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      • ▸Medinas – The hearth Moroccan cities
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      • ▸The road to One thousand kasbahs
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      • ▸The Many Faces of Tbilisi
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      • ▸Bangkok, Year 2555
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      • ▸Thailand
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      • ▸Luang Prabang – The City of ultimate Zen
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logo

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • THE FAMILY ALBUM
  • ONCE UPON A TIME IN ROMANIA
    • ▸Bucharest, 1989: The days of Revolution
    • ▸I’ve also lived under communism
    • ▸Portraits of transition
    • ▸”Cabernet cu pepsi”
    • ▸Romania, 1990: Beyond the headlines
    • ▸“Mineriada” – My story
    • ▸Memorial of pain
  • WORK IN PROGRESS
    • ▸Barbershop
    • ▸Melancholic Identities
    • ▸Alone, together
    • ▸Faces
    • ▸Fragmentary world
    • ▸Two
    • ▸Buddhist monks
    • ▸About windows and walls
  • STORIES
    • ▸Life and death in Varanasi
    • ▸Trans-Siberian – An experience of becoming
    • ▸Boxing in Havana
    • ▸Medellin – Moving out of Escobar shadow
    • ▸One night at Htee Thein monastery
    • ▸Easter in Sicily – I misteri
    • ▸Easter in Sicily – La pasquetta
    • ▸Stalin’s Museum in Gori
    • ▸Havana – magic and decay
    • ▸Muay-thai family, for a day
    • ▸Cuban billboards
    • ▸Seeking a geisha
    • ▸Bazar – Barakholka – Vernisazh
    • ▸Belfast’s murals: Behind and beyond
    • ▸Riding the Yangon’s ring train
    • ▸An unexpected trip to Dhobi Ghat
    • ▸A different way to look at death
    • ▸Cannes under siege
    • ▸Inside the Guru’s kitchen
    • ▸Tibetan refugees
    • ▸The Golden Triangle – A mecca of tribal diversity
    • ▸Bullfighting – barbaric or art ?
    • ▸Crafts and traditions in Morroco
    • ▸Mediterraneo
    • ▸“Glastonbury with God”
  • TRAVEL
    • Cuba
      • ▸The show must go on (part 1)
      • ▸The show must go on (part 2)
      • ▸The show must go on (part 3)
      • ▸The show must go on (part 4)
    • France
      • ▸Paris
      • ▸Paris. Again
    • Greece
      • ▸Mount Athos
      • ▸Postcards from Santorini
      • ▸Athens
      • ▸Mykonos – The picture-perfect Island
    • Germany
      • ▸Berlin
    • Vietnam
      • ▸Four days in Hanoi
      • ▸Cruising through the misty Halong Bay
    • India
      • ▸Portraits of Kashmir
      • ▸Rishikesh – Spiritual marketplace
      • ▸Life on the Sidewalk
    • Ireland
      • ▸The capital of pubs
      • ▸Ireland in ten days
    • Israel
      • ▸Israel in black & white
    • Colombia
      • ▸Colombia
      • ▸Paisas, coffee and much more
      • ▸Streets of Bogota – From Dystopia to Hope
      • ▸Life along the magical Magdalena River
      • ▸A non-touristy guide to Cartagena’s Caribbean paradise
    • Myanmar
      • ▸Min-ga-la-ba Myanmar
      • ▸Up and down on the hills of Shan State
    • Japan
      • ▸Tokyo
      • ▸Springtime in Kyoto
    • Portugal
      • ▸Life at the edge of Europe
    • Russian Federation
      • ▸The unexpected Moscow
      • ▸White Nights in St. Petersburg
    • Italy
      • ▸Rome
      • ▸Random Sicily
      • ▸“Vedi Napoli e poi mori”
      • ▸Venice
      • ▸Vanishing Venice
    • Morocco
      • ▸Tea in the Sahara
      • ▸Medinas – The hearth Moroccan cities
      • ▸Morocco outskirts
      • ▸Djemaa El Fna encounters
      • ▸ Surf and hippies
      • ▸The road to One thousand kasbahs
      • ▸Amazigh – Berber – Free men
    • Georgia
      • ▸Postcards from Georgia
      • ▸The Many Faces of Tbilisi
    • Nepal
      • ▸Kathmandu Valley
    • Romania
      • ▸Romania to go
      • ▸Maramures
      • ▸”Tara Motilor”
    • Jordan
      • ▸Bedouin Trails
    • Turkey
      • ▸From Turkey with love
      • ▸Ballooning Cappadocia
      • ▸Where East meets West
      • ▸Street life, Istanbul-style
    • Mexico
      • ▸Finding Mexico City
    • Malaysia
      • ▸Transit KL
    • UK
      • ▸London
      • ▸Grab your kilt and bring your pipes
    • Sweden
      • ▸Stockholm
    • Spain
      • ▸Off-season Andalusia
    • Thailand
      • ▸Bangkok, Year 2555
      • ▸Life in Pai
      • ▸Thailand
    • Laos
      • ▸Luang Prabang – The City of ultimate Zen
    • Poland
      • ▸Why I love Poland
    • Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania
      • ▸The Baltic States – Neighbors, but not relatives
      • ▸Patarei – A little slice of Hell
    • Findland
      • ▸A sunny day in Helsinki
    • Denmark
      • ▸Copenhagen
  • SINGLES
  • CONTACT
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Melancholic Identities

