The attitude of contemporaries to the interior of the Soviet times cannot be called unequivocal. There are apartments with sideboards, chairs, floor lamps from the period of the USSR. In some they cause rejection, in others warm nostalgic feelings.
No matter how you rate the Soviet interior - it is a massive, multifaceted past. His aesthetics are necessary for the correct judgment of the present just as the current buildings and design will be evaluated in fifty years, with the same inevitable criticism, the desire to put all the attributes in the trash or delight, the desire to preserve, restore or at least stylize ...
History and features of the Soviet interior
At the dawn of the Soviet government profession designer did not exist. The architects of the time were under the pressure of dogmas and schemes, and the concept of design was painted in two colors: capitalist and socialist. To the first was absolutely negative attitude.
Even adopting the western style, proportions and forms, they were adapted to the revolutionary culture of those years, which made the interiors not shine with aesthetics, were somewhat clumsy, the main requirement for space and decor was functionality and cleanliness. The main attention of "artistic designers" was directed to the technical modernization of products, aesthetic discoveries came later.
By the 60s-80s developed a system of design organizations that promote the promotion and development of this sphere, which later became a powerful competitive school among others in world culture.
The interior of the first decades of the union
After the revolution, the "bourgeois" nests were settled, idlers and White Guards "compacted", halls, dining rooms, living rooms were abolished in Soviet communal apartments. The new authorities left the offices only to those who needed them to work - doctors, professors, responsible party workers.
Aristocratic parquet floors, gilded frames, carved chairs side by side with rustic walkways and stools. New owners quickly made unsuitable sewers and plumbing. The front door had a lot of buttons with last names, toilet walls decorated toilet seats, according to the number of living families. Shared kitchen was cleaned on schedule. Each of the tenants had their own notions of cleanliness, so the common areas were full of insects, fungus, and the notorious housing problem began to gain momentum just then.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, design and architecture are subject to constructivism, which dictates revolutionary restraint, extreme rationality, practicality in geometry and colors, but the wealth and tumult of the inner world.
Interior 40s
Wartime did not allow the population of the country to think about the style of their home. Many were happy to bed in a barrack, in the liberated territories whole families lived in rooms with a minimum of home-made furniture, and sometimes just in dugouts. Those who returned from evacuation or from the front by the middle of the decade did not always find their apartments free, most of the families lived in communal apartments.
There were no special delicacies; the decoration of the rooms consisted of metal beds on the grid, a turnkey wardrobe, a bookcase, book shelves, a round table covered with a tablecloth, a sideboard for dishes. The room was decorated with a leather sofa with a shelf, a mirror, a desk lamp recognizable by the films on a massive table, with a green shade.
Fashionable textiles of the time - lace napkins on all horizontal surfaces, rugs with deer on the wall by the bed, tulle on the windows.
The interior of selected houses was supplemented with trophy furniture, painting, and bronze. The subject of luxury was painted ceramics, crystal, carpets. In many houses, the "Stalin Empire" was traced in stucco, impressive oak furniture, decorated with carved details.
Interior 50-60-ies
Propaganda of traditional Soviet values acted not only in literature and painting. The ambitions and imperial scope of the country's leadership since the 1950s are reflected in the neoclassicism style houses built on the main streets, with thick walls, high ceilings, and sturdy materials. Constructions similar to Moscow's skyscrapers, with all communications, spacious rooms, including for servants, can be found in many cities.
Interior solutions for apartments depended on the status of the owners. On the floor - parquet or board, walls with wallpaper, on the ceiling - lampshade or chandelier with tiers, depending on the family income. In some families, in addition to the gramophone, appeared television, which came to watch all the neighbors. Tea with dryers drank at the samovar, while only the elect was available telephone.
The beginning of the 60s - the era of individual housing. Tiny typical apartments are gradually filled with color, ethnic, hippies and modernism are in vogue. Tube radios and radio sets appear, the television becomes the center of evening attraction.
