A Western photographer made his way to Leningrad at the height of the Cold War and was surprised that Soviet people lived quite cheerfully and at ease in the city! At least in appearance…
A Western photographer using the nickname gcosserat on the Internet talks about his impressions after a visit to Leningrad in the early 1960s:
“In the summer of 1961, I was in Helsinki and decided to take the opportunity to board one of the Baltic Line steamships to spend a couple of days in Leningrad. These were the days of the Cold War, when propaganda machines on both sides of the Iron Curtain convinced ordinary people of how harsh and hard life was “on the other side.” And then I was amazed that in Leningrad people just live a normal life, although subconsciously I tried to photograph things that could strengthen my prejudices.”
Leningrad port.
The group that met the passenger of the steamer. I never found out who they met.
The cruiser Aurora is a symbol of the October Revolution of 1917.
Peterhof is a summer palace and a favorite vacation spot for citizens both then and now.
Just a photo. Trams and cars in front of the Winter Palace, where the delightful Hermitage is located.
Was life in Russia for ordinary citizens as harsh as we were led to believe? Such a street scene could then be seen in any city in Europe.
Department store.
Outdoor tray.
Contrary to my expectations, food could be bought fairly quickly and without huge queues.
Vending machines with water. All the residents looked quite decent. I expected them to be dirty and intimidated!
The press, of course, was heavily censored. Or maybe it was another myth that we were fed during the Cold War?
At least the streets were clean, even if the women were “forced to work as janitors.”
Now there are plenty of female tram drivers, but in those years such a scene shocked me, with my male prejudices. I am sure that the same trams ran through the streets when I was last in St. Petersburg about 10 years ago.
Women’s work was still a curiosity in the West. This picture of the women paving the road was another attempt to support my conviction that living in Soviet Russia was hard.
But in most cases, Soviet life in Leningrad went on as usual, and these newlyweds on the street are proof of that.
In the West, we believed that the USSR was a police state, so I took this photo.
The beach on the banks of the Neva River is crowded on a hot summer day.
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