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“Diamond Arm”, “Prisoner of the Caucasus”, “Gentlemen of Fortune”… We love to watch them and laugh at the characters and situations. But our children and grandchildren will definitely not understand some of the scenes and realities of Soviet reality. Let’s remember together a few interesting components of a life that has remained in the past.
Deficit
“Ivan Vasilyevich is changing his profession”, 1973
Shurik, the inventor of the time machine, urgently needs to restore order and send Tsar Ivan the Terrible back to the XNUMXth century. To fix the unit, he runs to the Radio Amateur store, but there is no necessary product there. Soviet citizens are no strangers to shortages – the lack of sale of certain goods.
Shurik is lured by an unknown man who (of course, not at the state price, but more expensive) has a wide range of transistors, resistors and other radio components. A speculator profits in an era of scarcity, but risks going to jail – then a criminal article was punishable for such a resale.
Speculation
“Beware of the car”, 1966
The noble thief Yuri Detochkin steals cars only from bad people. For example, Dima Semitsvetov, who sold scarce goods (in the film, he sells an imported Grundig tape recorder) at a speculative price. The scheme was simple: a store employee held a rare item for “his” customers. And those first paid the official cost at the box office, and also gave a bribe to the “caring” seller.
The store, by the way, is not simple, but a commission one – the Soviet “second-hand” clothing and manufactured goods. A tape recorder from the GDR could only get there from citizens who had traveled abroad. For example, the military from the GSVG (a group of Soviet troops in Germany) or embassy employees. Anybody was not allowed to go abroad – going abroad was generally not an easy undertaking for Soviet citizens.
Broker
“For family reasons”, 1977
“Who are you from?” – “From Zina.” “Did she warn you?” – “About what?” – “About the conspiracy, about what!”
To understand the dialogue of the characters, it is worth remembering that apartments in the USSR were not private property. So, they could not be bought and sold – only exchanged. Finding the right one wasn’t easy. For this, there was a state “Bureau for the exchange of living space”, special newspapers with advertisements and brokers. There were no real estate agents back then.
Brokers acted illegally, kept their own file cabinets, studying advertisements in the same newspapers. We used our own methods, schemes and search algorithms. And the necessary options, as a rule, were selected. Their addresses and phone numbers were passed from mouth to mouth. The character, brilliantly played by Vladimir Basov, is afraid of the police, uses passwords and code words, in which he himself gets confused.
Check-in at the hotel
“Mimino”, 1977
A pilot from Georgia Mimino strives to get into big aviation. He arrives in the capital and checks into the Rossiya Hotel (in its place is now Zaryadye Park). And not just populated, but “with a letter from Aunt Nina, a relative of his friend Kukush”, through the connections of the opera singer Sinitsyn, and under the guise of a participant in the conference of endocrinologists.
And while the hero of Vakhtang Kikabidze is looking in the telephone directory for the home phone number of the girl he likes (hello to the protection of personal data), a naked trucker Rubik Khachikyan comes out of the bath. Sharing a stranger with another (of the same gender) in a hotel room was a normal practice.
Soda machines
“Operation” Y “and other adventures of Shurik”, 1965
- Novella “Obsession”
Soda machines appeared in large numbers on the streets of Soviet cities in the fifties of the last century. They worked only in the summer, and for the winter they were closed with special metal boxes. Ordinary water cost 1 kopeck, and with syrup – 3 kopecks. You could choose from several flavors. Water was drunk from a common glass beaker, which was rinsed in a special compartment of the apparatus. Obviously, the quality of such a “wash” was far from perfect. But the history of Soviet medicine does not report on epidemics that spread in this way.
“Invalid”
- Novella “Operation” Y “
“Where’s the damn invalid?” – “Do not be noisy! I’m disabled”.
The older generation of viewers remembers the motorized carriage, which was produced by the Serpukhov Motorcycle Plant. The version shown in the films Prisoner of the Caucasus and Operation Y was produced from 1958 to 1970. In this miracle unit there was a motorcycle engine of 8 horsepower, which made it possible to “squeeze” a maximum speed of 60 km / h out of the car. By the name of the actor Yevgeny Morgunov, whose character used such a car, the people nicknamed the unit “Morgunovka”.
Distribution
“Honeymoon”, 1956
The heroine of the film (Lyudmila Maksakova) is getting married so that after defending her diploma she will stay in her hometown, and not go to a remote mountain village. Now this seems to be a restriction of rights and freedoms, but in Soviet times, distribution after graduation was a common practice.
After graduating from a higher or secondary specialized educational institution, young specialists were given a job – where the university management decided, and not the graduate himself. By distribution, people found themselves in various parts of the country and in various conditions. For three years they had to work where they were sent, and only after that change their place of residence and work. But this made it possible for yesterday’s students without experience to get settled and work in their specialty.
Young people were also entitled to other benefits: in some cases, the right to extraordinary housing (a place in a hostel), benefits for children entering kindergartens and schools, and the like. In addition, employees could not just be reduced or fired.
Travel card
“Gentlemen of Fortune”, 1971
“Travel card!” – says the hero Yevgeny Leonova and shows the ticket, noticing that the passenger next to him is staring at him. There were no turnstiles at the entrance, as there are now, in buses, trolleybuses and trams. In large cities, passengers themselves bought tickets by throwing a coin into a special device.
A cardboard ticket for a month was presented by the passenger to the driver and surrounding vigilant Soviet citizens. It is not surprising that the conscientious and disciplined kindergarten teacher, just in case, showed his travel card to the strange seatmate.
“Russo Turisto”
“Diamond Arm”, 1968
“So you have never…” “Of course you haven’t! We didn’t go anywhere further than Dubrovka.”
Semyon Semyonovich Gorbunkov goes on a cruise ship abroad – not every Soviet citizen had such an opportunity. And it wasn’t just about money. To leave “there” it was necessary to pass a strict selection at different levels. Komsomol and party organizations, the KGB, direct leadership determined the fate of a potential “tourist”. The person should not have raised suspicions of unreliability.
“The form of morality”
Those who passed all the tests (sometimes even the political information exam) received strict instructions. Tourists signed for non-disclosure of information about the USSR and undertook obligations to comply with the rules of conduct. Including to maintain the high moral character of the Soviet tourist, that is, not to enter into intimate relationships with citizens of other states. Therefore, the hero of Mironov proudly declares to a woman who is clearly offering him intimate services in a pseudo-foreign language: “Rousseau tourist is the face of morality!”