One room combined the functions of a bedroom, living room and dining room, furniture, respectively, was a sofa during the day, a bed at night, a closet or sideboard acted as a space delimiter. Headsets that were made of wood and plywood appeared in the interiors, high legs gave them ease, collections of glass and crystal ware were displayed behind glass facades. Folding tables, kitchen furniture were popular. Chairs on wooden frames had a somewhat ascetic appearance, but in terms of quality they were not inferior to their foreign counterparts.
Interior 70s
A typical apartment of the 70s - Brezhnevka, a more perfect version of Khrushchev, where the living room was equipped with a sofa with a pair of chairs, a coffee table, a sideboard gave way to a wall. Imported headsets and carpets were chased, overcoming months of queues, sets of crystal became a source of pride, parties were accompanied by accompaniment from a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Apartment repair the vast majority of citizens did their own hands. Designers worked except on furniture or decorative art. The interior of a single dwelling was completely on the owner’s conscience, it was equipped in accordance with its tastes and possibilities.
Revenues were significantly higher in demand, which explains the widespread shortage of everything: food, clothing, furniture. Far from the poverty of the Soviet people was the cause of their modest life.
Color spectrum
A distinctive feature of Soviet design was that it served mainly industrial, public sphere. It is worth remembering the metropolitan, the situation of houses of culture or government buildings. Typical apartments of ordinary citizens differed ordinary whitewash with a pale color palette.
Often the “panels” (part of the wall approximately up to shoulder level) were painted in depressing green or blue color. The floor was traditionally brown, with shades of red or red, the ceiling was white, interior doors, radiators and window frames were covered with white oil paint from the inside.
Those wishing to make their homes more comfortable, individual were cleverly "pulled out" of modern bright fabrics for the decoration of window openings, self-sewing tablecloths, covers for sofa cushions. In the absence of high-quality wallpaper, they made a "jolly" whitewash using stencils and improvised dyes. Neighbors could suggest how to paint the ceiling or walls with a vacuum cleaner "water emulsion", which was shaded blue or green paint. It turned out very practical beauty.
Carpets in the interior of Soviet apartments
Carpets helped make family life more autonomous. At first they were painted, with plush deer and cats looking from the walls. In richer Brezhnev times, patterned woolen carpets were hung on the walls, covering the floor with them even under furniture. This item was an indicator of wealth, was known as a good gift to the newlyweds, was inherited.
Products from Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia of a reddish-brown scale were in special demand. Although, when buying, no one really hurt, they bought what they had "thrown out" at the moment. On weekends, courtyards were announced with characteristic sounds: the owners got rid of the dust with the help of beaters. In winter, they were waiting for snowfall in order to make a cardinal cleaning. The reverse side of the carpet hanging on the wall was rubbed with fragrant moth soap, which appreciated naturalness, but was an enemy of longevity.
Furniture Features
There is no need to talk about “such and such” style in relation to Soviet apartments. They were furnished with what is necessary. Especially in the kitchens, it was often possible to come across objects that were still pre-revolutionary. Heavy cabinets, cupboards massively moved into the garbage with the onset of the era of small apartments.
The first decades of the Soviet government are not marked by a special presentable interiors. There were ornate old-regime items, painted artel stools, home-made tables and bookshelves. They had all this variety around the perimeter of the rooms, the table - in the center.
The Soviet rich house was furnished with objects from the veneered array in the spirit of art deco. Typical "square" furniture of small-sized apartments became multifunctional, it contained a wardrobe for linen, dishes and books, a chest of drawers, a secretary. Special chic - polished sideboards with front sets of services and crystal. One of the walls, or at least part of it, was decorated with volumes of complete collected works, a piano. The necessary attribute was a pierum, a clock on the wall, photographs behind the glass "walls".
