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Agdam, a fairly inexpensive fortified wine - the Soviets seemed to have directly translated the term from English - with 19% alcohol by volume. It was basically a grape juice from the concentrate with a potato derived ethanol providing the punch. It was popular among the poor/students and the...

Pushkin airfield, 15 miles south of Leningrad, February 7th, 1981 was the place of one of the worst disaster in the history of aviation. Tupolev-104, carrying 44 highly ranked members of the Soviet Pacific fleet and its 6 person crew, crashed on the takeoff with no survivors. Killed were 16...

Back in the 1970's, my dad won some state prize for designing a road clearing/snow removal contraption. Not that it was produced in great numbers.

A popular cafe in Lvov (Lviv) Ukraine of the 1970's. The sign says, "we're out of cocoa and coffee and won't be getting any more today".

A Soviet dance party. 1947. Notice a palpable absence of men. About 28 million of them were lost during the war. Photo by Robert Capa.

Kabachok, 13 Stulyev (Bar with 13 Chairs) was a popular Soviet TV comedy/musical show that was set at a Polish bar (with only 13 chairs). Every character had a Polish name. The show was a combination of sketches and lip sync'ed musical numbers (often in Polish, sometimes in other languages)...

Actually, in some cities, it was even worse. In Ryazan, Kazan, Sverdlovsk, Moscow suburb Lyubertsy were large youth gangs, up to several hundred people in each gang, with several dominant gangs in the same general area. And they fought each other over territory since the early-mid 1970's...

Soviet ladies undergarments. Not quite Victoria's Secret, unless there was a hole in them And there often was. This was at the exhibition in Paris. It was organized by Yves Montand, who purchased the exhibits himself at a Moscow department store. No word if he wore them beforehand.

A dip pen and an inkwell were the front line tools in Soviet schools, when I started the first grade in September, 1968. The inkwells were supposed to be leak proof but they were anything but. The official reason given to kids and parents why the ballpoints were allowed was that the dip pens...

You want some fries with that? - ya, and a tank to go. The August putsch of 1991.

The 1961 Kurenevka (a district in the city of Kiev, now Ukraine) Mud Slide was one of the most mammoth disasters in the USSR. An ill constructed sand dam collapsed, resulting in a flood of the low lying areas. The official Soviet death toll was 150 people. The much later Ukrainian revision...

There's a story behind that car. Apparently, it was purchased in 1991 but, on the first day, someone swiped the windshield wipers and the tires (Tbilisi was once a very high crime area, with a lot of "made men" calling the city home) And so the owner went berserk and decided to hoist it onto...

Everyone was doing kung-fu fighting. Their fists were fast as lighting. A fight near a shoe store.

Soviet safety posters. A guy gets hammered but not by a hammer and sickle. Or a bottle of Stolichnaya . The sign says, "Don't leave anything loose" .

This is a customized/remodeled apartment from "those days". The curious bit is the wired radio on the wall. It was set to one channel and was turned on/off by plugging or unplugging the power cord. I've never seen it anywhere else.

It's in 480p. Surely, they're kidding.

All the crazy Russian foods/meals in one place. Except those not mentioned. And in English. https://izismile.com/2013/12/04/auth...y_18_pics.html

The 1991 Soviet game show "Love at first sight". Cue Herb Albert.

Meat jelly. Delish. I mean it.

The First Lady of the Soviet Union Raisa Gorbachev/a and the French designer Yves St. Laurent in 1985. On a red couch. Naturally.