The Soviet Union is a truly epoch-making state. Over the history of its existence, this country had to go through several rounds of development, each of which was significantly different from one another. Moreover, the changes concerned not only the state itself and geopolitical ambitions and plans of its leadership, but also ordinary Soviet citizens. And all because the main person in that distant power, the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the CPSU, single-handedly made many decisions, which very often had a direct bearing on the everyday life of ordinary people. In today's article, we will just look at the conditions under which the citizens of the Soviet Union lived, or rather, recall the atmosphere of their apartments and houses, first of all, the famous Soviet walls.
Samples of furniture from the Soviet era are still easy to find in typical Khrushchevs and Czechs. Often these are products produced in the last years of the existence of the state, whose name is the USSR. This country has not been around for a quarter of a century, but it turned out to be an excellent manufacturer of furniture that still serves people, as well as many other things of that time.
Historical excursion
In the early years of the Union, the Soviets hardly thought about the situation in the dwellings of workers and peasants. Those decades after the revolution were difficult for everyone, people had to use the furniture that they already had. Then, even in the future, there was no such thing as “Soviet walls”.
All production capacities were directed to the formation of the state as such, and later to the satisfaction of the needs of the front. During these years, the main furniture manufacturer in the country is woodworking plants and factories, sawmills, small artels, where interior items were made manually. The situation of the rich houses of that time was distinguished by pretentiousness and pomp, it supported the canons of the pre-revolutionary years. Wardrobes, sideboards, dressers and dressers were solid, massive, they were made of wood, often of valuable species, decorated with beautiful carvings and paintings. Few could afford this, and therefore it is precisely these pieces of furniture of the Soviet years that are now the most valuable.
Ordinary laymen were content with rather crude cupboards and cabinets, knocked together from what was at hand. At that time, there was no question of any aesthetics and luxury.
Ten years after the end of World War II, the party decided that it was necessary to abandon the excesses in construction. This situation also affected the personal space of citizens, and, therefore, the internal situation of their homes.
Grandma's "antiques"
The population of the country at that distant time was placed in rather stringent conditions of existence. At that time, a massive relocation of people from villages to cities, including the capital of the Union, began. They had to settle in communal apartments, dormitories or separate rooms, which the townspeople allocated for the "limits" in order to generate additional income.
Tightness forced many to get rid of the massive atmosphere cluttering up living quarters, and therefore high-quality and beautiful furniture, as well as headsets that survived the revolution, which were inherited by people, were ruthlessly thrown away.
Those who were allowed to preserve antique furniture by square meters did not fail, because it subsequently became the envy of many, especially in the face of the inaccessibility of modern analogues at that time. The Soviet walls were a scarce commodity, a priority for many on the list of necessary purchases. After them, people signed up in line, in addition, families spent a lot of money saving on new headsets and sofas.
Not single apartments
There was no mass production of goods from the category of consumer goods, which included cabinets, walls, sideboards, dining sets, sofas and armchairs. However, the decree mentioned above changed the existing order of things. The government decided that it was necessary to provide the population with simple and affordable furniture.
This happened during the period when the mass resettlement of people in separate apartments began. A lot of houses were built then, but the quality of the apartments in them left much to be desired. However, small, often adjoining rooms with low ceilings were still for many the ultimate dream.
Soviet furniture of that time was quite interesting. Factories refused to use natural wood for its manufacture, replacing this material with fiberboard and MDF. Designers then offered consumers products in the style of minimalism. If you describe the first Soviet walls, then they can be described as small modules, which consisted of two to three sections.
Unjustly forgotten past
In one such headset there was a small cabinet with hangers and shelves, closed by swing doors, several open shelves or niches, a glazed sideboard. The design was mounted on simple legs, most often they had a somewhat futuristic rounded shape and were located at an angle. Some models were complemented by square mezzanines.
The walls of the Soviet era, namely the 50-60s, had a laconic color. These were several shades of brown, imitating a natural tree (walnut, ash, oak). It was then that the varnish coating came into fashion. True, the first samples of such headsets for the living room were of good quality. The gloss on many of them has not cracked to this day, even after half a century.
A typical Soviet wall (varnished), in accordance with its minimalist style, was equipped with laconic fittings. Its facades were smooth - no carving or bump. The handles were also characterized by restraint, they were either in the form of narrow brackets made of metal, or they were volume washers made of plastic in black or white.
The last Soviet furniture
Alas, such a design was abandoned rather quickly. Moreover, the choice was made towards even worse furniture options. In 1962, a special bureau was created, engaged in the development of furniture, which has the status of the All-Union Design Institute. The work of its employees was greatly complicated by the state bureaucracy and nomenclature. Having formed a good design project, the designer had to redo it for existing parts and materials that were currently in the state.
Starting from the 80s, the notorious high quality of Soviet furniture could already be forgotten, as, in fact, about its normal appearance. It is these walls of Soviet production that have largely survived to our times. These are the notorious “Albina”, “Prostor”, “Domino”, “Orpheus” and other headsets produced by Odessa, Zaporizhia, Zhytomyr furniture plants.
The description of these “masterpieces of design thought” is very colorful. Among the samples were models with a quite suitable appearance, mainly if their creators managed to do without excessive varnishing and decor. However, it was mainly ornaments that spoiled the facades of cabinets, cabinets and mezzanines. Often it was a stucco stylization made of thin plastic. The ornate pattern also received support in the door handles, which were generously decorated with monograms, and sometimes gilding.
