What Soviet Russia was like in 1946 (PHOTOS)
The first year after the end of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) was very difficult, but also happy. How did Soviet people live and what happened in the country exactly 80 years ago?
Photos from the first post-war years are filled with light and peaceful joy.
The restoration of cities destroyed by the war was actively underway. Stalingrad (now Volgograd) was almost completely wiped off the face of the earth.
Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and its palaces suffered from bombings.
After the hardships of war, people were finally able to return to a normal, familiar life.
Children could again engage in “childish” activities, like launching model airplanes into the air…
Skiing…
Going to pioneer camps…
Participating in school sports competitions…
Dancing in ballets…
And dreaming about the future!
Everything was saturated with the air of victory. The word ‘Pobeda’ (‘Victory’) was adorned on an airplane during an air show in Tushino (a district of Moscow).
Soldiers had returned from the front for good. They invariably visited schools to talk to kids about their experiences and what they had seen. The photo shows pilot Alexander Pokryshkin, the first three-time ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ and one of the most successful fighter pilots.
And this is pilot Alexey Maresyev, another war hero, whose biography formed the basis of Boris Polevoy's iconic book ‘The Story of a Real Man’. Maresyev managed to continue flying even after losing his legs. Read more about the feats of Soviet pilots here.
Military leaders, the marshals of victory, evoked universal admiration. The photo shows Konstantin Rokossovsky, covered in medals, opening the Labor Day parade on the Red Square on May 1, 1946.
And here, Marshal Ivan Konev personally participates in military exercises.
In the USSR, women had equal rights with men from the very beginning and, now, the women who had been through the war were also heroes.
The eyes of the entire country, meanwhile, were fixed on the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi criminals. In the courtroom were many Soviet people, including prosecutors, translators and, of course, photographers.
The whole country began following the news. The photo below pictures reindeer herders in Chukotka reading the ‘Pravda’ newspaper.
A new city appeared on the map of the USSR – Kaliningrad, former Königsberg. It was heavily damaged during the war.
A rare shot features poets Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak together at a literary evening in Moscow.
This photo shows a real paradox of Soviet life: Patriarch Alexy I voting at a polling station. During the war, Joseph Stalin partially rehabilitated the Orthodox Church.
