This is 5th in a series of posts sharing the photos my grandfather took in 1969 on a business trip to Moscow. For full context, read the start of part 1.
This post includes photos of buses, trams, subways, and boats.
Locomotion
Across the “street” in the center is the historic 1903 Hotel National, which was used as the First House of Soviets. The Alexander Gardens are behind us.
The Intourist Hotel, in the background, was destroyed in 2002 and is now a Ritz Carlton. While searching for information I discovered that conspiracy theorists in America think that Bill Clinton visited KGB prostitutes at the Intourist Hotel a few months later in 1969. I’ll need to read more about that, it will be entertaining. Entertaining because you can clearly see that the Intourist Hotel is under construction here, and opened in 1970.
User comments:
– Amazing how few autos there were in Moscow back then. Things have really changed, now they have some of the world’s worst traffic jams.
– The bus on the left is PAZ, Pavlovsky Auto Zavod(plant). The white car in front of it is Volga made by GAZ, Gorkovsky Auto Zavod. The green bus is LiAZ. I think, Lihachevsky Auto Zavod.
– There were very few cars back then. I think this Volga design is “stolen” from America. It looks like old Chevys. USSR or Russia could never make a good car. Italians came to the USSR and built a plant in Tolliaty (near Volgograd) in 1972, I think. First two years they made good cars. I remember like my dad looked fpr 1973 or 1974 made Zhiguli. And then everything turned in to a Soviet made crap. The plant is on the gov subsidies to keep people working.
– These photos are wonderful, they are like a window to a vanished world. Volgas in the USSR, Trabants in the DDR. Which were worse? 8~) Fiat was probably the first western manufacturer to set up “partnerships” to build cars in the Eastern Block. Remember the YUGO?
– LiAZ not Lihachevsky Auto Zavod. Zavod Likhacheva is ZiL. LiAZ is Likinsky Avtobusniy Zavod (Likino Autobus Plant) in small city Likino-Dulevo in Moscow region. Now almost all the buses in Moscow is LiAZ. Togliatti near Samara, not Volgograd. Trabant is worse than Volga)))
– And the blue one with the stripes next to the green one is a LAZ, my 50 cents in it.
– fantastic catching the construction of the Intourist, stayed there many a time, it was getting pretty expensive by the year 2000 but still quite sad to see it go, the dark and gloomy interior was a classic.
Thanks to Flickr user Anton Ere for telling me where this photo was taken.
User comments:
– The Kremlin is to the left of the camera, on the right you see a corner of Manezh
– Mokhovaya 7.
– This is such a cool series of photos (your grandfather’s USSR slides)… keep ’em coming, and thanks!
– This is wonderful. Thank you for posting these.
Moscow tram (streetcar) on the 28 line from M. Sokol to Pr-t Marshala Zhukova. These ran in two-car trainsets from the suburbs, manufactured by KM. Thanks to Flickr user dasistich for pinpointing the location.
User comments:
– Looks like the building on the right might say Почта (pochta, post/mail—maybe a post office?), with the house number 80. The second word would probably help, but I can’t figure it out. This site has old tramway maps, including one from ’69, that might help narrow the possible streets down. And Google doesn’t have street view for Moscow, but supposedly Yandex does for some streets in the city. You probably already knew all that, but I figured I’d mention it just in case. Sadly my lack of familiarity with Moscow (and Cyrillic) has me pretty lost beyond that.
– I don’t know where this is; I’ve been in Moscow just once. But did you know that the first car of the streetcar was first class and obviously the second car was second class. You payed less for traveling in the second class car?
– (link to map) Hardly recognizable?)))
– Kind of. Russian speaking LJ blog for photos of Russia in a soviet period. The funny thing is that all good quality non official photos of that time are made by outlanders basicly)) AND thank you and your grandfather for taking and posting these pictures!!
– Oh, I live very near… :))
– 1st class and second class tramway cars? I don’t think so, at least not in Moscow and not in 1969. Where did you get this information?
– Old woody trams near Stroganovka. Volokolamskoe, 13. (agrees with location)
– No, not a 2nd-class car. Just an unpowered trailer hitched onto the back of the streetcar. Toronto did the same thing for many decades (and probably other cities, too.) It doubled the capacity during rush hours without having to buy extra, more expensive motors.
– Volokolamskaya, 9 – Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry
– the stop now is called Pekhotnaya str.
– I live where this tram works. Happy to see it from past.
Mezzanine streaming with people in the Moscow metro.
User comments:
– Moscow subway is a piece of art! I loved all the stations I traveled through in 1984.
