I wonder if there was anything in the USSR that was not prohibited? In any case, these photographs were certainly considered forbidden.
There are nudes.

1. His photos of Russians in swimsuits are presented at the exhibition “Ostalgie”, which will take place behind the Iron Curtain and in the countries that emerged from behind it after 1989. The exhibition is currently on view at the New Museum in New York. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

2. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

3. In the 1970s, when Nikolai Bakharev began taking his amazing portraits of Russians in swimsuits, it was against the rules to distribute any nude photos. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

4. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

5. And, of course, taking such photographs or selling them, which is what Bakharev did, was illegal, since it was considered private enterprise. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

6. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

7. Even the process of exposure itself was strictly controlled. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

8. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

9. “The beach was the only place where people could take their clothes off without provoking a negative reaction in society,” says Bakharev. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

10. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

11. Bakharev's photographs immediately became incredibly interesting, because they should not even exist. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

12. (Courtesy of Nikolay Bakharev and Gallery.Photographer.ru, Moscow)

Talking about how wonderful it was in those years, they show staged photographs from the Pravda newspaper and retouched pictures from the Book of Tasty and Healthy Food - they say, that’s exactly how it was. This is somewhat reminiscent of the situation with the film “Kuban Cossacks” - after its screening, many rushed to Kuban, expecting to see fields with ears of corn and full barns there, but what they saw was hunger and poverty. And all because you need to distinguish between reality and propaganda.

In today's post I have collected an interesting photo selection of real life in the USSR. These photographs were not published in the editorial pages of Pravda; most of these photographs were taken with household cameras by Soviet citizens themselves. For most of these photographs, photographers could have problems - during all the years of its existence, the Soviet government was very afraid of the truth, calling such shots “these are temporary difficulties for us” or “this is a special staged denigration of the socialist way of life.”

So, today’s post contains a selection of photographs of real Soviet life banned in the USSR.

02. USSR fans often write that “your photos from 1985-1990 are no longer the USSR!” To listen to people like this, the “Great and Beautiful State” existed in a narrow time corridor from 1950 to 1965. Well, okay, I think it’s useless to argue here, it’s better to look at the photo. This is what the grocery department looked like in a small store in 1959. Personally, I can’t call it anything other than poverty and misery.

03. And this is the line for apples in 1965. This is a very good indicator of the standard of living in the USSR and the “product supply of citizens” - there are queues on the street in winter for some crappy apples.

04. Let's move on, 1972, even before the “damned perestroika, when the damned Gorbachev, to please the damned capitalists, destroyed the damned great country” (c). The photo shows the grocery department of the grocery store. Please note how a simple technique was used to achieve the feeling of “abundance of goods” - the shelves seem to be full, but if you look closely, there are only 2-3 types of canned food and 0.7 bottles with some kind of dark liquid - either stinking unrefined oil, or with some kind of (also smelly, but in a different way) alcohol.

05. Okay, what are we talking about the city, maybe people lived better in the villages? Let's see what the shops looked like in rural areas. In the photographs below - the so-called "general store" - this is the abbreviation for the shops of the rural consumer society. “We must organize Soviet trade without capitalists - small and large, trade without speculators - small and large,” he wrote in one of his works.

Trade was eventually organized “without capitalists,” and also without meat, fish, sweets, vegetables, fruits, dairy products and everything that should constitute a person’s normal daily diet. Most often in the general store you could only buy sour “brick” bread, salt, matches, candles, dog “laundry” soap, “Pamir” cigarettes and galvanized buckets, there was nothing else.

06. A photograph from 1980, also before the “damned perestroika”, those same blessed Brezhnev times that are so beloved by fans of the USSR - after all, it was then, as we know, .

In the photo there is a queue in the sausage department. Buyers (mostly elderly women of a life-beaten appearance) lined up for 1-2 types of sausage. Pay attention to how the trade itself goes - buyers don’t see the goods up close, the saleswoman cuts something off and puts it on the scales - “take it, take it, otherwise this won’t happen!”

07. That’s also very Good photo, which most certainly would not have been published in any Pravda until 1991, it shows the whole essence of Soviet trade. It’s difficult to say what exactly is being sold in this photo, but that’s not important, what’s more important is something else - pay attention to how exactly this happens. The goods are released through a small window, behind which there is a crowd of people, in which case the window can be quickly closed. This creates a feeling of “gracious access to a particularly valuable resource,” which in itself already very well shows the attitude towards people in the USSR.

