I’m so happy to share with you some beautiful pictures of Russian children. The father-photographer took them in the 1970s in the former Soviet Union. 

---

With the death of President George Herbert Walker Bush on November 30, Mikhail Gorbachev has officially outlived both American presidents he served counter to during the final chapter of the Soviet Union and its long Cold War with the United States. Gorbachev, who ushered in political reform with Glasnost, and a political movement with Perestroika, was head of the Communist Party from 1985 to 1990. He served as the eighth and last President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991.

Soviet Nostalgia

Through the years, I’ve written about the rise of Soviet nostalgia among Russians. Americans, however, feel nostalgic for the Cold War, too. It was a time that some believe was simpler, simply because our enemies seemed to be more contained within one geographic region and one political ideology and/or party.

I grew up with the Cold War, and during my college years developed a keen interest in Soviet history and politics. Pictures in real time from that side of the world were a rarity. I hardly recall seeing any at all during my childhood, youth and young adult years. The lives of our generational counterparts behind the historic iron curtain remained a mystery to us all.

As a blogger, I’ve worked through my insatiable curiosity about their lives through a few blog posts that feature beautiful pictures of Russians that I’ve collected. All of the pictures were taken during th 1960s, 70s, 80s or 90s. My latest find are these beautiful pictures of Russian children taken in 1975.

I don’t pity, don’t call, don’t cry,
All will be gone, like haze from the white apple trees.
Seized by the gold of withering,
I will never be young again.

My heart touched by the chill within,
You will not beat as before,
And the cotton birches of the countryside
No more will lure me to gad about barefoot.

Wandering spirit! Less and less
Do you stir the flame of my lips.
Oh, gone, my freshness,
Stormy eyes, high water of feelings.

Now, I’ve become tame in my wishes,
Life of mine? Did you come in dreams to me?
As if at an echo-filled early Spring hour
I rode by on a rose-colored stallion.

We all, we all decay in this world,
The copper flows quietly from the maple trees.
Let it be in centuries blessed,
That it happened to me to bloom and die.

–I Don’t Pity, Don’t Call, Don’t Cry | Sergey Aleksandrovich Yesenin, 1921

---

More Pictures of Russian Children with Russian Santa, Ded Moroz or Grandfather Frost

The following photographs feature a children’s celebration with the Russian Santa Claus, Ded Moroz, which means Grandfather Frost.