Returning to the Soviet Union. Watches, caskets, wars and world revolution
In the USSR there were very beautiful boxes with perfume sets. So they were kept "for a look", even when the perfumes in them ended ...
Wilkie Collins. Moon rock
History and documents. More often it happens that today we love what we hated in past or what (this happens more often) treated with complete indifference. Here, for example, our past ... Well, who then looked with joy and delight in his soul at old grandmother's chests, if, of course, he had them? On wooden chiseled caskets, covered with scorched patterns and drawings, on homemade caskets glued or sewn from greeting cards ...
Such a simple wooden box carved on a lathe was almost an indispensable attribute of a private Soviet house. This one has been in our house since the time I remember myself, that is, in 1959 she was already there, but it’s clear that she’s much older in age
We treated this with complete indifference. We were sure that there, ahead, in the future, we would not need this trash, this junk, because we hoped that everything would be new and not at all in front.
So I, recalling my childhood, I can say that in our house there were several chests, chests and caskets of the most ancient kind, and then a few more “historical caskets” were added to them, which I had already acquired with my wife and which today are already pretend to become museum exhibits.
One of the chests belonged to our relative, who lived behind the wall, in the second half of the house - Uncle Volodya. It was the brother of my grandfather and a very aristocratic-looking subject. He died in 1961, and we got half of his house, and with it his furniture, cabinets and chests. And then it turned out that he was a skopidom! We found a lot of packages, bundles and boxes, as well as bundles of notebooks on which was written the year of their purchase. For example, there were notebooks of 1929, pencils of 1937 and coffee beans of 1949! Buttons from the uniforms of teachers, judges, police officers of the Russian Empire, a chain of judicial officials and even a chain of the leader of the nobility. A whole box! Another box - with matches! And he kept all this until his death, and there was a lot of it all.
He provided me with notebooks for all ten classes, although they scolded me at school for having them “not like everyone else”, but with yellow pages, even very beautiful ones: with portraits of Russian poets and writers, with their poems and excerpts from the works on the last page of the cover.
In the chest were cuts of a beaver (such a fabric), twill, satin, gabardine and even an excellent American lendlizovskim tarpaulin - I then sewed jeans from it for archaeological excavations.
Well, this is real antiquity. My wife’s great-grandmother’s wicker box made of twigs, that’s the XNUMXth century! Truly amazing aesthetic perfection, isn't it?
I saw the second such chest in a neighboring house, at my street friends - Sasha and Zhenya Mulin. Their grandmother slept on it, which surprised me very much, although my grandmother slept on a sofa in the hall. Only the death of Uncle Volodya gave us additional living space, and grandmother, under old age, found a real bed.
In addition to such large containers, in all the houses of the time there were a lot of smaller containers. I mean wooden carved caskets. Often round, turned on lathes. For some reason they were in the poorest houses. Apparently, people always strived for the beauty of everyday life and, of course, found it. Buttons were usually kept in them, and almost all of them had them.
In our house, however, there were things more beautiful. But it was the merit of the Chinese and my mother. She loved beautiful things, always dressed brightly and brightly, which is not surprising for a single woman with a child. And also loved to buy all sorts of beautiful trinkets. Well, just in the 50s, the Chinese began to deliver to us in the USSR excellent painted pots, very beautiful porcelain dishes, soft terry towels and lacquer boxes inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl. At that time, Chinese movies were often shown in cinemas, and film films about military heroes of the fraternal Chinese people were on sale for children. The name of one especially struck me in my memory. He was called "The heroine of the Chinese people, Liu Hu-lan," and he ended up with the cursed Chiang Kai-shek sawing her. They clearly didn’t show this in the children's tape, but next to it there were goats for firewood and lay a saw, so I guessed what was waiting for her right away, since I had to deal with saws, goats and firewood in a private house from the earliest childhood ... The most amazing thing, but this filmstrip, a rarity, can be bought on the Internet today. Be that as it may, my mother bought one such box, and even with a painting, for her jewelry. And she kept them there, and I periodically asked permission to open it and see them. Everything that lay there seemed to me something magical and amazingly beautiful.
And then came 1967. The six-day Arab-Israeli war began, and it took the Arabs weaponin exchange for which they began to supply leather caskets painted with fake gold to our country. And my mother immediately bought one and presented it to me on the 14th birthday so that I would keep my documents there. Surprisingly, it has survived to this day, although her constipation has broken and she has worn out a little.
Then the war began in Vietnam. And according to tradition, the Vietnamese also began to send lacquer boxes to our weapons. But only they were inlaid, they were no longer mother of pearl, but an egg shell. But the sets with chess, checkers and backgammon were inlaid with mother of pearl and looked extremely beautiful. And since I played chess a lot at that time, I immediately bought them for myself, and for my wife - a table boulevard with a mirror, drawers for small items, a hair brush and a buff made of buffalo. It cost 40 rubles - a whole scholarship, but what can’t you do for the sake of a loved one! He is still intact, although the varnish coating has worn off in some places. The shell inlaid with a shell was three-tiered and very comfortable. It cost 30 rubles, also not cheap. Still selling small vases for "vertical details" and large plates painted on the wall. So since that war, I have left two caskets in my house, a boulevard, chess, a plate and two vases - a real help to the fraternal Vietnamese people!