The guy who buys presents the saleswoman with something very similar to work passes - and he shows two of them (probably for himself and for his wife). The product (whatever it was) was most likely sold only to employees of a specific enterprise, and no more than a certain a certain amount"in one hand", otherwise there would be no need to take a second pass with you.

08. Or here, also a very good shot. If this store had been ordered to film a Pravda photo, it would most likely have captured a smiling saleswoman against the background of the goods, but the real truth becomes visible only if you move a little further:

09. You may ask why only women are visible in the grocery department queues, what were the men doing at that time? The men had their own queues, for example the queue for alcohol, a photograph from the first half of the eighties:

10. Men could often be seen in queues at glass collection points:

11. Here is also a very revealing frame:

12. Or here. This was taken by an ordinary amateur photographer using some kind of household Vilia-auto. Do you think this photograph would have been published in any Soviet newspaper?

13. However, women also met in the “alcohol queues”. Yes, this is a photo from the USSR during the “fifth anti-alcohol campaign,” and not at all from the “dashing nineties.” In the photo are the same Soviet people who were born, raised and educated “in the blessed, well-fed Soviet times.”

14. Regulars of the Soviet pub. As you can see, they were often not at all similar to the image of the “Soviet man” promoted in the periodicals of those years.

15. The work of Soviet women who received “equality”. “In capitalist countries, a woman is just an object of capitalist exploitation by Western imperialism, and only in our great socialist state has a woman received the right to choose.” Choose, in short - you can dig with a shovel, or you can use a shuffle.

16. Soviet fast food. Of course, there were no harmful capitalist McDonald's, which use natural meat from chickens mercilessly exploited by capitalists, in the USSR, and therefore workers were forced to snack on milk and loaves, sitting at a bus stop and laying a newspaper on their knees.

17. Now let's go back to the shops. In the eighties, the situation with goods became worse and worse, and sellers were forced to use all sorts of tricks, for example, Soviet-style merchandising, or “how to lay out two types of canned food so that there is a feeling of abundance.”

18. But the shelves are already completely empty. Such photos began to be published in the press only after 1987, when the whole country was horrified by what was actually happening in the sphere of Soviet trade (and in other areas of life too). However, almost everyone already knew about it, they just didn’t talk about it out loud.

19. "Pioneer uniform".

20. Late eighties, street trading:

21. 1990, recent months existence of the USSR and the natural result of the “planned economy in the Soviet style” - empty shelves and new taxes.

In general, as you can see - real life in the USSR was completely different from how it was shown in periodicals those years, and only in the photographs of amateur photographers could one see how everything really was.

Would you like to return to such

London-based photographer Michael Hunevich traveled to North Korea and, of course, took a lot of photographs. However, according to local laws, most of them are considered prohibited. That is why these pictures are extremely interesting, because we can learn a little more about one of the most mysterious countries in the world.
The photographer was warned that he would be arrested if such photographs were found on him. Even the assigned guide told him not to take so many photographs.
Nevertheless, Michael Hunevich managed, with great difficulty, to remove the rarest footage from North Korea.

In Pyongyang, military personnel are everywhere, embodying power.

The difference between North Korea (left) and China is staggering.

The difference is especially noticeable at night.

When traveling to North Korea, you will need to fill out several of these forms.

The first photograph Michael Hunevich took in North Korea. Photography is prohibited from this train.

Koreans can only travel within the country with special permission.

Korean soldiers.

Arrival in Pyongyang. It even seemed to the photographer that it was no coincidence that these exquisitely dressed travelers were there: there were no more scheduled trains that day, only the one on which he arrived.

The group of people who arrived in the capital were assigned several guides who followed literally every step of the travelers - they even told them what time to go to bed and get up in the morning.

Brutal architecture of the capital of North Korea.

View from the Yangakdo Hotel, the second tallest skyscraper in Pyongyang.

The hotel elevator does not have a button for the 5th floor. It can only be reached by stairs.

Any communication between tourists and locals is suppressed in every possible way. Michael Hunevich said the waitresses at the restaurant were a little scared when they saw the group.

