HISTORY OF USSR THROUGH FAMILY ALBUMS

The USSR History from Family Photo-Albums 1960-1970s

The pictures are from the Soviet family albums of the so-called "stagnation" period. Most people called it "well developed socialism" and these photos eternalize those particular moments. The people were just as we see them in these photographs.

Maybe the most remarkable characteristic of the Soviet society that distinguished it from other ones was the common certainty that "tomorrow will be better than yesterday". This feeing was shared by almost everybody. The achievements of this new society looked unbelievable: the world leadership in Space, nuclear energy and education. People dreamt of the Space highways that were achievable. The USSR boys were usually aware of such things as a "white dwarf", neutron star, a black hole, and every second boy was dreaming to make a career as a Space pioneer – not a banker. Next year, Yuri Gagarin would become the first man in space.

The New Year performance in 1960.	Velsk 1960 – Family celebrating May Day. A small provincial town in Arkhangelsk region. During the Czar regime it used to be a place for the "political deportees" In the USSR this town developed into a big lumbering center.
Left: The 9th of May 1960. Velsk, Veteran Bragin. It is only 15 years after WW II, The two "Red Star" orders and the two "Fatherland War" ones Bragin fought with courage and devotion against the enemy. A hunter in Velsk 1960. Buying of firearms was very easy up to the end of the 1950s. The closer it got to "perestroika" stricter rules became the policy.

On May 9th, Victory Day, everyone used to go out into the court yard. Veterans with the jingling of their Soviet Medals. After that they went with flowers to the Soldiers Cemetery to pay their respects. It was a family day and they did not invite guests, Russians do not like to show off things like that. My father did not like to talk about the war, but on Victory Day he talked about how things were at that time – the Kursk Tank Battle – the Dnieper River Crossing.

Later on the propaganda was ongoing as to how "every family had someone in jail". Then it was "the victims of Stalin's repressions" and these so called "victims" almost always got promoted or rose higher in the ranks of government structures after 1953. But every time we found out that there were very few so-called "innocent victims". In our apartment there was maybe one person out a hundred families living in the apartment.

First of May Celebrations 1961 People were joyful; they sang songs, played accordions. Surely it must have been the KGB or the Communist party members who forced them to smile as this photograph shows.	October Revolution celebration – 1967 These days were real celebrations. Later as perestroika came along, this feeling started to fade away, not because of the meaning on these days, but because of the deceitfulness of those revisionist "communist" bozos and the grandstanding. It had nothing to do with the commemoration. People wanted these events to be as they were before.

A rare photo – a private picture of Fidel in the USSR. What is interesting is the difference between the smiling Fidel and the serious faces of the Soviets. This was the year of Yuri Gagarin's Space Flight.	A Kindergarten celebration of New Year – 1967
	Right: New Year at a kindergarten in the 1960s. These were the best kindergartens in the world. It is not an exaggeration. They had scientifically set diets, specially developed toys. There were holiday performances by the children. The favourite was New Year – the Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) – the Russian version of Santa Claus.

The present Western storytellers explained to everyone that the former Soviet people had nothing to dress their children. Above right you see a 6-year old boy in 1967 going to play hockey as a goal keeper, all alone without any fear of being molested or kidnapped as is unfortunately the case in capitalist countries. And what is surprising is that the "free people" of the world’s community accepted this by saying that is the way things are and cannot be changed. But in the USSR things like that were inconceivable – like cannibalism of some jungle tribes. Children were growing up somatically and spiritually healthy; they were not turned into zombies by the constant "stupidity TV machine" and the war-games and killings of the video games.

Kindergarten in 1970s	"Riding Horse" in 1971
In Russia now kindergarten teachers are turned sometimes into paupers, but in the USSR it was a very highly respected and important job. They always learned new approaches and methods to teach their little students. The children on the left photo are playing Grocery Store transaction in Moscow 1970s. These children do not look bored – no play-shooting, no gangsters, no guns or no space monsters. The kindergartens were either free or very cheap. It was not hard for parents to bring up the children. Their mother could have worked or gone to school, while the children were educated and fed by professionals.

These are First Graders – 1966. Do they have a job now?

Grade 1 students in 1966.

The first day of school in the Soviet Army Group in Germany (SAGG), 1970s.

The first School Bell celebration in Moscow, 1970

A young Pioneer Camp girl in 1967 at a Camp near Moscow, which was very popular because of its many diversified activities.

The USSR had the best public education in the world. This was precisely standardized system of mandatory schooling. There were no private schools to bring up the students in a snobbish class attitude. That is why the West is now changing to a so-called "skill oriented Technology. Do not think; just do what the boss or your TV tells you. That is why most Canadian schools do not cover the math theorem.

