Photos from the "old days"

What are the chances that there's a good chance this was a ping-pong hall or a movie theater they dressed up for the special day?
 
What are the chances that there's a good chance this was a ping-pong hall or a movie theater they dressed up for the special day?

Pretty low. The "lavish" weddings were held in restaurants. One of my cousins had his at an airport restaurant, which was considered elite for the time. One could see the planes landing and taxiing. That was pretty cool.

Often big parties - New Year's, major anniversaries and birthdays - were held in several apartments on the same floor, if people were on a friendly basis. One apartment's living room would be turned into a large single table dining area (or multiple tables stacked together), the other would be a "dance hall". Bedrooms would be the place where everyone dumped their coats. Kitchens was where cooking took place and the various dishes were kept.

This would be the dance hall.

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Judging from the female hairdo's, late 1960's, at someone's apartment.

I do not recall grooms wearing tuxedos and, as I was reminded by an article, "wedding dresses" were just dresses up into the 1970's. Often, they were even borrowed from friends and/or relatives and, if that doesn't make you cringe, so were the engagement rings. My mom had a bunch of custom jewelry but she only bought a real gold wedding band when it was time to leave the country. One was allowed a golden ring per married person. They were quite expensive and, as I recall, my cousin's wife had a very thin one, almost a wire. My dad never had it.
 
Now, you may ask yourself, "What is a yellow school bus doing on the streets of Moscow?"

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The answer - it's picking up kids at the US embassy.
 
The budding rock stars of the late 1980's.

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And, no. It's not the guitar that makes you a star. It's the mullet.

(for the redundancy sake - https://okidoki.trash-russia.com/st...ng-historical-photos-of-soviet-capital-22.jpg)

On a shoot a few days ago, one of my friends with a teenage son, said that the mullet is back and in extremely high demand according to the person that cuts his hair. Some days you just want to jump out in the road in front of an 18-wheeler. I said I already had to live through the mullet and the GD-awful high-waisted “Mom Jeans” when I was a teenager. This shows just how stupid we are as a society. We just can not learn from our mistakes. Are shoulder pads coming back, too? Or did I already miss those, again?
 
There are a lot of Russian kids in the neighborhood and a lot of extreme mullets and rat tails.

In the old Soviet days, there was a group of rebels in the 1950's, who dressed up like Elvis (or characters from "Grease"). They were called "stilyagi" (translated roughly as the "stylish bunch") and they were getting arrested and/or beaten up just for their attire and haircuts. In the 1970's, most elementary and high schools had a strict "above the collar" policy. The Soviet TV had the "uncovered earlobe" policy too.

This is from their "Grammy" (Song of the Year) from 1976. The guy on the right - Leo Bortkevich (who lived in the US for a long time, when he was married to the 1972 and 1976 Olympic gymnast Olga Korbut) had his hair pinned back. The guy on the left (Anatoly Kacheparov, a US resident since the early 90's) gets away with his usual haircut.

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The Soviet sports stars had to abide by these rules too. I recalled being completely astonished in 1974, when the Polish national soccer team appeared at the World Cup looking no different than the West Europeans. But Poland had much looser policies on a lot of things.
 
The Polish team in the 1974 WC. The one whose haircut I recall most vividly was Jerzy Gorgon, a tall blond defender standing next to their goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski.

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This is a video (duh, you say). A Soviet era cartoon called the "Mirror of Time" that has some weird psychedelic sequences (starting at about 6:40). I don't recall ever seeing but someone posted an edited version on Facebook and I found it quite amusing. My guess is that the powers-at-be didn't know what to do with it and the imprimatur of an esteemed consultant in the form of astronaut Alexei Leonov gave them a sufficient butt cover.


PS. Leonov (1934-2019) was the first person to walk in space on Voskhod 2 flight in March, 1965 and then also commanded the Soviet portion of the 1975 Soyuz -Apollo mission. He was promoted to major general (aviation) back then. Quite a revered figure of the era.
 
The photo itself is modern but the subject - the Catherine Palace in Pushkino - goes back to the middle of the 18th century. It was the summer residence of the Russian royalty.

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Symbol of the Soviet Union - a faceted drinking glass. Good for tea or stronger beverages.

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FCG "Ferdinand" Huizer is a Dutch photographer who frequently shoots city transport He traveled to the USSR back in 1985. This is Volgograd (ex-Stalingrad) and the historical Pavlov House, the only remaining structure on the west bank of Volga after the battles of 1942-43.

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The building changed occupants early and often but was allowed to stand by the Germans as an artillery correction point. The rest of the city was wiped out. The Pavlov House has been a memorial ever since.
 
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