Vintage Siege of Leningrad postcards

[strannik01]

Yesterday marked the 72nd anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad. The Siege was partially lifted a year before, but it wasn't until January 27, 1944 that the Nazis fully, completely pushed out

Comments

[benicek]

It seemed worse to us, but maybe that was because we saw more of the suburbs of Moscow, whereas the centre of Leningrad was all gilded domes and baroque splendour. Everything in Moscow seemed to be falling apart. Our hotel looked like it had been built by amateurs. You couldn't open the bathroom doors properly because the toilet was in the way. The whole place seemed a joke. We were disappointed, I think, because we had grown up believing the propaganda on both sides, that the Soviet Union was this super-power with advanced technology. We expected to be impressed. We met some Russian students in a youth club who had learned English and they told us "if you think it is bad now you should have seen it a few years ago".

This is a 17-year-old me in our hotel:

[strannik01]

Oh, Soviet hotels from around that time period were legendary for their terribleness. When the condition of the hotels during the 2014 Olympics made the news, half of the Russians made "back in he USSR" jokes (and the other half complained about slander).