Time to read: 8 minutes(s)

"We remember only the good"

Even thirty-three years after its collapse, the history of the Soviet Union remains intriguing and moving. Some revel in their childhood and youth, others romanticize the era in which "everyone feared and respected us," and still others are simply curious about how their parents, grandparents, and grandparents lived. This nostalgia is fueled by different people in different ways and for different reasons: Putin with tirades about the greatest "geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century, program directors of federal television channels with reruns of beloved Soviet films, and the authors of endless science fiction novels about "traveling back in time" with stories about how the USSR's fate might have been different if the book's hero had... For some, nostalgia is a political calculation, for others, a marketing one. Museums of Soviet life exist in many cities across the country. Their exhibits allow us to explore Soviet history through the details of everyday life. One of the most extensive is at the "Made in the USSR" Museum in Yekaterinburg.

To get to the museum, you need to descend to the basement of a Soviet-era administrative building. Once down, you find yourself in front of massive metal doors. Beyond them is a large hall, off which a corridor leads with several rooms on either side. The exhibition is divided thematically: there is a "Soviet family room" with an old sofa, a sideboard, and a huge television with a convex screen; a "pensioner's apartment" with a bed with a mesh mattress, a rug with deer on the wall, and "Health" magazines lying on a table; a "red corner" with a portrait of Lenin and a school uniform hanging on a hanger; an "assembly hall" with rows of chairs and a canvas screen above a small stage; a "photo lab" bathed in red light; and a "Civil Defense Headquarters" with shabby walls, black rotary telephones, a journal on the table, a poster with first aid techniques, and gas masks and caps on the shelves of a nearby cabinet.

"Visitors stubbornly call it the 'Civil Defense Headquarters,' the KGB room. Perhaps the exhibit evokes such associations. We've already given up trying to dissuade them. If it's the KGB, then it's the KGB," says museum director Irina Svetonosova with a smile.

Irina, a journalist by profession, worked for a long time as a producer on local television, but at some point she felt burnt out and decided to change her career.

"In 2016, I went to Kazan with my children as part of a tour group, and we decided to visit the Museum of Socialist Life. I really loved the exhibits and was instantly inspired by the idea of ​​opening a similar museum in Yekaterinburg. This niche was vacant in our city, and the topic of Soviet life, in my opinion, is highly sought after in society; it's inexhaustible and multifaceted," explains Irina.

She managed to find suitable premises, rented it, and in 2017, Yekaterinburg's first museum of Soviet everyday life announced its opening. The collection's first exhibits were items given to the museum director by friends and found on Avito.

"People often call us these days and offer us items from the Soviet era. Typically, they're passed down through families, from parents, grandparents, and parents. We often hear stories like this: someone inherits an apartment after a relative's death and needs to clear it out, say, to renovate it. They find items of unknown purpose, like a transistor radio or clothing that's long gone out of fashion. They have two options: either throw them away as unnecessary junk or bring them to us," Irina explains. "Unfortunately, people often don't know not only the purpose of the items they bring us but also their history, as they never asked their elderly relatives about it while they were alive. Dating items is also difficult. Sometimes we can only roughly determine the decade in which an item was made. Fortunately, sometimes the year of manufacture is indicated on the item itself, as, for example, on one of our gramophones from 1935."

An important criterion for selecting items for the collection, according to the director, is "indestructibility." The museum has no display cases, so you can handle any exhibit, try on clothes, and sit on the furniture.

"To fully immerse visitors in the era, we host various interactive events. For example, the museum hosted a fashion show of Soviet wedding fashion, and on March 8th of this year, we held two events: a children's matinee called "Dear Mother," featuring Soviet poems and songs about mothers, and a concert called "Take Care of Women," featuring pop songs from the 60s-80s," says Irina.

According to the director, the museum is visited not only by city residents, but also by visitors, including foreigners.

"We keep visitor statistics. The museum receives approximately 1,500 visitors per month. These are typically people aged 30-35, who may have lived through the USSR just before its collapse and retained some memories. Older visitors come much less frequently, I think because they already have a good understanding of Soviet life, and buying a ticket to see it all again doesn't seem rational. Schoolchildren usually come in groups; they are primarily attracted to the museum by the opportunity to freely roam the exhibition and touch unfamiliar objects with their hands. Among foreigners, Chinese citizens are the most common; they are probably interested in our exhibition because of their shared historical experience," Irina explains. "Our colleagues, founders of similar museums, also drop by. They often envy the size of our exhibition. I remember a girl from Perm who was very worried that her entire museum was housed in a small 20x25-meter room, preventing her from expanding her collection." I sympathized with her then, but now it’s time to feel sorry for us too.

