Once strong and hopeful plants shriveled up and hunched over, leaning towards the ground overloaded with multitude of empty seeds.
It was time for them to go.
And just like that the garbage lid of life closed in on another summer. Hopes, dreams, plans will start over again next year.
And now we dance:
Sometime ago I was arguing on twitter about the number of women in the medical profession in the USSR. While I knew I was right (because I am always right), my opponent ridiculed my anecdotal references, like a number of female doctors I visited in my childhood, or a number of female students in my Dad’s medical school photo-album. I thought maybe a scientific-looking study would be more convincing.
Women had been 10% of doctors and dentists in 1913. They rose to 77% in 1950 (Tsentral’noe Statisticheskoe Upravlenie, 1969a: 103), but then declined to 72% in 1969, when they were also down to 55% among medical students, pointing to an equalized sex ratio in medicine a generation hence.
Although remuneration in the Soviet professions shows nothing remotely like the spread in the United States between the teacher at the bottom of the heap, the engineer somewhat better off, and the doctor way out in front, there is a differential there as well. The Soviet government, always economically pinched, has raised wages and salaries in a[264] manner to attract people into fields which would not otherwise be entered by enough candidates to meet the need. Engineering is the best enumerated. Law is the lowest paid of the professions in the Soviet Union, and in it women are precisely the same proportion (one-third) as in engineering,the highest paid. Women had been 5% of the lawyers in 1926. At present there are 2,500 women judges. So women are majorities in the two professions in the middle of the payscale – medicine and teaching minorities in the two at the extremes-engineering and law. However, the 1971-1975 Five-Year Plan provides sharp salary increases for the two professions of medicine and teaching. Those seeking signs of discrimination no matter what are faced with the fact that, in numbers as distinct from percentages, there are more women engineers than physicians, and more physicians than librarians. The 775,000 women engineers in the USSR (1969) is almost equal to the total number of engineers in the United States (870,000), of whom only 1% are women.
On this International Women’s Day I am posting some photos of the Soviet women at work and at play. Wishing the best to all my female readers, even those who thought they can prove me wrong.
Just in time for the Cosmonautics Day from my Father’s archives – a never before seen this side of the Iron Curtain newspaper published on April 13, 1961. (click photos for a readable version).
This extra edition is titled “It Happened!”. On the right side with the subtitle “In history – forever” there a story and a time-line of the flight. On the left there is an official announcement from the Government and the Central Committee of the Communist Party titled “Listen, Planet! – to the progressive humanity”.
In the middle there is a short telegram to Gagarin from Nikita S. Khrushchev titled “Hugs!”
Dear Yuri Alekseevich (Gagarin)! I am extremely delighted to congratulate you with your outstanding heroic accomplishment – the first space flight on the spaceship “Vostok”.
The entire Soviet people admire Your brave deed, which will be remembered for centuries as an example of bravery, heroism and courage in service to all humankind.
Your flight opens a new page of the space exploration in the history of mankind and fills the hearts of the Soviet people with joy and pride for their Socialist Motherland.
From the bottom of my heart I congratulate you with the safe return from space back to Earth. Hugs.
See you soon in Moscow.
Signed “N.Khrushchev” April 12, 1961.
On the reverse side there are articles “We Did It!”, describing how the three main social classes – workers, peasants and intelligentsia contributed to the triumph of the space flight;”Minutes that shook the world!”;”Earth gave us wings for the flight” and other small items and poetry.
Bonus: A newspaper published on May 4th, 1961 titled “First Mayday of the Cosmic Era”.
And now we dance:
This song is called “Gagarin,I loved you” by Russian band Undervud.
Despite my bad memory some historic dates will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. On this day in 1941 the Nazis crossed the Soviet border as part of the operation Barbarossa and began what became known in the USSR as the Great Patriotic War. I wroteabout the War many times before so I won’t repeat myself. Even the youngest veterans are 85-90 years today and there are fewer and fewer of the every year. The memory of the War was something my generation grew up with, hopefully it will not be forgotten by our children.
I literally heard this song thousands of times (translation slightly clumsy but will do).
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNGQ_dAFY0M
The huge country is rising
Is rising for the deathly battle
Against the dark fascist force
Against their cursed hordes
Refrain:
Let our noble wrath
Seethe like waves
The national war is going
The Sacred War
Will resist the oppressors
Of right notions (ideas)
Rapists, bandits
People’s tormentors
Refrain:
Let our noble wrath
Seethe like waves
The national war is going
The Sacred War
Don’t their black wings dare
Fly over our Motherland
Don’t the enemy dare tread
Our immense fields
Refrain:
Let our noble wrath
Seethe like waves
The national war is going
The Sacred War
Lets hammer bullet into the brow
Of the rotten fascist vermin
Lets make a strong coffin
For such breed
Refrain:
Let our noble wrath
Seethe like waves
The national war is going
The Sacred War
Google tweaked something in its Life Magazine Archives search and now I am finding some of the best photos I was ever able to post on this blog. This batch was taken by the Life photographer William Vandivert in 1938. I can’t place most of these, so feel free to comment.
