The Soviet pocket calendar

Someone in my husband's family collected these little calendars once upon a time.

They've been waiting in an envelope for 2 years now- eek! But I'm finally ready to organize them: got the binder, got the plastic sleeves, got the time. Check out how many there are!!

I counted exactly 60 cards. Some are marked up with pen or dog-eared from being carried in a wallet. Others are brand new. The majority are from 1970s and 80s. Most of the calendars were printed in Russian but there's a handful in Ukrainian, English, and even Latvian.

Have you ever seen little cards like these? Do you carry one around yourself? I see them in some stores and restaurants here in the US but never take one. A pocket calendar from an Oregon dry cleaner? Thanks, but no.

But a pocket calender from главное управление госстраха усср, The Central Insurance Agency of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic? Now that's rather unusual! Here's one of the oldest calendars in the collection, from that very agency-

1978: "Did you insure your life?"

And these two-

L: "Get insured against accidents!"  R: "Mixed life insurance"

It's not all just insurance companies, though.

There are cards featuring endangered species-

The Olympics-

Famous scenes from Crimea-

Wintery scenes-

Commemorative stamps-

Holidays-

Even politics-

This is my one addition to the collection- it's from 2013.

We're not sure who collected all these little calendars that we found in his family's apartment a few years ago. They were stashed in a drawer along with postcards that D's father had written as a sailor and worn photographs of unsmiling relatives. It made me sad to see family history just left to an uncertain fate although ugh, packing space is sure tight when you're moving overseas (and early days of computer storage at that). I carried away as many photos and letters and calendars as I could.

As for their fate-
D's attitude about these calendars is one of hmmm... interesting enough. But do they run on Linux? ;) I want to keep them around as "family history", guilt trip our kids into keeping them when we're old and gray. You hear so many stories about life in the USSR: lines for meat! no toilet paper! Ukrainian was forbidden! But here are these tiny little cards with реклама, advertisement and безплатно, free printed on the back, tiny little pieces of normality. Or perhaps the normality was just a реклама tactic? Anyways, it's an interesting look at the world his parents spent most of their lives in.

For further reading: A History of Pocket Calendars of the USSR, The Ukrainian Pocket Calendar, The Modern Pocket Calendars of Russia.