/competition/retro/fifth/14.jpg
1981. The campus of Ulyanovsk State Polytechnical Institute.

Good to know there were Damn Hippies in the Soviet Union, too.

[Wanderer]

You were looking at their hairbows?

Brings back bad memories I rather not remember or discuss

[K. A. Pital]

What the fuck is the deal with those lurid, ugly as fuck crime against humanity, white hairbows school girls wore and still wear today at School Ceremonies?

Harmless tradition now go away

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh my god. Step aside, Japanese schoolgirls! Wet and wild Natashyas! Woohoo!

Seriously, wow. Those are some fine looking women. Hot Natashyas, not like the ugly Olgas capitalist pig dog propaganda would let you believe. Hot Momma Russia!

[K. A. Pital]

Family album pt.1 - about me and my family
Excuse the shitty quality in some photos, I don't have a scanner, but me and Anya will probably get one this summer.

My dad in the army (tankist) and mom:

Dad likes tanks and hueg engineering equipment:

Little soviet citizen is born:

My late great-grandmother. Born in 1917 and lived to almost 90 years. Orders: veteran of labour, veteran of the war rear, and many others.

Little soviet is afraid, does not want to watch TV. Mom is sewing. You could order "BURDA" fashion magazines in the USSR, and make your own cloth. Note the huge heating radiators, a feature which is ever present in all Russian homes.

My grandfather, a German deportee to Siberia.

My little sister.

[[R_H]]

Note the huge heating radiators, a feature which is ever present in all Russian homes.

Same thing over here. The older radiators, like the ones in my grandmother's apartment look like those too. The newer ones are flat and squared off instead of round.

My grandfather, a German deportee to Siberia.

Was he a Wolgadeutscher?