In one of the previous articles on this subject, readers started talking about fountain pens and feathers for them. What can I say? I went to school in 1962, and we wrote with pens with a pen for two years. There were calligraphy lessons at which it was necessary to display the letters especially carefully: “Pressure, volost, pressure, volost!” How stupidly spent on this time! But then it was believed that without this it is impossible. Feathers could be used only by “students”, and again I often flew for what I wrote with the pre-revolutionary (and very high-quality!) Feathers “Rondo” and “86”
Then they allowed me to write "self-records." But again, only for some reason with a pipette kit, and with a screw pump it was forbidden to use handles. Mandatory requirement - open pen. Writing with a pen with a closed pen was prohibited. But, true, all these silly restrictions were already canceled in the 5th grade. Golden pen pens were especially valued, although I cannot say that they wrote better than steel
There were no fireplaces in our private houses then, but there were chests of drawers on which various trinkets were laid out, among which the beautiful sea shell was almost an obligatory attribute. Some were inherited, so these are “ancient” souvenirs, many more than 100 years old!
Among the boxes that belonged exclusively to men, at that time in the first place were like those in this photo. They contained collapsible safety razors. True, many preferred to shave dangerous or even go to shave at the hairdresser
And, of course, boxes with cufflinks. Oh, these cufflinks that held together the buttons on the sleeves of the shirts! .. Of which there were none! Gilded and even gold in general, with pearls and “pearl-like”, made of bone, plastic, you simply can’t list everything. And the men were also given mainly cufflinks. For example, I have gathered their whole collection ... And after all, all gifted!
In this photo there is a clock. They are also a symbol of time. Well, the ones on the left are the most common. But the watch on the right of the Kornavin brand is a big policy!
Actually, this brand, “Cornavin”, is Swiss, but they were not bought in Switzerland at all. And it was so that my mother taught the history of the CPSU at the technical college, a branch of our "polytechnic", located just next to the Penza watch factory. Naturally, she was constantly invited there to give lectures on relevant topics, and she read them well. And somehow, in gratitude for the good work, she was invited to the factory party committee and presented this watch. And they said that the Communist Parties of one country (it seems, Greece) must be helped, but it is impossible to transfer money directly to them. Therefore, they did it this way: they bought cases in Switzerland, our mechanisms were inserted into them (!) And sold to a company open by the Communist Party of this country. Moreover, of course, they sold it almost at cost price so that all the profit from sales would go to the “world revolution”.
The pendant watch is also from the same opera. They also made someone to order, but, as always, part of them were given to their people!
Some jewelry from a Chinese casket. A gilt bracelet was bought at a jewelry store on the embankment in Yalta in 1962. I really liked him then. He should have worn it in a theater with a black velvet dress ...
A brooch with a bluish transparent stone and a necklace. Mom always said that it was a “moonstone”, an inexpensive, but still semiprecious, ornamental stone. When they read to me Wilkie Collins’s novel “Moonstone”, for some reason I always imagined it that way, although in the novel it was a yellow diamond. But the bone brooch came from my grandmother. She, too, is over 100 years old: she got from her mother to her grandmother!
A theater purse relied on a velvet dress for the theater. Such handbags embroidered with fake silver were delivered to us from India, but this made them no less beautiful and also made of velvet. Going to the theater at that time was a real holiday
Naturally, people went to resorts in Sochi (primarily in Sochi, it was popular!) And, of course, brought souvenirs from there. And the main Sochi souvenir of the 50-60s was such a Sochi darn fungus from boxwood, and inside it was a container for needles
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But this souvenir is as old as my house - built in 1882. My grandfather told me that this is a Spanish pipe mouthpiece for smoking paquitosos, such small cigars. A palm tree head was cut out, but the amber mouthpiece itself broke off and crashed
Not only buttons, but also badges were stored in boxes made of wood and from tea - another very popular attribute of the Soviet era
And what badges were there only then! Apart from the October, Pioneer, Komsomol, university badges, there were a lot of just souvenir badges, especially anniversary and memorial ones. Lecturers wore special badges so that it was immediately apparent that they were "distribution lecturers." For every decade, universities also produced their anniversary badges. But the icon with the letters PR is already from our recent past. These were presented to the participants of the LETI Olympiad in PR and advertising, and our Penza students also participated in these Olympiads.
Also decoration of the Soviet era. Ceramic brooch with the face of some Greek goddess that I brought from Bulgaria in 1968 from the city of Nessebar
And funny little devils - the memory of 1977-1980. My friend gave me a middle one, which later became famous throughout the country for the production of banknotes that did not go through the treasury, and the one on the right is my answer to it. I made them at that time, several hundred or more, and went after that with my family to rest in Anapa. And there was a path to the beach, where local citizens were trading at all, from boiled corn to dried crabs, varnished. Well, I got up with them ... And these my badges were in good demand there, and thanks to this income we lived there for a month or longer, without denying anything to ourselves.
It should be noted that sometimes excellent original souvenirs were produced in the USSR, which fit to be produced again and sold ... in the souvenir shop of the Vienna Palace Hovburg. I saw this “knightly armor” and was literally stunned. Stunned and immediately bought, apparently subconsciously anticipating his fate and foreseeing the future
But under the cuirass he has a damask, and in the shoulders - six glasses! Do not want to drink! Maybe someone will release, eh? I’ll connect it with the museum’s management and agree on everything, I promise!
And at home in the closet there was such a gramophone. But he was sold to some antiquary for 350 rubles, which at that time seemed like an unheard of amount. But then, when my daughter began to play “in her house”, and her house and family were at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, I made her an exact copy of it!
Yes, the past is leaving a little. But the memory of him is preserved. It is saved by both people and things!
- Vyacheslav Shpakovsky
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