Google Life Magazine photo archives were broken for the past month or so and I was starting to think that I would eventually need to write a post by myself. Luckily the photo search is working again and I am back to posting pictures.
On another technical note, I changed the comment system here, after liking how it worked on the Pitch’s blogs. Hopefully it will work faster, look cleaner and be easier to use with multiple ways to log in and subscribe. Give it a shot, I really don’t feel like figuring out how to go back to the old system.
In 1963 Life Magazine published a special issue dedicated to the USSR, which included unique photos taken by the Life’s correspondents over a period of one year. Although the foreign correspondents were usually “gently” guided by their KGB “guides”, they managed to obtain an unprecedented access and photograph the real Soviet Union, its people and sights. Today I will post some color photos, which are a rare find for these years.
When I was growing up® there was an old joke (which I may have told here before, but I only remember about three of these so I have to recycle): An American is walking around in Moscow and falls into an unmarked open manhole. He screams: “I can’t believe some idiot left a manhole open here without any warnings! Where were the cones, tape, warning red flags?”
An old Russian passer-by says “When you were crossing the border did you see a giant red flag?”
“Yes” -American replies,
“That was your warning!” (I need to brush up on my dialogue punctuation, but you get the idea)
Few Americans who comment here have actually been to Russia and they will confirm that being a foreigner there is like running a plow through a minefield, you never know when it’s gonna blow, but you are pretty sure it will, sooner or later. The only protection is your wallet but you can’t just go around openly paying people off, it’s an art. Apparently at there are enough foreigners who have not mastered the art of bribery to have a special international prison described by one unfortunate victim in his book Zone 22 ( I am pretty sure the same book is published in the US as Tomorrow You Go Home: One Man’s Harrowing Imprisonment in a Modern-Day Russian Gulag)
I haven’t read the book yet, I am waiting for my turn at the library, but there are plenty of blurbs around to suggest that if you don’t know what you are doing you may come back from Russia with a couple of prison tattoos instead of Matryoshkas for your girlfriend.
If I like the book I may review it in a few weeks.
Although The Circus (Tsirk) was made in 1936 it was still shown on TV in the 1970’s and 80’s and the songs took on the life of their own with “My Country is So Vast” (Shiroka Strana Moya Rodnaya) becoming the Soviet equivalent of “God Bless America”.
The movie is beautifully done propaganda piece for the Soviet Society where there is no place for racism and hatred and everyone wears white. It stars the most popular actress of that time Lyubov Orlova whose looks and voice dominated the best Soviet movies of the 30’s and 40’s.
Below are some clips I cut and lightly subtitled; some of the scenes are actually in understandable English, the others are musical numbers where no translation is needed; some scenes can be understood without words: in 1930’s actors still knew how to display emotions on their faces from their years in the silent movies.
The movie starts with an angry mob scene, someplace in the racist US of A, where a bunch of screaming people sans torches and pitchforks are chasing Marion Dixon, a mother of an interracial child who happened to be a circus performer.
On the train Marion meets Franz Von Kneishiz, who will become her manager. The story moves to the Moscow Circus where Marion performs her death-defying stunt – “Flight to the Moon”. The music playing in the beginning of the clip is a de facto anthem of the Soviet Circus. I still remember the circus being this grand and amazing.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud3DLEr1nsE
During the act the Director of the Circus asks his actor -a military hero – Martynov to recreate and improve this act. His partner is to be the Director’s daughter whose fiance also appears carrying flowers. Martynov throws the bouquet to Ms. Dixon. Love is in the air.
Evil capitalist Von Kneishiz threatens Marion Dixon to tell everyone about her black baby. While she is crying over Martynov’s photos, he comes into the room to pick up his suitcase. The scene ends with the war of stares between him and Von Kneishiz.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYdD7RlTI5g
Von Kneishiz hints that he would like the contract extended, instead the director shows him the new replacement act.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9zWQd09zCU
Stunt fails and Marion runs downstairs concerned for Martynov. Seeing her interest Von Kneishiz tries to make an announcement about her baby.
Von Kneishiz begs Marion to leave, she refuses. She says that Martynov loves her, but Von Kneishiz screams that no one will love her with her black baby. When he leaves, she sings a lullaby to her baby in Russian but with an “american” accent.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djesek2-e-Q
Notice the black maid. This movie probably employed the whole black population of Moscow. The baby was played by James Lloydovich Patterson who lived in the USSR, served in the Soviet Navy, but later emigrated back to the USA.
Von Kneishiz tries to leave Moscow with Marion, but she is being helped by her Soviet friends. Instead she partners with Martynov for a now successful “Flight to the Stratosphere”.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBlL5TIUq8
Von Kneishiz finally gets a chance to tell everyone about the black baby. To his dismay no one cares. Instead the circus patrons, each one of a different nationality takes turns singing a lullaby in there own language. One of the singers is a world-famous Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels who sings in Yiddish. My Dad always pointed out this scene because this was probably the only Yiddish on film which wasn’t censored. Mikhoels was assassinated on Stalin’s orders after the WWII but in this movie he illustrates the supposed internationalism of the Soviet people.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31kSvUrBd6I
The Circus director tells Marion that the Soviet people love all children – white, black, green, pink with stripes. Marion starts singing “My Country is So Vast”. The scene moves to the Red Square where the Circus performers lead the demonstration singing, marching and carrying portraits of the Soviet leaders.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ioY7tD5_E
This movie was immensely popular throughout the Soviet times. As any propaganda movie it wasn’t very truthful, there was a lot of national hatred, antisemitism and conflicts in the USSR; many of them manifested themselves only after the break-up of the Soviet Union, but it didn’t mean that on a personal level many different nationalities didn’t live happily side-by-side. People of different nationalities shared apartments, served in the military, worked in the camps. In these situation nationality took second seat to the necessities of hard life.
I am not a movie critic (but I once had a beer with a real-life professor of cinematography), so I will not comment on the technical aspects or the influences present in this movie. The characters and the musical numbers from this movie are an important part of the Golden Fund of the Soviet culture and you just had a chance to enjoy a small peek at it.
When you tell people you’re going to Detroit they often give you that “are you crazy?” look and wish you to come back alive or at least unhurt. Pictures of abandoned and destroyed post-apocalyptic Detroit’s ruin-porn make their rounds on the internet, interspersed with scary crime statistics and sad economic news. A person with common sense would probably avoid Detroit, but clearly I am not that person. During a college visit to the nearby Ann Arbor, I set aside two days to check out Detroit because how could I not. Detroit is awesome. And we came back alive and even unhurt, if you don’t count a parking ticket, which did hurt a lot.
