From the A Journey Round My Skull blog, a wonderful collection of illustrations from Soviet children’s books: Mummy Was A Robot, Daddy Was A Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil. Check them out! These particular ones are very robotic and mechanical, but so colourful and intriguing.
I’m especially delighted with these because I have a few of my own books from the Soviet Union, mostly language textbooks. But I have two called (in English), Russian Language in Pictures, by I.V. Barannikov and L.A. Varkovitskaya, published in Moscow in 1980.
My books were, of course, mostly designed to tell stories that would also teach the Russian language but also produce good little Soviet children. So for example, you’ll see a set of pictures like this, that show noble Soviet workers cheerfully doing their job in the orchard:
And then of course, there were drawings like the ones praising Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin:
…and the Soviet space program:
The illustrations in my book are more realistic and less artistic than the ones at that blog, but they’re all lovely.
Ohh, this carries me back to 1990-something when I studied my little Russian. I miss hearing and talking this language so much!
Great illustrations, btw.
Well hiya, doll!
I didn’t realize you had studied some Russian. I had almost 3 years of it, and would really have to work to get it back. But I love all the books. It’s such a rich language!