Figure 1.-- The Soviet Union put Sputnik in orrbit, unleasing the Space Race. Sone stange things like tail fins appeared ion cars and all linds of soace ointed toys appeared. Here in 1962 we see a peddle car with spoace age stykling. Baed on mother the kady's stylish dress, this was not a kind of toy the avaerage Soviet kid at the time. We suspect the family was well placed in Soviet society. We are mot sure if the building in the background was a home. It is intereying that the peddle car is on rough ground. Ckick okn the image to see the transdkation on the back. :etvus know if toubcan translate it.

The same reason that there are relatively few Russian snapshots means that that Russian children had relatively few toys and we have very few images of the toys that they did have. The generally low incomes did not permit parents to purchase toys to the same degree as the West. Nor were toys during the Soviet period available in the same quality or quantity as in the West. we see some ikproivement after World War II in the 1950s and 60s. But the what the Soviets called the Era of Stagnation (Период застоя). It is a term created by Mikhail Gorbachev to describe the failure of the Soviet ecomomy to grow and create affluernt life styles for the Soviet peopole. Soviet leaders refused to make meaninful reforms (meaning capitalism) that would allow the Soviet peopole to live the kind of lives common in the West. (China has since showe what capitalist reforms could have done for the Soviet economy.) This affected Soviet childhood and the kinds of toys they polayed with. Few Soviet children has peddlecars and bikes, for example like Western children. Since the fall of Communism, Russia has increasingly participated in general European trends. This is especially the case of the prosperous sector of the major cities. Russian incomes have risen, but Russia has continued, however, to be a realtively poor country compared to Western Europe. Russia's economy tiday is almost entirely based on the export of raw materails, especially oil and gas--an anomoly for a major country. This is especially the case for a major industrial country. As a result, income and consumption levels are below the more prosperous European countries which of couese affects toys the children play with. All this relates to how extremely wasteful the Soviet Union was in the use of metal and other natural resources--largely because of the absence of the profit mechanism. There was no incentive to effiently use resources. The value of the output of many facrories was less than the value of the inputs that went into the factories.

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Created: 9:27 PM 11/28/2021
Last updated: 9:27 PM 11/28/2021