The Soviet wall of the 80s is a very massive structure, which was usually placed along the longest wall in the room, most often in the living room. Standard equipment included tall modules for various purposes. For example, one such vertical ruler could consist of a lower stand, on top of which a glass sideboard was installed, and a mezzanine located under the ceiling itself was crowned by a cabinet. The wall was formed of 3-5 such structures. Among them were narrow pencil cases, which theoretically should have been a bar, but people put everything that came into hand in this compartment.
The depth of the cabinets of this period caused a lot of complaints from consumers, because they often did not even fit standard hangers.
From "homemade" to mass stamping
The main furniture manufacturer in the Soviet Union is state-owned enterprises. They were located mostly in the European part of the country (in the territory of present-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus). Combines were grouped near the largest cities in terms of population, such as Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov. Each set had a factory name, but among the people the furniture walls received a different name associated with the place where they were made: the wall "Zhytomyr", "Odessa", "Moscow", "Yugoslav", "Czech".
Large enterprises made prefabricated furniture, which was sold in packaged form, but the owner independently assembled his "designer". It is worth noting that the development of headsets was carried out taking into account typical calculations of residential premises, and the wall itself had to enter the room as harmoniously as possible.
Those who had this opportunity, purchased products created by individual orders, mined antique furniture or restored what they inherited from wealthy ancestors.
"Our" import
Sometimes the walls were imported. Moreover, such products were even those products that were originally from a very near abroad - East Germany, Yugoslavia. To get and buy such furniture was the ultimate dream of any owner of their own home. She served as an ideal occasion for pride and boasting of owners in front of guests, relatives and neighbors.
It is worth noting that such Soviet walls in the interior looked most advantageous. Moreover, their quality was a level higher than that of products of factories of their own production located on the territory of the USSR, especially if we take into account furniture made directly on the eve of the collapse of the Union.
Those who were fortunate enough to go abroad during the era of the total denial of harmful capitalism note that the Soviet walls and upholstered furniture made during the “thaw” looked much like the then popular interior decoration in the West, and the quality of these products was no worse imported. By the way, furniture in a minimalist design, common in our country in the 50-70s, was a prototype of goods from the Swedish "Ikea", which already then began to function in Europe.
Interior miracle
Meeting furniture from the time of the USSR is now not so difficult. It is especially common in apartments where the elderly and the elderly live. Young people for the most part try to get rid of this "miracle", which gives off mothballs. Rarely what wall looks tolerable so far, and even more so managed to survive in its original form.
On the expanses of thematic design forums, one can often find a call for help from those who have become the "happy" owner of the bulky Soviet wall. People are mainly interested in how to fit it into the interior as competently as possible. Experts advise first of all to get rid of stereotypical thinking and not to set the headsets as a “wall”, dispersing the modules in the corners, or even to partially get rid of them. First of all, this concerns the sideboards filled with crystal and outdated services.
Change must not be thrown away
Of course, good furniture now costs a lot of money, not everyone can afford to buy it, and therefore many have to put up with the neighborhood of grandma's walls. But far from always these are headsets of poor quality, with ill-conceived functionality and sagging doors. People who took care of their furniture, repaired it in a timely manner, saved it and enjoy using these cabinets and cabinets with pleasure to this day.
In addition, if you were lucky enough to become the owner of the wall in the style of minimalism, art deco, and even the “Stalinist Empire”, which was released before the 80s, then after the restoration it will be able to serve for more than a dozen years, but its appearance will be difficult to distinguish from modern imported furniture.
Second Life
Of course, then readers may have a very reasonable question about how to update the old Soviet wall. It all depends on how well the furniture has been preserved, in what condition its fittings, and also what it is made of.
If, by and large, everything is fine with her, and the restoration requires only the facades of the cabinets, then you need to include imagination and work on creating a new look for already boring furniture. There are special organizations that perform similar work, their designers share the secrets of their work and tell you in which areas you can work:
- rearrangement;
- color change;
- decor.
All these actions can be performed individually or together. Then surely you will get completely different furniture. The decor of the Soviet wall is done by changing accessories. Sometimes it is enough to change the door handles in the closet, and this completely changes its appearance. You can also work more radically by changing the style of the facades. As an auxiliary material, textiles, stones, and paints are used for painting.
Reboot
A complete alteration of the old Soviet wall is a complex and painstaking task that requires more than one day of work. Before getting down to business, it is important to fully consider the arrangement of furniture after restoration, as well as its style. The headset can be redone so that only the frame remains from it, and all other parts will be completely or partially replaced and updated.
Swivel mechanisms and accessories - pipes for hangers, hooks, hinges on door handles, guides in drawers that were made of plastic or wooden battens on the Soviet walls, are therefore a priority repair item, and therefore the cells simply collapsed after each other after several years of use .
The next step may be the elimination of other possible flaws - puttying holes, cracks and other defects. However, if the plans include painting the furniture in a new color, you need to remove its top cover, especially if it is a varnished product. Usually painted with nitro enamel on a pre-primed surface.
The arrangement of the wall itself plays an important role. The disadvantage of such furniture is that huge gaps gap picturesquely between the cabinets, this greatly spoils its appearance. This can be avoided by tightening the sections with bolts on top.