A lot of residents of today’s Russia spent their childhood and youth in typical Soviet apartments, amid their ornamented carpets, chests of drawers and dusty entresols. We’ve come up with a selection of pictures that evoke a pang of nostalgia, even with a cursory glance at them.
Almost everyone in the Soviet Union lived in a typical Soviet apartment block (the most common type of housing in the country), spent their summers in their grandmother’s dacha (country house) or shared public space in communal housing. The interiors of these places became the cultural code for the entire country. Cupboards with weighty crystal vases and porcelain, geraniums on the windowsill, lace tablecloths on the table, a string of laundry hanging across the kitchen - these little things shaped the Soviet interior with its unique aesthetic.
Artists, likewise, paid attention to Soviet everyday life. Below are the most interesting paintings of the time.
1. Yury Pimenov. Lyrical house-warming. 1957
2. Konstantin Istomin. At the window (in the room). 1928
3. Anatoly Levitin. Warm Day. 1957
4. Mikhail Roginsky. Communal kitchen. 1992
5. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. Behind the samovar. 1926
6. Konstantin Istomin. Vuzovki. 1933
7. Yury Pimenov. Quiet cafe. 1971
8. Yury Pimenov. Lights of the University. 1963
9. Nikolay Zaitsev. Conversation with mother. 1984
10. Stanislav Zhukovsky. Easter still life. 1915
11. Isaac Brodsky. Fallen leaves. 1929
12. Yury Pimenov. In the rooms. 1930s
13. Andrey Tutunov. Popkov in Priluki. 1974
14. Nikolay Zaitsev. At Grandma Katya's. 1976
15. Yury Pimenov. Morning purchases. 1951
16. Natalia Egorshina. Figure and semi-figure. Kitchen interior. 1980
17. Yury Pimenov. Morning windows. 1959
18. Dmitry Zhilinsky. Portrait of the diplomat V.S. Semenov with his wife and daughter. 1978
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