Time to read: 15 minutes(s)

Author: Sergey Tashevsky

In September 1952, a radio factory opened in Krasnoyarsk. Three years later, it became the first in Siberia to produce Avangard televisions—one of the first mass-produced Soviet television models. Krasnoyarsk was then producing up to a hundred units per month, but other television factories in the USSR (for example, in Leningrad) were churning out thousands of Avangards. The demand for more and more was growing, and by order of the Party and government, television factories mushroomed everywhere. The country was rapidly becoming immersed in the "blue screen."

Of course, Soviet television's programming was exemplarily ideologically "correct," and announcers dutifully recounted the new victories of socialism. But television in those years couldn't truly wield power over citizens' minds. Why? The culprit was the terrible quality of both television broadcasts and the televisions themselves produced in the Soviet Union. No one back then, it seems, could have imagined the power of this invention, capable (as we now know) of easily changing the consciousness of millions of people.

In fact, even Goebbels didn't have time to recognize television as a great zombie power, although many historians believe it was in the Third Reich that television was born. And in the post office, at that. Yes! It was the Reich Post Office (since the late 20s, that is, during the Weimar Republic) that oversaw all radio broadcasting in Germany, and television experiments began there, too. By the mid-30s, Berlin already had a television studio with regular broadcasts and several hundred primitive television sets, mostly installed in cafes and movie theaters. They even broadcast the opening of the Berlin Olympics in 1936. But televisions were few and far between, and Goebbels, whom Hitler had tasked with overseeing the fledgling television industry, quickly became disillusioned. Hitler himself never appeared on television, despite having every opportunity to do so (at least until 1943, when the Allies bombed the Berlin television center). Then, of course, the baton of using the "zombie box" for totalitarian propaganda purposes passed to Stalin—but, oddly enough, he, too, made little use of this opportunity.

There are many coincidences here. For example, in the USSR, television also formally emerged in the early 30s under the People's Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs, which housed the All-Union Committee for Radio Broadcasting. And it developed in much the same way as in Germany and elsewhere, from primitive "mechanical" television (we'll talk about this later) to devices with electronic picture tubes. By the end of Stalin's life, the number of television receivers in the USSR was already approaching half a million. But here's the interesting thing: just like Hitler, Stalin never appeared on television. Why? No one can really explain it. Either he was afraid that the television image would deprive him of his aura as a mythical leader, or he was worried that a weapon might be hidden in the television camera... Because of this, the broadcast of parades on Red Square (where he was present on the podium) was banned, and the "television people" filming the meetings in the Grand Kremlin Palace were forced to turn their cameras with their lenses toward the wall when the Generalissimo entered the hall.

Why the tyrants of bygone times avoided television is a mystery. Perhaps they were simply unsure that this magical box could be subjugated to human will. After all, television in its first decades was perceived as a true miracle. Indeed, it was a miracle, emerging practically out of nowhere, simultaneously in different countries, on different continents. And it began with an idea.

There are ideas that, as they say, "float in the air," and are being considered by hundreds of people around the world. Ever since the advent of the telegraph and telephone, which made it possible to transmit letters and voices over distances, the next step was image. Very soon, physicists taught electrical devices to distinguish light from darkness: Willoughby Smith discovered the photoconductivity of selenium, and Alexander Stoletov created the first photocell. Numerous inventors and television theorists began to tinker with it. One of them, Porfiry Bakhmetev (a very colorful figure, the son of a Russian serf who managed to become a professor at Sofia University) formulated the principles of transmitting images over a distance back in 1880. He realized that it needed to be broken down into lines and dots and transmitted pixel by pixel, one after the other.

Bakhmetyev's "Phototelegraph" remained on paper, but the path to television was clear, because an idea, once formulated, begins to pop into the heads of different people. As early as Christmas Eve 1883, somewhere in East Prussia, an unknown Polish student Paul NipkowWhile peering at a smoking kerosene stove through holes punched in cardboard with a needle, he made a great invention. The so-called "Nipkow disk."

This cardboard disk, riddled with tiny, spiral-shaped holes, was rotated by an electric motor. An image was projected onto it through a lens on one side, and a photocell on the other. The holes in the cardboard resolved the image into lines that could be transmitted via electrical impulses to another device. A light bulb flickered inside it, and an identical disk spun, "reconstructing" the image for the viewer. Simple and brilliant!

But, like many brilliant inventions, the "Nipkow disk" was ahead of its time. Although the inventor patented it in Berlin in 1885, suitable photocells and light bulbs didn't exist at the time. Signal amplifiers were also needed—something the electrical engineering profession hadn't even dreamed of at the time. So Nipkow himself quickly forgot about his invention, and his patent was revoked 15 years later, "due to lack of interest."