Design of a modern Soviet-style apartment
Now not everyone wants to get rid of the "ancient" bookcase or cupboard. After minor repairs, these items again become worthy elements of the interior. Uncomplicated forms are again in trend, and the surviving elements of the Soviet decor increase the value of the apartment. Even convinced minimalists leave stucco on the ceiling, it will play its role as a retro accent, and Soviet lamps will become the most fashionable art objects.
Repeat the Soviet style in all the details of a modern apartment should not. The simplicity and brevity of the situation will reflect several characteristic elements. Otherwise, the rooms will breathe museum, and not comfort.
Hall
If the floor is parquet "herringbone", let it even faded or cracked in places, it can be restored. The scraping will be much cheaper than the new coating. The walls are plastered with characteristic wallpaper of that time.
Fashionable upholstery of the old chair will transform it beyond recognition, will emphasize the family continuity. Such things are very well combined with modern furniture. A lacy tablecloth is whitened, and laconic modern dishes are placed on it.
In a dynamic eclectic interior, an extraordinary art deco or a new classic, the accent will be a vintage carpet, no "Ikea" will give the house so much energy. Grandma's thing will emphasize the country Scandinavian style, soften the interior of the urban loft.
Complete the style of rare porcelain figurines, a tea set of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory.
Bedroom
A good background for vintage furniture is a wall cleaned to the bricks and covered with a special varnish, with a collage of family photos, modern posters, and a mirror from my grandmother’s collection.
On the dresser and bedside tables update the lacquer layer or paint them, the handles on the drawers and doors are changed to new ones. The old wall is transformed into a wardrobe, removing the extra shelves, replacing the doors, and building hangers. A bedspread with an ornament is thrown onto the bed.
From the Soviet carpet, you can imagine a kind of podium that will look out from under the bed. Motley sliced squares from the same carpet will fulfill the role of a cape for a chair, a chair.
Kitchen
Vintage elements are most relevant in the kitchen, where thanks to them home comfort appears. An easy way to change old furniture, home appliances - repaint them in bright colors. The main thing is to make sure that the paint lay flat.
Wooden Soviet chairs fit into the interior by painting them in rich colors. They look good in the entourage of the kitchen, if there are several.
The old sideboard or wall element is completely transformed by replacing the lacquered facades with painted or plastered with a special film, colored wallpaper, decorated with decoupage.
Shabby wooden stools paste over or paint with imitation of patchwork technique.
Hall / corridor
The mezzanines from the old wall are turned into a stool with drawers for shoes. Thematic agitation posters, statuettes from the grandmother’s collection somewhere near the mirror, a large ficus, and a teschina language in the tub will support the style.
In the free corner put a stylized hanger with horns, and at its foot - a suitcase with memorable stickers from the times of the USSR. If the dimensions of the hallway allow, they organize a kind of museum here, occupying walls with pennants and portraits of the leaders, and a free shelf - with cups reminiscent of past sports records.
Bathroom
An obligatory attribute of a retro-bathroom will be an oval font with legs. Of course, no acrylic, and copper or brass, with a stationary watering can.
Cute and neat in this style of small size square tile that surrounds only the area where there is contact with water. Tile-free walls are covered with wallpaper or imitate clinker masonry, plumbing is artificially aged.
More residential and cozy this room will look with a voluminous ceiling chandelier; authenticity will be added by using a mirror in a simple wooden frame, bright textiles, and antiques.
Conclusion
The Soviet space was rather closed, which affected the aesthetics of all cultural trends. But global ideas still penetrated to the artists, in tandem with their talents received a new development. The USSR produced good furniture, dishes, and ceramics. Many models can be recognized as works of art, their ergonomics was very thoughtful.
Modern interiors with unexpected antique details work in the spirit of retro-futurism, are aimed at the future, but at the same time are cute quotes from the past. They breathe easily, live comfortably thanks to a combination of new trends and elements of the old.
The Soviet interior will be of interest to those who are nostalgic for the past or do not want to use serious financial resources, furnishing an apartment.
This style distinguishes any room from everyday life, fills the specific spirit of the country, a particular family.
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