That is why this Soviet "Evil Empire" paid a lot of attention to the ability to think, to hypothesize, to the mind and physical perfection. Hardly any other people in the world had the great variety of world literature masterpieces in front of them and a very profound knowledge of world history.

The Soviet socialist project from its very beginning was designed to achieve the maximum possible development of every person. Of course not everything was possible to achieve in the short historical term, especially taking into account the very low starting point of the Czar's Russia (but now our anti-Soviet politicians are so nostalgic about it). The Soviet education was built on the ability to see the best features in everyone. On the one hand, it is excellent, but on the other hand, it may lead to a lack of the perceptional adequacy. Sometimes we saw people better than they actually were.

The start of revisionism in the CPSU in late 1980's was a prelude to selling the country away to our enemies. But this Officer speaking to the Soviet school children in Germany believes in the song that was sung by the Red Army: "We have trodden across the half of the Planet! If necessary, we will not fail to repeat!"

But our "best friends" that are so fond of “spreading democracy" know that changes are coming. That is why they are screaming about the "Soviet threat!"

It is obvious to a normal person that "it’s better to be sergeant in an Empire, rather than be a king in a figurehead state."

However now in Russia, a pipsqueak ranked as a "KGB Major" with a nickname "rat-cub" (nickname of Vladimir Putin), who served in the same location a little later on in Germany, the head of the local officers' club, will adhere to the opposite opinion.

We the Soviets must have had some gaps in our education system, in spite of our very high achievements. How come that some of these cute kids pictured developed later on into traitors and scoundrels like this? At which of our steps did this happen? Of course they were a minority, but it was enough to do what is now a fact.

Yes it is a good lesson for all of us, though very cruel and bitter!

A factory Pioneer Camp for workers' children 1967.	A Phys/Ed class in the school pool – Moscow 1976.
The Young Pioneer Camps (summer camps) were free for all parents. These camps were well organized and located in beautiful natural surroundings, on lakes, or on the Black Sea for relaxation and education. Sports, labor and extra-curricular activities of all kinds were organized. Nobody in the world at that time had such camps for children. Now everyone recalls these pioneer camps, but now they are only for those who can afford to pay!
Harvesting 1960s.	Angarsk 1970s

It was the 1920s when about 80-90% of population resided in towns and villages. By 1970s the cities’ population increased by about 60%. The Soviet Central Asian Republics were less urbanized than other republics. Despite the great work efficiency in agriculture due to mechanization and fertilization, it still required a lot of manual work for harvesting. It was not affordable to just have seasonal workers who would practically stay idle for 9 months per year. In the cold climate in Russia, there is only one harvest per year. Russian climate always required extensive farming areas and efficiency of agricultural work in that severe climate. The results will always be lower in harvesting results as opposed to somewhere further south in the country.

It was the correct decision to use some urban workers to harvest crops where there was still no machinery on the collective farms. There should have been more agitation to make the city worker resources available to help in harvesting the crops. It was not good for an urban dweller to only watch where his daily food comes from. By spending a relatively short time in the field, an urban resident was getting a significant money return: all winter prices of food were fairly low. Thus an average urban day salary would buy about 1000kg of potatoes; more than 80 loafs of bread and about 32 L. of milk.

None of the judicious people viewed a farm trip as a tragedy – moreover – for most of us it was great! As for myself, I liked this a lot as a school boy as well as a University student. However, there are still people who cannot forgive the USSR for making them dirty their hands!

The school music group – Angarsk 1970.	A guitar player – 1970s.
A school celebration – Angarsk, 1970.	On the river – 1970s.
On a school Saturday, volunteer work day – Angarsk 1970s.	School chums on Sakhalinn Island – 1970s.
The horrors of that Soviet totalitarianism! The school subbotnik, cleaning of the school grounds twice a year. Look at the faces of these students – are they happy? Oh no – it can't be so! How can one be happy without a cola or a porn magazine? In those days there was a belief that shaping work habits was an important part of education and of personal development. We are now told that we did not have any footwear in the USSR or such things as female shoes or boots or tights were never available. Looking at these photos, I can hardly believe it. Of course, these young people were forced to pose for these many photographs – or else!

	The University student, Irina Tarasova, International Soviet Team – 1970s. An ordfinary student girl became a member of the Soviet International Athletic Team. Thousands upon thousands of Soviet people were involved in sports, many boys and girls became highly qualified sportspeople. Most of the sports clubs and training were free.
Boys in Nevelsk – 1970s. Yes, we were about the same as the boys in this picture. We had no problems wandering around. The serial killers or the drunken "cops" were not part of our lives.
The last school bell (graduation) – 1970s.
The first meeting – 1977. Notice the difference between those faces and today's.
Young people at the end of the 1970s. These were ordinary boys and girls, not the present "golden youths." Oh, look – they are wearing jeans! But now watching TV, we know that they had no jeans in that "barbaric country!"