In fact, there was interest, and quite a bit! It only took 40 years. In 1925, Scottish engineer John Baird finally built the first mechanical television system capable of transmitting moving images. And it was based on the Nipkow disk! By 1929, the BBC had begun regular broadcasts using the Baird system, and in America, Western Television released The first televisions (or rather, set-top boxes with a Nipkow disk that had to be connected to regular radios) went on sale. Of course, the image they produced was very blurry (only 45 lines, so there was no clarity), and only the size of a postage stamp. But then again, they cost only $100.

Nipkow himself lived to see his triumph, and in 1928, he witnessed the operation of a television based on his disk and his—alas—expired patent. He never received a penny for his invention. But this triumph, though brief (mechanical television systems were popular for five or six years), was truly global. Devices using the "Nipkow disk" turned out to be so simple that virtually any radio amateur could build them. Moreover, small, fuzzy images didn't require high data transmission density. They could be transmitted like speech or music, on medium or shortwave frequencies (which, as we know, easily travel hundreds and thousands of kilometers). Experimental television studios around the world almost immediately took up this idea, including in Germany and, of course, in the USSR.

Incidentally, the USSR used the "German standard" for television transmission from the very beginning. 30 lines and 12,5 frames per second—frankly, these were the rather paltry parameters of the Nipkow disk televisions that emerged from the Reich Post Office. And the first Soviet B-2 set-top boxes (of which more than 3000 were manufactured between 1933 and 1936) were, in essence, exact copies. True, many thousands more homemade televisions were cobbled together by Soviet radio amateurs in various cities and villages. Schematics were published in the magazine "Radio Amateur," and any handy pioneer could replicate them if they could somehow find the necessary parts. These set-top boxes were connected to receivers tuned to the television center's frequency, and during special hours reserved for radio broadcasts, they would show small moving images of announcers or musicians. True, to receive sound, another radio was needed. But then, holding one's breath, one could "catch" the murky, barely discernible image—and hear for the first time those magical words of the time: "Moscow speaking and showing!"

It wasn't exactly the frequent or eager broadcasts that she showed. The population was informed in advance in newspapers about the television broadcasts, as a nationwide test. On April 29, 1931, for example, Pravda wrote: "Tomorrow, for the first time in the USSR, a trial television (long-range viewing) broadcast will be made via radio. The shortwave transmitter RVEI-1 will transmit images of living faces and photographs." Just three years later, the newspaper published a program schedule, and the radio station VTsSPS (whatever that Soviet acronym stood for) gave citizens half an hour to enjoy the wonders of mechanical television 12 times a month. The USSR's first television menu included short films, short improvised teleplays, and the occasional symphonic concert. Moreover, using huge antennas, these programs could be received as far away as Siberia and Central Asia. Now, not only the voice but also the "picture" from the capital of the first communist state reached everyone. It seemed like this was it, the bright future!

Many enthusiasts even demanded that mechanical television go further, even proposing video recording projects. For example, one correspondent for the magazine "Radiofront" wrote in 1936: "If we record a television program on a regular record and then play it back through an adapter and amplifier, then a television connected to the amplifier's output will show the recorded image. And such a television record will allow us to show any audience what television can offer at any time, regardless of the television schedule." Unfortunately, his call went unheeded in the USSR, but in England, such an attempt was indeed made in 1934. have takenIt turned out badly, although it’s still quite interesting to look at it 90 years later.

But it soon became clear that the Soviet Union had to catch up with Europe and America again. By 1936, the Germans had already switched to more advanced televisions with electron tubes, which displayed a crystal-clear image with a resolution of 400 lines. They didn't need to be connected to anything, there was no buzzing, and there was no need to adjust the disk speed. Just plug them in and watch. In short, these were already the typical televisions we're familiar with. They, like the electronic television cameras with "iconoscopes" for television studios, were based on the work of the remarkable Russian engineer Vladimir Zvorykin, who worked on radio communications in Kolchak's army and fled Russia for the United States in 1919. By the mid-30s, televisions developed using his system were already being produced in the thousands in America, and Zworykin had risen from a poor exile to a top manager at RCA (Radio Corporation of America). It was in this capacity that he visited the USSR in the early 30s as part of a "tour" of European countries, where he negotiated contracts for the sale of his invention.

Actually, in 1918, Zvorykin's Bolsheviks almost shotHis survival back then was literally a miracle. But now everything was different: he lived in the best "Intourist" hotels, traveled around Moscow in luxury cars, and barely even felt the NKVD surveillance (which, of course, was still there). Everyone needed television; for that, it was worth tolerating the "anti-Soviet element."

