Happy New Year! 1961, #1. Magazine Ogonyok New Year celebration chronicles

Magazine Ogonyok New Year celebration chronicles – vintage photographs of 1940-1960s taken during New Year’s Day celebration in the USSR. The smell of tangerines and a living Christmas tree, hissing champagne glasses and optimistic song from the TV, the taste of salad and a chocolates … Everyone remembers the celebrated New Year in the Soviet Union, all of these feelings are familiar. And the most important feeling: in the USSR the New Year celebration was much happier than it is today.
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1930-1980s Soviet Christmas tree decorations

1930-1980s Soviet Christmas tree decorations

After the Great October Revolution in 1918, the People’s Commissars issued a ban on the celebration of the New Year, as an attribute of the Old World, and on January 1, it was an ordinary working day. However, Christmas tree was put occasionally in some of the houses, and Christmas tree decorations in the USSR were not easy to find. It was during this period appeared fashion on homemade Christmas decorations made from scrap materials.
Fortunately, in 1935, the Christmas tree ban was lifted by government decree! And already in 1936, the significance of the holiday, as a symbol of a new ideology, has been confirmed by a Christmas tree in the Hall of Columns. In addition, began the production of ornaments, including glass balls with pictures of Lenin and Stalin. Besides, the shops flooded with “the Kremlin stars,” pioneers, dogs, poultry, fruits and vegetables, astronauts, Father Frosts and Snow maidens, and so on. Today, it is fashionable to collect Soviet Christmas toys, but they are becoming rare. Christmas decorations of the Soviet period attract the attention of foreign collectors as well, because in the New Year’s toys reflected the history of several generations of the inhabitants of the Soviet Union.
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USSR home interior in painting. Soviet Artist Agafya Belaya (1975). In the morning

1950-1980 USSR home interior in painting of Soviet artists

Soviet era interior and way of life of the fifties-eighties of the 20th century, depicted in the paintings of Soviet artists, like magic window, show our Soviet past. Our memory will forever cherish the atmosphere, life, and details of the house where we were born, spent our childhood and youth. Rooms of our grandparents, our parents’ apartment, favorite garden (dacha), where summer was eternal and we wanted to laugh from the children’s happiness. For born in the USSR, they are unforgettable images of native homes, where there was always light, comfort, and hospitality. To this house you always want to come back.
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Soviet Youth Day, USSR postage stamp of 1958 (green)

Favorite holiday of all young people in the USSR, it is still celebrated in every city and town of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The history of the “Soviet Youth Day” dates back February 7, 1958, after the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union “On Establishing Soviet Youth Day”. That decree ordered to celebrate Youth Day every year on the last Sunday of June. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union put the main task for the festive events on the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. At that time, as all the administrative units of the Soviet Union of Soviet Socialist Republics celebrated this holiday together, but after perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation has changed. Since independence, some former Soviet republics transferred this feast to the next day, some have changed its name, and some have abolished it. However, there are those who sought to preserve the best traditions inherent in the rule of the Communist Party. Due to this, at the moment, on the last Sunday of June the Day of Youth is celebrated in Belarus and Ukraine.
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A traditional greeting card. Red Carnation revolutionary flower

Red Carnation revolutionary flower.
History has turned carnation into a revolutionary flower of proletariat. After the events of February 1917, the decision of Moscow printers of Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party of bolsheviks was to issue cardboard badges in the form of red carnation. In addition, there was inscription: “Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.” They have become a kind of leaflets calling for a fight against the Provisional Government. Meanwhile, the badges spread quickly, and the money went on the needs of the revolution. In particular, soldiers storming the Winter Palace in the days of the October fighting, pinned to clothing red ribbon, folded in the shape of carnations. And on the eve of May Day 1918, in memory of the fallen heroes appeared a set of red carnation badges. These badges have long been a rarity.
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USSR Automotive Industry. March 16, 1936 – in the USSR at the Gorky Automobile Plant was produced the first Soviet passenger car M-1

The Soviet Union journal sometimes published articles about the different types of cars and trucks, produced in the USSR. Articles were accompanied by photographs showing the production of cars at the Soviet factories. The USSR Automotive Industry can be rightfully called a child of the Soviet power. In tsarist Russia there was no automobile, except for attempts to organize the production of passenger cars in the Russian-Baltic Shipyard – attempts that ended in failure: over 6 years this company produced 450 cars …. Thus, the Soviet Union has created a new industry, that already in 1937 produced more than 200 000 vehicles, ahead of the production of trucks in England, France, Germany.
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Samantha Smith visiting Soviet Union. Soviet woman-cosmonaut, Hero of the USSR Valentina Tereshkova and Samantha Smith, 1983

Samantha Smith visiting Soviet Union
“Dear Mr. Andropov,
My name is Samantha Smith… I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country”…
Samantha’s letter was sent to the Soviet Union in November 1982, and in early 1983 – the newspaper “Pravda” published it. Samantha was happy when she found out about it. April 25, 1983 – Soviet leader Yuri Andropov invited American girl Samantha Smith and her parents to the Soviet Union. Samantha Reed Smith (1972-1985) – beautiful and brave American schoolgirl from Maine, has become world famous thanks to the letter, which she wrote to the General Secretary of the CPSU in the midst cold war. For two weeks, the Smiths spent in the Soviet Union, Goodwill Ambassador Samantha visited Moscow, Leningrad and chief pioneer camp “Artek” in Crimea. In the camp “Artek” she lived like all Soviet children, wore a traditional pioneer form. She liked it very much, and took it to the US. Although seriously ill Andropov never met Samantha, they talked on the phone.
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