Soviet Design 1950-1980

 "Did Soviet Russia have any design?" you might be wondering :)

After visiting the exibition held at Moscow Manege I would say: "Yes! Design did exist in Soviet Union."

The exibits were showing various aspects of social everyday life. The first products I got to see were the radio sets. These were very cool to me, because I couldn't think of how far distance they could reach.(the scale was saying: St Petersburg, Vladivostok, Berlin, Praga, Paris & so on) Than I've been told that the radio wavelength of those times was mainly huge. And now they're not needed because of the internet, now radio waves are ultra-short.

This huge radio set was called "Rigonda". It was constructed by very talented Latvian designer Adolf Irbite in 1967. 

Radiola "Riga 104" from the back side. It was made of cardboard. The start of production 1973, Latvia.

Record player "Volga", 1957.

Radio set "Zvezda-54" was taken as an innovative design, because it was different from similar radiola's of those times.
However it wasn't a Russian creation, but just a copy of French "Excelsior-52".

Here's my odd filming if you wish to see more:

Soviet magazine called "Krugozor" (1964-1992) was the first multimedia magazine in our country.

Each issue consisted 6 gramophone records.

Than I got to explore one more side of music industry design. Several types of electro-guitars were shown.

This guitar was the most popular. That one with two fingerboards wasn't quite accepted + the quality was poor so the production was canceled after the 2 years since the start.

 This technical illustrations were done by hand (!) using paper and aquarel paints.