It was thanks to Zvorykin and RCA that electronic television emerged in the USSR. In early 1937, a television center was established on Shabolovka, next to the famous Shukhov Tower, under contract with RCA, and soon it began regular broadcasts. This time, it was on ultra-short waves, which don't travel very far (which is why the tower came in handy—at least it covered most of Moscow). The cameras were American, and so were the first televisions. However, by 1938, Moscow had already begun producing its own television, the TK-1. "Own"—in quotation marks—because this massive, mirror-topped cabinet, housing a long vertical picture tube, was the spitting image of both the American televisions produced by RCA and the "people's television" that the Third Reich had begun churning out (Zvorykin had even visited there).

This device was incredibly expensive, with complex circuitry (it used a whopping 33 vacuum tubes). And just setting it up required at least a college degree in physics—14 knobs had to be tweaked and adjusted to ensure stable operation. But the TK-1's main drawback was its extremely short lifespan—only 600 hours. Essentially, once you'd set it up, you could throw it in the trash. Nevertheless, several hundred of these devices were produced, and one was installed in Stalin's apartment, so broadcasts on Shabolovka were now broadcast without interruption. Who knows when the leader might demand a TV show!

And, it must be said, Stalin generally liked the television. He ordered work to continue, aiming to create "our own, exclusively Soviet apparatus—inexpensive, reliable, and with excellent characteristics." Any engineer knows that, at best, only two of these three requirements can be met, but you can't argue with the leaders, and, most likely, someone was already facing 10 years in prison for sabotaging "Soviet television." But then the war began, and television had to be put on hold for a while.

They remembered it immediately after the victory, when Soviet soldiers wandered through the ruins of the Berlin television center. They hadn't managed to salvage anything from there—all the equipment had been destroyed by Allied bombs. But something better remained: people. A small number of German engineers migrated to Fryazino near Moscow for a couple of years, where a "sharashka" (a temporary shelter) was set up for them. There, together with Soviet specialists, they developed the latest television standards and designed equipment. Furthermore, they managed to smuggle samples of the new Third Reich television models from German and Czech television factories (despite the war, work on them continued until the very last day). So now the Soviet designers had something to draw on.

Thanks to all this, 1949 saw the birth of two Soviet miracles: one of the most advanced high-definition television standards (625 lines, 25 frames per second) and the legendary KVN-49 television receiver, which became the first mass-produced television in the USSR. Over the next 13 years, more than two and a half million units were produced at various radio factories, and it is so well-known that there's probably no point in describing it in detail. Everyone has seen this wooden box with a postcard-sized screen that received three television channels.

Yes, the KVN television (named after its designers—Kenigson, Varshavsky, and Nikolaevsky) was, in its own way, a masterpiece of frugal engineering. It contained only 16 vacuum tubes and a minimum of other electronic components. And yes, it was designed for the latest television standard (although the first KVN televisions were still being produced for the old "American" 400-line scan rate, since the studios were still using pre-war Zvorykin cameras). So, two of Stalin's requirements were practically met. But the third, about reliability... Things were extremely bad there.

The soldering quality of every Soviet television without exception was terrible. Solder crumbled, electronic components tended to fall off spontaneously, and wires dangled and shorted out. But this first television was particularly plagued by manufacturing defects. Therefore, a different popular interpretation of the name "KVN" took root: "Bought, Turned On, Doesn't Work." This is roughly what happened in almost half of the cases. However, when it was replaced by the "Avangard" (with a slightly larger screen than the KVN—no longer a "postcard" but a "book"), things didn't improve. Warranty services couldn't handle the repairs of failed units, and ordinary citizens had to learn to read electrical diagrams and handle a soldering iron themselves.

But people get used to everything, and very soon, owners of Soviet televisions discovered that malfunctioning sets could be "fixed" with a precise blow to the casing. You just had to know the right spots and hit them with the right force. What was happening deep down inside them, which wires were breaking short, which capacitors were returning to their proper capacity, God only knows. But it worked, and so, over two or three generations of Soviet television viewers, a kind of conditioned reflex developed. If something isn't working properly, give it a good whack! Even today, anyone who has ever handled a Soviet television can easily be recognized by this reflex. They try to knock on any device to bring it back to life. And the most amazing thing is that sometimes this actually works.

And in Soviet times, smashing televisions worked almost 100% of the time. When people came home from work in the evening, resounding slaps or dull thuds on the polished television screens echoed throughout towns and villages—so loud that it seemed like the "talking heads" of the announcers were bouncing inside the picture tubes. Perhaps this was the main reason Stalin didn't want to be shown on television…

But seriously, the failure of Soviet propagandists with television is easily explained. It, like everything else created by the Soviet regime, proved hopelessly boring. The rare interesting films and programs had to be sought out in the incompetent flood of "Lenin's Universities of Millions," "International Panoramas," and other official propaganda. According to Goebbels's famous formula (which he developed for radio at the beginning of the war), for broadcasts to be effective, they should be 75 percent entertainment and only 25 percent propaganda. On Soviet television, it was, at a minimum, the opposite.

But it was at the forefront back then. On the "Avangard" TV, which was dripping with solder.