– It’s Kurskaya-Koltsevaya station
– Rob, These are beautiful rare photos and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Your grandfather sounds a very interesting man from what I can see of the pictures. Many thanks again.
Thanks to Flickr user Mickail (Vokabre) Shcherbakov for station identification.
User comments:
– It’s Kurskaya-Koltsevaya station and the “G” (“Г”) train, while the photo in the comments belongs to Arbatskaya station of Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line.
– Cool shot!
In the Moscow metro. Crowds of people head to the next subway train.
User comments:
– By the columns and details I can say that his is one of the old stations. One could search for Moscow subway map and see how comlexed the system is. It’s like an undergorund city.
– Oh, how many elbows I got into my ribs trying to walk through that crowd! No joke!
– Nice capture! It was forbidden to take photos in the underground, lucky he wasn’t caught by the police.
– When I travelled in the USSR it was said that public transportations like the subways, railways and bridges etc where forbidden. I had some trouble myself whith the police after taking photos in a subway station in Baku. Anyway, post more I love old Soviet photos!
– Interesting. I am from Baku. 🙂
– It was in 1984. I took photos and the lady whith a red hat (every station had one) stopped me. I got irritaded and said: эта система. When we came up to the street the police met us. They checked our passports and it was not to bad after all.
– 1984, I was there. 🙂 эта система is never good. Right now our (USA) government is telling us what ligh bulbs, shower head or toilets to use.
– It’s Komsomolskaya-koltsevaya station opened in 1952. The photo is taken from the stairs that leads to Leningradsky Rail Terminal, and as far as I can see there’s a “G” (“Г”) train at the platform. It’s nice to see that the station hasn’t changed a lot since that time.
– photo and video shooting is prohibited in the Baku metro because it is a strategic object like all subways of the former USSR for example for a long time photo and video shooting was prohibited in the Tashkent metro police officers stopped filming in the subway at the root and on June 1, 2018 the leadership of uzbekistan began to develop tourism and on June 1, 2018, the ban on photo and video shooting in the Tashkent metro was lifted now guests and residents of Tashkent can safely take photos in the subway because it is the most beautiful and can compete with the metro in Moscow and St. Petersburg by the way in the Peterburg metro for a long time it was forbidden to take photos and video shooting without the written management of the metro and the permission to shoot was 10,000 rubles the ban on photographing was from 1992-2009 in the St. petersburg metro it was removed by the governor of st. petersburg valentina matvienko and in 2012 the ban on photographing in the St. petersburg metro was restored by the new governor georgy poltavchenko stupidly and a month later was canceled in the St. petersburg metro amateur photography without flash and tripod is allowed and for this with using tripods and flashlights, the fine is 100 rubles
Komsomolskaya-koltsevaya, like another photo by my grandfather.
User comments:
– Komsomolskaya Ring station. nothing changes through the years
– wonderful shoots keep going i love to be in the past.
User comments:
– Buses are just awesome.
– Buses are so great! Very modern and stylish.
– воняли только жутко и шумели
– Зато окошки открывать можно, а это лучше кондиционера 🙂
– Остановка в лесу. Мужчины направо-женщины налево..
– We can assume that this shot is made on the way to the city of Dubna. That was filmed on the Dmitrov highway. Two tourist buses LAZ-699 belong to the garage of the company “Intourist”.
“Raketa” on the Volga River in Dubna.
User comments:
– Awesome boat, and photograph!
– Those boats are still in use. Come and see 🙂 I don’t know are they in Moscow or not, but in smaller cities they are used for bringing vacation house’s owners to their property during the weekend.
– In Moscow they don’t use!!)
– Boat is called Raketa – rocket – love the way the wheelhouse looks like a fastback car
– Still has a modern look!
– This is on the Volga river, in Dubna (128 km north from Moscow). Amazing.
Further reading
- Moscow 1969 Part 1, context and Red Square
- Moscow 1969 Part 2, Pioneer Palace and Novdevichy
- Moscow 1969 Part 3, Rossiya Hotel and Hotel Moscow
- Moscow 1969 Part 4, Bolshoi Theatre and Theatre Square
- Moscow 1969 Part 6, space museum
- Moscow 1969 Part 7, VDNKh and Archangelskoe
- Moscow 1969 Part 8, Kremlin
- Moscow 1969 Part 9, Moscow River
- Moscow 1969 Part 10, Kotelnicheskaya and MGU
- Moscow 1969 Part 11, Dubna and Moscow buildings
- Moscow 1969 Part 12, Lermontov and street vendors
- Sweden’s Atomic energy, 1960s photos and pamphlets
- And, until I cancel my Flickr account, here’s a link to photos by my grandfather from other cities around the world.