Kim Il Sung Square is the largest city square in the center of Pyongyang, opened in 1954. This is the area where you can take pictures. Even necessary.

The right to live in the capital is considered a privilege. Residents of Pyongyang wear special badges that cannot be purchased, only received.

You can only take full-length photographs of monuments.

A store for locals. It is also prohibited to photograph him. The guide assigned to the group of tourists, where there was a photographer, immediately took Michael Hunevich away as soon as he noticed him in the store.

You rarely see shocking photos on Facebook.

Such photographs become prohibited immediately after publication. However, photographs from the “it seemed” series are also sharply censored.

Here are just a few of them that the Facebook administration, for one reason or another, considered unacceptable and provocative.

Some photographs were misunderstood (for example, one body part was mistaken for another).

Some photographs were banned for other reasons that are not entirely clear.

Prohibited pictures

1. Facebook vs Photoshop

Facebook has decided to ban a photo in which a woman in a bikini was "cut" in half by Photoshop.

In the picture, half of her body is on one side, while the other separated half is nearby.

2. Kylie Minogue with a teddy bear

A simple case where an unintentional microphone misalignment caused a teddy bear to suddenly grow a new organ.

Facebook censorship quickly prevented such “disgrace.”

Internet censorship

3. Nursing mothers

Facebook has announced a real hunt for photographs depicting breastfeeding mothers.

But to censor a photograph in which a mother is simply holding her child...

However, such photography was indeed prohibited.

Read also:10 things prohibited on Amazon

4. Just wet elbows

Facebook made a mistake when it mistook elbows for women's breasts. After which a new optical illusion appeared on the Internet, which the whole world saw.

5. Scandalous elbows

Oh those elbows!

This awkward moment when the Facebook administration was embarrassed again. Take a close look at the “provocative” photo, it’s not breasts at all.

6. Soldier in hospital

Facebook has banned a photo of a soldier who lost limbs in battle. But later the ban on this photo was lifted.

7. Insulting village name

Residents of one of the Irish villages have won permission to indicate the name of their locality on Facebook.

For more than a year, Ann Marie Kennedy sought this right from the Facebook administration, which stubbornly blocked the name of her small place of residence.

The thing is that the name “effin” is a shortened version of the famous curse word, and in modern slang it means a not entirely beautiful word.

It is for this reason that Facebook censored every mention of this village in the information section on its server.

8. Nursing mothers

The image of the Virgin Mary feeding Jesus is not a problem even for the Vatican.

Then why does Facebook censor such pictures and simply delete them from the server?

Facebook ban

9. Michel Bachmann and the sausage incident

Facebook blocked a photo of Michelle Bachmann eating a hot dog.

The point is quite controversial...

10. Ban on advertising birds whose name is similar to a woman’s breasts

According to the Facebook administration, this ad contains obscene words. The thing is that the breed of this bird (gannet) English coincides with the slang name for female breasts.

Read also:Why you can’t take pictures of sleeping people and other prohibitions related to photography

11. Just a hug

And this is one of those cases when there is no good explanation why Facebook blocked and deleted the photo from its server.

12. The Fountain of Neptune in Bologna was considered too provocative for Facebook

A photograph of Italy's famous Fountain of Neptune (by Giovanni da Bologna) was banned on Facebook because "the bronze sculpture of the Roman god had visible genitals."

Writer Elisa Barbari published a photo of the statue of Neptune at the fountain in Bologna on her page “Stories, rarities and views of Bologna.”

The photo was immediately blocked by the site administration as being too revealing a photo.

This action was explained to Eliza herself as follows: “The use of the image was not approved because it violates Facebook’s advertising rules. Your post contains inappropriate sexual content. The photo is overly focused on certain parts of the body."

13. Fence vandals

Facebook also banned this completely harmless photo of boys peeing in their backyard.

14. Censorship of same-sex couples kissing

The censorship of kissing between same-sex couples is very strict.

15. Excess belly fat

Facebook heavily censored this photo as well, deeming it too revealing.

Yes, perhaps there is little that is pleasant in the photo, but to prohibit it from publication is already too much...

But the photo was instantly banned by the site administration.

16. Too revealing photo

Facebook has banned this photo, which depicts an African tribal woman as well as a white woman.

The reason is still the same: naked female breasts have no place on the vastness of a social network!