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In those years, most of us lived modestly: in standard apartments with the same furniture and simple decor items. Those who wanted to surround themselves with beautiful things and decorate the house in their own way had to show imagination.
Not all citizens of the Soviet Union had a Czech wall or a soft set. It was considered good luck to acquire furniture that was fashionable in those days – it was impossible to just go and buy it. But book shelves and real woolen carpets were found in homes much more often than now. There were also sideboards with crockery, sideboards with crystal, trellises and floor lamps, sofa beds and tables-books. With furniture, everything is clear – it has functional tasks, but why some “accessories” were popular is hard to say.
So, what was the main thing in the Soviet interior?
Paintings
Even in the most remote town at the end of the world, in the homes of the simplest citizens, who knew no more about painting than quotes on the financial market, there were paintings from the treasury of world art. For example, a reproduction of “A girl picking grapes in the vicinity of Naples” by Karl Bryullov, or “The Ninth Wave” by Aivazovsky, “Golden Autumn” by Levitan.
Especially popular were the realistic and mouth-watering still lifes of Flemish artists. Copies in a large assortment were displayed in bookstores, and prices were not biting. So, from childhood, a Soviet person became involved in art, without knowing it himself – he might not know the name of the author of the canvas, and the image was well known to him, because the picture was hanging by his grandmother above the chest of drawers.
Deer horns
The presence of such an extravagant decor in the apartment did not bother anyone – it was, as they say, in the order of things. Once upon a time, the antlers of a deer meant that the owner of the house was a hunter, showing off his trophies. But then the interior detail took root even in the homes of people far from the most ancient male pastime. Deer antlers as an interior detail were not cheap, therefore they were considered a good gift, for example, for housewarming. But good friends could bring a branchy “hanger” to the anniversary of the head of the family. They nailed the horns to the wall in a conspicuous place – in the corridor or in the hall above the sofa.
Bamboo curtain
Dikovina appeared in Soviet apartments around the end of the 70s and 80s. It can be assumed that the curtains separating the rooms won space in tiny apartments, in which there was no room for doors, and served as a barrier for insects. As often happens, at first the exotic contraption caused a stir among the Soviet people: the doorways were hung with a curtain, someone even placed them on the windows.
If you couldn’t buy a curtain, then ingenuity came to the rescue. The needlewomen made a bamboo curtain from greeting cards. They were cut into identical strips, twisted, secured with paper clips and the curtain was assembled from the links. Can you imagine how many postcards you need to prepare and how painstaking it is?
But over time, the curtains disappointed the citizens: firstly, from a small breath of air, they came into motion and rattled with their bamboo clatter, making it difficult to enjoy the silence; secondly, parts of the curtain fell off, and gaps in the pattern spoiled the whole impression; thirdly, it was impossible to pass through the obstacle with a plate of pies and not drop a couple. But the girls with braids suffered most of all – their hair clung to the structure, and they had to be cut off from the wire with scissors.
Carpets
The fashion for woolen carpets began to spread en masse in the early 70s. Before that, tapestries were hung on the walls – small woven products with pastoral landscape subjects (deer in the forest, bears in the forest, swans on the pond). Plush fringed tapestries of German production were especially appreciated. Soviet carpets, as a rule, of a red-brown palette were distinguished by complex ornamentation, which could be considered for an infinitely long time before going to bed, developing imagination. A carpet on the wall or a woolen rug on the floor is a sign of both comfort and prosperity, so there was always a line behind them. Although, to admit, there was also enough trouble: first, try to attach a heavy product to the wall, then periodically drive the moth away from the natural woolen cloth, and in winter drag it out into the snow to knock it out of the dust.
Crochet napkins
Then the words “hand-made”, “author’s work” or “designer thing” did not know, but many knew how to do it. The folk craft was owned not only by grandmothers, girls were taught to crochet in labor lessons at school, their mothers did needlework during leisure hours. Therefore, snow-white starched napkins could be seen in every home. They were used to decorate literally all surfaces in living rooms: tables, bedside tables, shelves, dressers.
Capes
Large lace napkins, sewn or purchased, served not so much to decorate the home as to protect the “interior” from dust. Pillows folded on the bed in a certain way, radios, and when televisions appeared in the houses, so were theirs. Upholstered furniture was also protected from dirt with the help of covers, blankets, sofa beds and even carpets.
Thermometer and barometer
Now I looked into my phone and here’s a weather forecast for the week ahead, but before you had to conduct meteorological observations yourself. Therefore, it is not surprising that there were special devices in the house: a thermometer hung outside the window to measure the outdoor temperature, in the room – room temperature, and the barometer was used to recognize the atmospheric pressure and predict the weather (rain, strong wind).
Homemade vases
Porcelain and faience products in the Soviet Union were always in demand among the population and were not considered a shortage: each housewife had jugs, iron pots, pots, vases in her arsenal. And needlewomen also invented home decorations from natural materials – cones, chestnuts, apricot kernels. The technology was something like this: a glass jar was coated with a thick layer of plasticine, into which bones were inserted with an edge (the cones were attached to glue). The volumetric relief surface was covered with furniture varnish. The products turned out to be original, there was definitely no such thing on sale.
Crystal
The sideboards and walls in the hall or living room (in general, the largest room) adorned with crystal. Vases, sets of wine glasses, candy bowls – all this was on display and gathering dust from holiday to holiday. Heavy salad bowls or dishes with finely engraved patterns were inconvenient to use, but the table setting with sparkling dishes gave the event a solemnity and atmosphere, as we would say now.
Chandelier “Cascade”
Crystal chandeliers are luxurious, but not available to everyone. And the Cascade chandelier, although made of plastic and glass, also shines fabulously, besides, anyone could buy it for 25 rubles. True, the transparency of the structure strove to hide under a layer of dust, and then the lamp had to be removed, disassembled in detail (they were called “pendants”), washed in soapy water, dried and reassembled. It took about three hours – no less. If children lived in the apartment, they could accidentally knock down the “cascade” with a ball and hastily stick the parts with glue, and the plastic, moreover, became cloudy over time. Therefore, the front view of the almost crystal chandelier quickly disappeared, but everyone remembers it.
Knitted rug
A homemade colorful rug was more common in rural houses. They crocheted it from long rag patches, that’s why it turned out to be soft, warm, cozy. These round rugs were placed on the floor, chairs and benches. They served for a long time, and when they wore out, new ones were easily and quickly woven to replace them – there is always an abundance of rags in the household. For city dwellers, “grandmother’s” rugs seemed out of date, but now they are back in fashion – they are convenient for summer cottages, baths, they make warm beds for pets.
Door signs
On the doors of the bathroom in their own apartment, residents attached plastic signs indicating where to enter the toilet and where to enter the bathroom. The “bas-reliefs” depicted children: a boy with a pot and a girl with a shower. If the amenities were combined, then two plates were attached side by side.
Dropper fish
Everyone has their own associations with coziness: someone willingly decorates a home with crafts, and someone considers it “handicraft”. Perhaps this is subjective, but now it seems that in Soviet times they did more needlework. For example, in the 80s, many enthusiastically made “aquariums” from medical droppers. Nice fish were made from transparent plastic, they were painted, tied to a fishing line and fastened to the ceiling. From a distance it seemed that weightless fish “float” through the air.