On January 25, Irina Svetonosova received a call from the museum administrator informing her that FSB officers had visited the exhibition. The reason for the visit was an anti-terrorism security check.

"When I arrived at the site, I was told that security forces had brought a package containing a fake bomb, and my staff had failed to search visitors' personal belongings at the entrance. When I protested that we didn't have the authority to search visitors, they told me we were obligated to search people's bags anyway. Furthermore, the museum was accused of lacking numerous documents, such as anti-terrorism security passports, instructions, and many other things I had never heard of," Irina recalls.

At one point, the museum director thought she was dealing with scammers, but a visit to the FSB Directorate for the Sverdlovsk Region dispelled her doubts. An administrative case was opened against Irina, as an individual, for violating anti-terrorism protection requirements for facilities (Part 1 of Article 20.35 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation), and on February 15, the Kirovsky District Magistrate's Court of Yekaterinburg fined her 30 rubles.

"I didn't make a big deal out of it, even though I could have. I didn't challenge the court's decision," the director comments on the fine. "Besides, the museum soon encountered more serious problems."

In January, the museum's premises changed hands. Irina attempted to negotiate a lease extension with the company now managing the property, but to no avail. In response, the director of "Made in USSR" was offered either a threefold rent increase or the option to move out by the end of the lease, which expired on May 31, 2024. Irina chose the latter option.

"We managed to find a new location in Chekist Town (officially the NKVD Housing Complex, a complex of buildings built in Yekaterinburg between 1929 and 1936). The rent for the new space will be more expensive, but less than the amount the museum was offered by the new owners of its current premises. But the main problem is that the new space is smaller than the previous one, and it won't be possible to move the entire collection," Irina says regretfully.

The museum is funded solely by the sale of admission tickets and souvenirs. It receives no support from the government or from foundations supporting the "Made in USSR" cultural initiatives.

"On the contrary, we help everyone. Local museums constantly approach us when they have exhibitions related to the Soviet era, asking to borrow exhibits. I never refuse. Sometimes I even get feedback. The Ural Writers' Museum agreed to keep part of its collection while it was moving. I think all museum workers should help each other, free of charge, simply out of friendship," Irina is convinced.

The museum's founder believes that interest in exhibitions depicting life in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to the current situation in the country and the world:

"When everything is so precarious and unstable, with constant, incomprehensible changes and uncertainty about the future, people seek support in memories. Our visitors are mostly those who experienced the Soviet Union as children, during the best times of their lives. Memories are structured in such a way that we only remember the good, while the bad is relegated to the farthest reaches of our memory."

Here are the impressions of museum visitors, which they shared in a conversation with a NeMoskva journalist.

Kirill, 33 years old: I came from the region and decided to visit the "Made in the USSR" exhibition in my free time. I remember some of the items from my childhood. For example, a film projector at home, which allowed me to watch cartoons simply on a sheet hung in the room. I have a positive view of the Soviet Union. It's especially important to me that in the USSR, the state assigned students to various fields after graduating from university, whereas now young people are forced to look for work on their own, often unsuccessfully.

Gennady, 87 years old: I'm a native of Sverdlovsk and recently learned about the museum from a friend. I was primarily drawn to the exhibition by the electronics, old radios, and televisions—as an engineer, I've always been interested in this topic. Overall, the exhibition is true to the era, but I personally lived much poorer than the "Family Apartment" exhibit shows. I don't feel particularly nostalgic for the USSR. It was, and thank God we survived. My only real regret is that in the Soviet Union, housing was more or less available, whereas now young families can't afford an apartment and are forced to go into debt to take out a mortgage.

Anastasia, 16 years old: I came from Novosibirsk for a dance competition and decided to stay for the Open Day at UrFU. I learned about the museum before my trip. When I look online for top places to see in Yekaterinburg, "Made in USSR" always comes up. For my generation, the Soviet Union is such a distant memory, as if it never existed. This exhibition felt like I was in a parallel universe. I have a neutral attitude toward the Soviet Union; I don't have a definitively positive or negative opinion of that era.

Irina herself is not inclined to idealize the Soviet past:

"We're not trying to convince anyone of anything, and people don't need that; they're looking for thrills, for a thrill ride. Personally, I don't romanticize the past. I know all the downsides, the excesses, the shortcomings, and the downright unpleasant stories that happened in the Soviet Union. I was born in 1979, but I'm not at all nostalgic for that era; I'm completely lost in the details. I love modern things, although I do have a few vintage pieces from the Soviet Union in my wardrobe that look stylish when paired with modern clothes, but that's it. For me, the museum is a personal project, my life's work, which I really enjoy and which keeps me from getting bored."