Greeting Cards From Soviet Holidays Past

One can find all sorts of old stuff in Tashkent, plenty of relics, detritus from the Soviet era. For this holiday season, time to look back at how Christmas and New Year's were celebrated in greeting/postcards during Soviet times. Happy Holidays, comrade.

The Kremlin wishes you a Happy New Year. Officially. What, you didn't think that giant communist operations put out corporate greeting cards as if they were IBM?

More of a traditional card, all decked out in folksy design cues. Santa partying with the animals. Tea for him, a carrot for the rabbit. Slurp it down and chomp it up.

Good thing that rabbit has been fed. Forget reindeer, go with a juiced-up bunny.

Rabbits suddenly not available? No problem, Santa can take a rocket ship or even a snowmobile, whatever was hip that year.

Getting back to nature with white birch trees from way up north.

Going with the 1960s-1970s stop motion block look. Giving mad props to local, Uzbek symbols, places. Notice the cotton bud filigree and the center clock graphic featuring the Lenin Museum and the adjacent clock tower on an office building. Cotton is the country's biggest crop and the buildings can still be found in downtown Tashkent.

The space race, planting a tree on the moon. Staked!

Happy Holidays to everyone! It's Sarah's and James' last year in Uzbekistan. Next summer, they will move to Canberra, Australia for three years. A new adventure and new holiday traditions to explore. 

Have Yourself A счастливого русского рождества*

*Merry Russian Christmas

In Uzbekistan, a lot of products are imported from Russia. Groceries, clothing, attitudes. OK, maybe attitudes are quickly shifting to homegrown or from elsewhere. Holiday trimmings are definitely still from the former Motherland, easy to tell from the packaging. The designs are full of Tsarist, Comrade-like customs and fantasies about what life is supposed to be.

Exhibit A, a couple of candy tins featuring "genre scenes." It's looking a lot like throw(way)back New Year's. After all, the name means "Favorite since childhood." What's junior doing up? And why is he in a sailor suit? Hypnotized by candy, that's troubling. What's that guy in the sweater vest have around his neck? No smartphones back in the 1950s?

Cartoon animals are holiday mascots in Russia. Want an '80s hip hop bunny or a mouse in a stockade pose?

Ahh, now we are going way back to Tsar time, the classic, tea spewing samovar. What could possibly be dribbling from this version? Maybe the fox in Barbara Bush's pearl necklace knows.

More candy packages, celebrating a time long left behind by most of the rest of the world. Did they nick these images from old Saturday Evening Post magazines?

Anna Karenina as sexy holiday hostess? мяу, котенок.* She's wishing everyone a Happy New Year. 

*Meow, kitten.

Back to some toys. A couple of dolls, perhaps a little subversion by the packer: hands almost holding. What's with the hair? It goes on for days. In the other box, a cute family, dad dressed like Mork, mom taking the ugly Christmas sweater theme down to her hem line and kid playing a gnome.

A classic mashup: iconic Matryoshka doll containers with famous Russian chocolate freaky baby "Alyonka" logos on them. So scary! So tempting! 

*

And Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you, brat i sestra.*

*Brother and sister, what vendors shout at James and Sarah in the markets.

The Museum Of Healthcare Uzbekistan

There's a nice mash-up of a museum in Tashkent, dedicated to healthcare, medicine, history, teaching, propaganda, Soviet socialist art. Something for everyone.

A time capsule. The place was founded in 1973 by a Moscow professor. Since then, no renovations. Yay!

Some way back history, a room dedicated to what healthcare looked like during the 1800s. Wander to the bazaar and find a doctor. A diorama that shows a little incense healing. Not sure a pleasant waft is going to be the cure.

The highlight of the museum space, the painted doors to each gallery. The illustrations look like stained glass and each set features a different Soviet, Uzbek archetype.

Moments immortalized of medical triumph during The Great Patriotic War, known as WWII in the West.

Another diorama, this one featuring a snazzy, new (at the time) facility, Uzbekistan Hospital. Alas, it's located in Russia. It's the thought that counts.

Russia's Pasopati Submarine

If you find yourself fighting for independence and you need, say, a submarine, hit up the Russians. Indonesia needed a sub, the Russians had a few of them floating around after WWII and they were looking to strengthen an alliance. Take my Pasopati, please.

Today the submarine is on proud dry dock display in Surabaya. Time to tour the big tube.

The Pasopati is painted and polished.

Inside, a warren of machinery and cables. Forward torpedo tubes and periscope area maze of wiring and gauges.

Labeling, Russian.

Interesting bunk contrast. On the left, the officers' sleep area. Looks rough. On the right, bunks for enlisted men. Looks rougher.

The submarine doesn't move until the big diesel starts turning. He gets his own, spacious room.