 

Nostalgic feelings idealizing the old Soviet times are typical for Russian society today. Such notions must be understood as a socio-cultural phenomenon formed as a result of a “social catastrophe”, namely the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

The first symptoms of idealized past nostalgia were noticed in 1993 at the point when the “Great Reform” launched by president Yeltsin unleashed a profound social and economic crisis. If in the 90s the Soviet nostalgia was manifested as an individual experience adding emotion to images of the past, in the recent years the “collective memory” began to be cultivated in a new, compact and coherent shape by deliberate manipulation through mass-media as state politics. Social institutions also contribute to this mass nostalgia. Designing and promoting nostalgic sentiments, these institutions create the consumer behaviors driven by market rules. Today, the “nostalgic mindset” and modernize of the Russian “golden age” myth (referring of 1950-1970 period – the most great, prosperous and rich in achievements) establishing new versions of Soviet history for the younger generations. The signs and the symbols of the Soviet past became part of everyday life, reviving the past and giving a new sense of identity.

Modulated by a kind of vanished “way we were”, this retro revival is visible in countless aspects of daily life. It can be seen appearing among the bric-a-brac of street markets or with reproductions of old propaganda posters brought up to date by advertising. An entire industry of reminiscing about the Soviet era has arisen. People began to collect and preserve old items, and marketing experts begun to turn the familiar Soviet names of clothing and products factories into fashionable brands. Other signs are visible in the fashion for old Soviet songs and films or in interior decorations of cafes and restaurants.

This topic of “Soviet nostalgia” is far more complex than can be illustrated here and has been debated in countless studies made in the last years. That’s why my approach can be considered superficial, limiting itself to only a few aspects of everyday life as part of a small visual journal written in the short time spent in Moscow and St. Petersburg in June 2017 and in a longer trip from Moscow to Irkutsk in June 2019.

 

 

 

Melancholic Identities

 

Nostalgic feelings idealizing the old Soviet times are typical for Russian society today. Such notions must be understood as a socio-cultural phenomenon formed as a result of a “social catastrophe”, namely the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

The first symptoms of idealized past nostalgia were noticed in 1993 at the point when the “Great Reform” launched by president Yeltsin unleashed a profound social and economic crisis. If in the 90s the Soviet nostalgia was manifested as an individual experience adding emotion to images of the past, in the recent years the “collective memory” began to be cultivated in a new, compact and coherent shape by deliberate manipulation through mass-media as state politics. Social institutions also contribute to this mass nostalgia. Designing and promoting nostalgic sentiments, these institutions create the consumer behaviors driven by market rules. Today, the “nostalgic mindset” and modernize of the Russian “golden age” myth (referring of 1950-1970 period – the most great, prosperous and rich in achievements) establishing new versions of Soviet history for the younger generations. The signs and the symbols of the Soviet past became part of everyday life, reviving the past and giving a new sense of identity.

Modulated by a kind of vanished “way we were”, this retro revival is visible in countless aspects of daily life. It can be seen appearing among the bric-a-brac of street markets or with reproductions of old propaganda posters brought up to date by advertising. An entire industry of reminiscing about the Soviet era has arisen. People began to collect and preserve old items, and marketing experts begun to turn the familiar Soviet names of clothing and products factories into fashionable brands. Other signs are visible in the fashion for old Soviet songs and films or in interior decorations of cafes and restaurants.

This topic of “Soviet nostalgia” is far more complex than can be illustrated here and has been debated in countless studies made in the last years. That’s why my approach can be considered superficial, limiting itself to only a few aspects of everyday life as part of a small visual journal written in the short time spent in Moscow and St. Petersburg in June 2017 and in a longer trip from Moscow to Irkutsk in June 2019.

 

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