Camping. Moscow suburbs – 1960s. This was before, to relax and have fun. Today these forests and woods are occupied by the so-called "New Russians" and their villas and castles. They stole tomorrow from us and our children today. When you look at this photo, the comparison between then and now comes to your mind spontaneously

A Motorcycle Rally – 1960s. One was free to ride thousands of kms across our giant country. The highway police of those days never demanded bribes as they do now. The Russians of our day can hardly believe that this is happening.

Moscow 1970s We are always told that the "stores were always empty of all food products and shortages”. I remember well that we could buy pre-cooked food or semi-cooked products in stores or at the market. In the market it was a little more expensive than in the stores. There was always meat, chicken and frozen fish. I am not talking only about Moscow – but I used to live in a few different cities and my parents were not in the Soviet management positions. The shortages appeared in 1990s and it looked like a well-prepared sabotage by that revisionist leadership.

Yes, this was one of our typical apartment interiors of workers. My friends and I resided in much the same apartments. The bookshelves I mounted myself on our wall in 1980s – I was 14 years old then. The antenna was from another system, but the lamp hanging from the ceiling was very similar. The TV we had since 1970s was not color but black and white.

	Those two boys on the left photo are obviously from the Asian part of the USSR. In the Soviet Union the people from those Soviet Republics had no need to become illegal immigrants and to go away from their homes to build mansions for the present Rich Russian elite. They had their normal and happy life where they lived. Their culture is very family-oriented. During the Soviet times to discriminate and be racist towards these Soviet people from these Republics was inconceivable. It was also inconceivable during Soviet times that some of the present semi-criminal "cops" would stop them at the entrance to the subway and to squeeze a bribe out of them. I'm not even talking about taking those people to the police station and torturing them there. During the time of the USSR the Police job was respectful and honest people were very respectful of them. Our Asian compatriots – Uzbeks, Kirghizes and Tadjiks were coming to Moscow as tourists to see and show their children the Red Square, Moscow University and Moscow Subway. With time these Soviet citizens and well-educated from Central Asia and from the Caucasus settled in different areas and considered themselves as Soviet people. The geologists of the Baikal area – 1966. That is how it was: most people were building up the country, civilizing the wild taiga and dreaming of Mars, while others were fascinated with their Western "anti-Soviet front" and full of spite against their country. Which of those two were happier? The Abramov glacier – 1970. The Mountain Scientific Station of Meteorologists and Glacierologists of the USSR ran an extensive research work to predict and to prevent these natural cataclysms. This included such dangerous and non-studied phenomena as earthquakes, snow-slides and seasonal flooding. These problems were studied in conjunction with geologists, geographers, mathematicians and physicists.
Near Moscow University – 1960s.
The Kropotkin navigational school ship Baturin – 1970s.
Test pilot V. Klimenok – 1970s. See the difference between that face and today's "efficient managers?"

The Military Oath – 1970s.

Soviet soldiers – 1978.

Surveyors – Uzbekistan – 1970s.

Moscow – Chertanovo area, new buildings – 1970.

"I am the citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, entering the ranks of the Armed Forces uttering this oath and I swear solemnly to be honest, brave, disciplined and vigilant warrior, to keep strictly the military and State secrets, to follow unquestionably the military statutes and the order of my commanders. I swear to learn diligently the military science, to protect the Army's and people's property and to be faithful till my very last breath to my People, to my Soviet Fatherland and to my Soviet Government.I I am always ready to stay and protect my Fatherland -the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, as a soldier of the Armed Forces, I swear to protect it with fortitude, skillfully and with honor, not sparing my blood and my very life to achieve the victory over the enemies. In case I break this solemn oath I utter – let the severe judgment of the Soviet State law be upon me as well as everybody's hate and contempt."

Compare this to the present contemporary oath of this "democratic Russia":

"In case I break my military oath, I am ready to accept the legal consequences, as defined by the legislation of the Russian Federation."

Soviet Uzbekistan from a semi-feudal country was turned into a well-developed and agrarian republic. Ultra modern power plants were built. Natural gas and oil fields were discovered and surrounding these new plants new cities were built – Chirchick, Bekabad, and Kattakurgan.

The devastation of WW II was overtaken by the middle of 1970s. Now the USSR was safely protected by the nuclear shield. Now the money was used to build apartment buildings all over the country for the people.

Every mini-district was pre-planned before being built. It had to have a school, kindergarten, stores, barber shops, public transport and parks. You could not evict anyone from these new apartments.

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