One day browsing through the Google Life Photo Archives I discovered a treasure trove of some old photos taken in the USSR sometime before 1956, when Stalin’s portraits were still hanging on many walls. These photos are pretty interesting, as they captured many small details of the Soviet life after the World War II, but even more interesting is the seemingly unlimited access granted to the photographer. Usually foreigners were strictly supervised and allowed access only to pre-approved showpieces of the Soviet achievement. Even in the 1980’s many foreigners were still guided to my school, one of the best in town, where kids met them all dressed up for the occasion and tried to strike a proper English conversation.
I thought I’d try something different this time: I tagged the photos with my own comments. This is the first experimental batch and then we’ll see how it goes. Let me know if you are interested in seeing more of these with or without comments, since it takes some time and I’d could easily waste it somewhere else.
On this photo you will notice a wood-burning stove next to the gas stove that doesn’t seem to work and has another burner standing on top. There are some photos showing gas stoves being loaded and moved to it’s probably a time when the whole apartment building was being converted to natural gas.
“Ushanka Hat” is explained here and may even get aired out at some Halloween Party; here you will find more information about the “Kirza Army Boots”.
Even in my day you still could buy bulk milk and that’s the purpose of the milk vessel below. We owned several and sometimes used it for kvass, other people took them to the beer taps.
Wood burning water heater below is very familiar to me. We had one and some bath days started with me and my Dad looking for the firewood in the middle of the city. Then my Dad had it converted to the diesel fuel and we had to call the fire department to put it out when we tried it for the first time. This method could only be used on the lucky days when we had running water. On the unlucky days the tank served as a nice storage for water to flush the toilet.
I bet you didn’t know that the famous song “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” had more lyrics than the title. If Argentina had a peso for every time a tourist quotes this song, no one would ever have to work for living there. But until then Argentina just charges Americans $140 to cross the border and lets them walk around all day humming this song off-key for no additional charge.
After this trip to Argentina my non-existent bucket list got a lot smaller:
If you are looking for a an interesting destination and don’t mind paying the price, Argentina might be a place to consider.
Contrary to multiple tour guides and websites, nothing in Argentina is an extreme bargain, except for the public transportation. Your meals will probably cost you about the same as here, maybe slightly cheaper depending on the restaurant. Clothing is more expensive, and although you can find high quality leather products, a good leather jacket starts at $250. Vodka and vine cost about the same as here. Electronic items are significantly higher but most of them are unusable here anyway. I have no idea how much precious stones cost in this country, but I’ve been told that they are cheaper in Argentina where many of them are mined.
Speaking about food. Although I’ve never seen a similar density of cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, sandwich stores, ice cream places, chocolate stores and whatever food establishments one can imagine, food was somewhat a disappointment for me. Not because it was bad – it wasn’t – but because it was so ordinary and somewhat bland. I was shocked to discover that Argentinians are not fans of spicy food. Their famous grilled meats served in omnipresent parrillas are usually just seasoned with salt and lemon juice. The quality of meat is excellent and the servings are huge with beef, chicken, pork, several kinds of sausages including blood sausage, chinchulín (chitterlings) and mollejas (sweetbreads) served in one huge pile on a plate.
This set was published in the April, 1959 issue under the heading “A beautiful parole worker,Pat Rice, brings glamour to the grim proceedings in Kansas City, Kansas municipal court“. Hopefully Ms.Rice, who should be about 70 years old now is alive and well and still has this old magazine.
Bonus question:what’s on TV?
20 yr. old parole office aide Patricia Rice at home.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Great Flood of 1951 which was the “most devastating of all modern floods for Kansas City since its levee system was not built to withstand it”. Six weeks after the flood the Life Magazine article described the cleanup and reconstruction efforts ahead of the President Truman’s visit to the area.
