What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Categories: History

Politsvet pencils, metal rulers and protractors, wooden pencil cases and the famous Kohinor pencils - let's remember together what Soviet schoolchildren used in drawing lessons, geometry and other subjects.

Go to any stationery store — what's not there! But remember how things were with school supplies in Soviet times? What did our parents or ourselves write and draw? Today we will take a nostalgic journey through the world of school supplies that every child had.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Automatic pencils with replaceable pencils, but not thin, as it is now, quite common. Some schoolchildren even extracted pencils for them from ordinary pencils split in half.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

A cheap plastic pencil case-a case for pens or pencils, which opened with a ringing sound of "bang".

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

And in this wooden pencil case there was also an eraser with a small ruler.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Although with the help of a cover made of thin plastic (which was also pasted over the desks), it was possible to draw straight lines if there was no ruler at hand.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

An automatic pen is a luxury that not every schoolboy had. A special short rod with small "ears" was made for it, which, if it was necessary to insert it into an ordinary handle, was lengthened with a match.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Usually they used simpler non-automatic handles, which could also be gnawed.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

They stopped using ink back in the 70s, but they continued to use ink and ink for drawing posters and for other artistic purposes much longer. Not everyone had special self-leveling pens that wrote with ink.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

The erasers were of poor quality and could leave sloppy spots or even holes on the paper. To make the gum soft, the heroine of the movie "The most charming and attractive" advised soaking it in kerosene.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Legendary Czech-made Kohinor pencils were valued much more than domestic ones, as, in fact, all the products of this manufacturer, such as erasers, which are also mentioned in "The Most charming and Attractive".

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Another variant of the school "capacity" for stationery is a multifunctional cartridge case made of oilcloth, which eventually aged and cracked.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Mandatory accessories for geometry lessons, as well as boys' wars at recess.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

The biggest mystery for schoolchildren is the "adult" slide rule. The average seventh grader could only guess how this Soviet "computer" functions.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Colored plastic paper clips were valued much more than ordinary metal ones, although they were inferior in functionality. And buttons and paper clips were also used as ammunition in school showdowns.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

The tactical ruler was much loved by Soviet schoolchildren, who were happy to draw all kinds of figures with its help, emphasized the subject and predicate and drew curly brackets in math lessons. And it also turned out to be an excellent "smoke box" — small pieces of the ruler smoldered for a long time, giving out a huge amount of white acrid smoke.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

A set for drawing lessons is a plywood box-stand, where a sheet of paper was attached with special buttons, an assortment of rulers and pencils with different degrees of hardness.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Two variants of counting "machines" are old-school wooden abacus and "Electronics MK-33". It was very prestigious to have such a calculator.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

A wide range of product lines. At the top there are patterns for drawing complex geometric shapes, which few people have used.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Such scissors with a green handle were probably in every house.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

The stencil is a schoolboy's dream of the 1980s.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

With his help, they drew wall newspapers, ads and much more.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

The Soviet waste paper "flash drive— is a stationery folder that migrated to the school from Soviet offices. Smaller folders were used exclusively for the diary and notebooks.

What were the school supplies in the Soviet Union

Such a ready-made room was expensive and was worth its weight in gold. Less high-quality cheap models were also sold in plastic boxes, which most schoolchildren had.

Keywords: Stationery | Nostalgia | USSR | School | Schoolchildren

Post News Article

Recent articles

Cute kittens made of felt from the needlewoman Elizabeth Delektorskaya
Cute kittens made of felt from the needlewoman Elizabeth ...

Elizaveta Delektorskaya, an artist from Severodvinsk, creates charming felt seals. All works are made in a special felting ...

Close-up animal portraits
Close-up animal portraits

Photographer Brad Wilson gets close to his models. Very close. Unsurprisingly, his new project is called Proximity. This is a ...

Mr. Bean starred in almost all the films, there is evidence
Mr. Bean starred in almost all the films, there is evidence

Mr. Bean is perhaps one of the funniest characters in the history of television and cinema. The hero performed by the British ...

Related articles

The story of the first Soviet Robinson by Pavel Vavilov
The story of the first Soviet Robinson by Pavel Vavilov

There are many stories when a person found himself on a desert island after a shipwreck or by someone else's will. But the case ...

Zelenka and plantain all diseases: all about home medicine in the USSR
Zelenka and plantain all diseases: all about home medicine in ...

Modern children often get sick – colds, allergies, and so on. Although in our childhood everything was the same. When we noticed ...

What the Moscow Metro looked like in 1935
What the Moscow Metro looked like in 1935

The first line of the Moscow Metro opened on May 15, 1935 and ran from Sokolniki station to Park Kultury station. Since then, 14 ...