Description

An encyclopedic and richly detailed history of everyday life in the Soviet Union The Soviet Union is gone but its ghostly traces remain not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake What was it really like to live in the USSR What did it look feel smell and sound like In The Soviet Century Karl Schlgel one of the worlds leading historians of the Soviet Union presents a spellbinding epic that brings to life the everyday world of a unique lost civilization A museum ofand travel guide tothe Soviet past The Soviet Century explores in evocative detail both the largest and smallest aspects of life in the USSR from the Gulag the planned economy the railway system and the steel city of Magnitogorsk to cookbooks military medals prison camp tattoos and the ubiquitous perfume Red Moscow The book examines iconic aspects of Soviet life including long queues outside shops cramped communal apartments parades and the Lenin mausoleum as well as less famous but important parts of the USSR including the Great Soviet Encyclopedia the voice of Radio Moscow graffiti and even the typical toilet which became a pervasive social and cultural topic Throughout the book shows how Soviet life simultaneously combined utopian fantasies humdrum routine and a pervasive terror symbolized by the Lubyanka then as now the headquarters of the secret police Drawing on Schlgels decades of travel in the Soviet and postSoviet world and featuring more than eighty illustrations The Soviet Century is vivid immediate and grounded in firsthand encounters with the places and objects it describes The result is an unforgettable account of the Soviet Century