A frontline hospital. Nurse writes a letter dictated by a wounded soldier. Photo by Boris Ignatovich (1942).
This blog is about old postcards, book illustration, history and culture of Russia and the Soviet Union. I'm a long time collector, and this blog is 10 years old.
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Handlettered titles of Soviet movies from 1930s and 1940s
27 January 1944 - fireworks in Leningrad celebrating lifting of the siege by the Soviet army. The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days.
Female coal miners in the USSR. Female labor in mines was forbidden until late 1930s when Stalin’s country-wide industrialization took place. When World War II began there was not nearly enough man power to go on, so all-girl brigades were recruited.
During WWII 245,000 women worked in mines - 86% of all miners.
Ruins of Zhizdra (town in Kaluga oblast of Russia). The cat’s ear was shot through with a bullet. Photo from 1943.
Selling books in Moscow during WWII. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White (1941)
June 22, the day World War II started for the Soviet Union, is the Day of Remembrance and Mourning in Russia.
This is my grandfather, who just turned 17 at the time, 4 months after the war started. It’s a tiny photo that came to my posession a couple weekes ago, kindly passed on to me by my cousin twice removed during a big family gathering.
War is not parades. War is not showing it to someone. War is 17 year old boys wearing military uniform, killing and being killed. War is broken lives of an entire generation.
Never forget!
Помню. Скорблю.
Photography by Mikhail Prekhner, 1930s-1940s. We will be visiting exhibition of his works on March 10 ().
Soviet Union, 1940s
Photo by Georgiy Lipskerov
Moscow, February 4, 1990. The most massive protest in the history of the Soviet Union. 300 thousand people marched from the Crimean Bridge along the Garden Ring and Gorky Street (now Tverskaya) to the 50th Anniversary of October Square (Manezhnaya). The main demand of the protesters was to abolish Article 6 of the USSR Constitution that declared the leading role of the Communist Party.
Text on the back: “For good memory from ‘grandpa’ Boris and sister Musya. 25 March, 1944″ (via Yuri Kombolin)