The Schusev State Museum of Architecture has some very nice online galleries featuring photos and drawings from the Stalin era. The first gallery features drawings of grandiose, yet unrealized, architectural projects. The second gallery, entitled “Life Became Better, Comrades, Life Became More Cheerful”, features photos of Moscow celebrations and construction projects from the same era.

Link: The Architecture of Moscow from the 1930s to the early 1950s. Unrealized projects
Link: Life Became Better, Comrades, Life Became More Cheerful

Last week’s article about Samantha Smith and Katya Lycheva generated a lot of feedback from our friends and readers. Many found the story of these child ambassadors inspiring and hopeful. Others found it hard to believe that a 10-year-old girl would ever write such a letter or even think about such topics as nuclear war. This led to a discussion of how American children viewed the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Why were American kids afraid of the USSR and of nuclear war? While there were many things that affected children during the Cold War, mass media was certainly a very strong influence.

Here’s a sample of some films that might cause a child to write things like “I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war” and “I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country.” ^[1] These are just a few of the many films produced during the Cold War that portrayed a Russian invasion of America.

Invasion U.S.A.
This 1952 film portrays a communist invasion of America. Here’s the original trailer for the film.

The Day After
ABC aired this made-for-TV film in November of 1983. The film portrays a Soviet nuclear attack on America and the aftermath of this attack. Here’s a clip from the film.

Red Dawn
A Hollywood blockbuster starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen. The film portrays a Soviet and Cuban/Latin American invasion of the United States in the late 1980s, igniting a world war. Here’s the trailer for Red Dawn.

Amerika
This 1987 ABC mini-series cost about $40 million to produce and was watched by 100 million people. ^[2] Amerika’s plot takes place in 1997 after 10 years of Soviet occupation of America. While the plot seems fairly frivolous, it gives an interesting look into how Americans felt about the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Here is a commercial for Amerika

This clip from the mini-series shows a young American boy in a costume similar to that of a Soviet Young Pioneer. He is giving a speech about the new Amerika to a crowd saying,

“We are grateful to our Soviet brothers who saved the world from destruction, and we can now join them in a world of socialist brotherhood. Everyone will go to school, everyone will have a job, everyone will be equal. No one will exploit or be exploited, and all those who oppose this wonderful vision will be crushed.”

Link: Invasion U.S.A.
Link: The Day After
Link: Red Dawn
Link: Amerika

St. Petersburg is known for its many waterways and bridges. Petersburg-bridges.com presents a history of these bridges. The site features many old photographs and a detailed history of Petersburg bridges.

Link: petersburg-bridges.com

In 1982 Samantha Smith, a 10-year-old American fifth grader, wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to ask if he was going to wage a nuclear war against America. A few months later, she received a personal response from Andropov and was invited to visit the USSR. Her 1983 tour of the Soviet Union garnered extensive mass media attention in both countries. She visited Moscow, Leningrad and spent time with Soviet children in Artek. Speaking at a Moscow press conference, Smith declared that the Russians were “just like us”.

After her trip, Smith’s popularity grew in both countries and she became a political and peace activist. Samantha hosted several television shows and co-starred in an American sitcom. The Soviet Union even issued a commemorative stamp of Smith.

Samantha Smith died tragically in 1985 when her plane crashed in Maine.

As a result of Smith’s visit, Soviet schoolgirl Katya Lycheva was invited to tour the US in 1986. She spent time visiting cities across the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C.. She even had the opportunity to meat President Ronald Reagan. Katya’s visit made headlines around the world. After her visit, Lycheva became quite famous in the USSR and went on to star in several Soviet films.

Link: Samantha Smith
Link: Samantha Smith at Wikipedia
Link: Children As The Peacemakers Foundation

On June 16, 1963 Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. She orbited the earth for almost 3 days, taking photographs and keeping a detailed flight log. She only flew into space once, and it would be 19 years before another woman flew as part of the Soviet space program.

In later life, Tereshkova became a high ranking member of the communist government in Moscow. She was decorated Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, and the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace. In 2000, she was named “Greatest Woman Achiever of the Century” by the International Women of the Year Association.

Link: Wikipedia article on Valentina Tereshkova
Link: First woman in space dreams of flying to Mars
Link: BBC – Cosmonaut is Woman of the Century

One of the most famous, powerful and influential women from Russian history, Catherine II ruled Russia for 34 years (1762 – 1796). Here influence can still be seen in Russia today, especially in St. Petersburg. The city is full of monuments to the late Empress and various palaces and buildings built during her reign.

You can read about Catherine the Great at Wikipedia.

Here’s a video featuring highlights from the celebration on Red Square of 50 years of the Soviet Union.

<a href="http://www.russiankafe.com/2007/03/23/found-footage-red-square-ceremony-on-november-7-1967/">Click here to view the video.</a>

Defender of the Fatherland Day is a holiday observed in Russia and many former Soviet republics. It is celebrated on February 23.

The holiday marks the date in 1918 during the Russian Civil War when the first mass draft into the Red Army occured in Petrograd and Moscow. It was originally known as Red Army Day. In 1949, it was renamed Soviet Army and Navy Day. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the holiday was given its current name.

As the name suggests, the holiday celebrates the soldiers of the Russian military, but it has also more recently come to include the celebration of men as a whole, and to act as a counterpart of International Women’s Day on March 8. The holiday is celebrated with parades and processions in honor of veterans, and women also give small gifts to the men in their lives, especially a boyfriend or husband.

This text of this post is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Defender of the Fatherland Day“.

Here are some pictures of old soviet soda water machines. These machines dispensed water into a glass that you could rinse out before using. I’m told that the water was really quite good. The cost back in soviet times: 1 kopeck for plain soda water and 3 for soda with syrup.

Young people lining up in Moscow for some soda water (1998).

Soviet water dispenser still in use in Lithuania (2005).

In Uzbekistan.

And in The Ukraine

Update: Lyndon over at Scraps of Moscow has posted his collection of soda machine photos. It’s well worth checking out.

CBC Radio has posted audio from their October 4, 1957 coverage of the Soviet satellite Sputnik. Sputnik’s launch took the west by surprise and marked a Soviet advance in the space race. Listen to this broadcast from 1957 and get a feel for the west’s reaction to Sputnik.

Link: The space race and Sputnik