What Russia was like in 1982 (PHOTOS)
The early 1980s was the period known as the Era of Stagnation, or as Leonid Brezhnev called it - real socialism. However, the Soviet leader who had ruled for almost two decades, finally passed away that year, putting the country on the path to the period of change known as Perestroika.
The Soviet leader, General Secretary of the Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, was already very sick. At the age of 76, he was in poor health and often spoke incoherently.
Leonid Brezhnev resting at his dacha in Crimea
A photo symbolizing the period of Stagnation
Funeral of Leonid Brezhnev who passed away on November 10, 1982. The sorrowful event was marked on a massive scale.
The letters say USSR, pictured on Kalinin Prospect (now Novy Arbat Street)
One of the most popular singers, super star Edita Piekha, who had Polish parents, and she was a Polish coal miner’s daughter.
Another Soviet superstar, actor and singer Mikhail Boyarsky, pictured in Leningrad. In 1978, the Soviet movie “D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers” made him a nationwide idol.
May Day celebrations on Red Square in Moscow. The Lenin Mausoleum hosted Leonid Brezhnev and other Party leaders, as well as Soviet pioneers.
May Day demonstration in Chelyabinsk, the industrial city in the Ural mountains
Huge portrait of Vladimir Lenin on the occasion of Victory Day celebrations in Leningrad
Taking a swim in Leningrad
Pioneers welcome WWII veterans
Women workers
Cultural program: Soldiers head to the cinema in the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk. Every small town in the USSR had a cinema or theater, as dictated by state policy
Soviet citizens blush in Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum
The Soviet people were very keen on hiking, rock climbing and kayaking.
Phone booth aesthetics
Strolling around Arkhangelskoye Estate in Moscow, a former noble residence, served as a military sanatorium in the Soviet era
A wedding in the Gorky Region (Nizhny Novgorod)
Member of a geological expedition in the Komi Republic panning for gold in his free time
The children of geologists during the same expedition
Communal apartment entrance. Before each room got its own bell ring, there were instructions: one bell for a certain room, two bells for another and so on.
Five minutes before the exam
Beer station
Military parade on Red Square in Moscow celebrating the anniversary of the 1917 Revolution
Sea hunters on the Chukotka peninsula
Automobile competition
On a playground
Watching a soccer game
Pioneers at the Orlyonok children’s summer camp on the Black Sea
Children jump off a wooden Swedish ladder at physical education lesson
A school class
-26° C in Moscow
Soviet students had ski lessons in winter… and so as not to have to carry their skis they literally skied home from the school
Pelmeni, a meal that united people
Collecting glass for recycling. Yes, the Soviets were an eco-friendly nation!
Preparing handmade toys for the New Year tree
