Why buttons and other secrets of the Soviet household service were cut off in dry cleaning in the USSR

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The sphere of consumer services in the USSR was a separate branch of the national economy. The country cared about the everyday needs of citizens no less than about the notorious cultural education. At some point, Households were built in cities with the same activity as cinemas with palaces of culture. To clean clothes, sew a suit according to an individual pattern, get a haircut, print a photo for documents or make a duplicate of keys - a Soviet citizen coped with any of these tasks in a matter of hours within the same building.

Growing prosperity in the country and new needs

With the post-war growth in the welfare and cultural level of the working people, the needs began to grow. Household appliances were produced in the country, cars became more affordable, so the structure of consumer services needed to be adjusted. The authorities realized that consumer services could save workers' time by making housework easier. And this means - to free up resources, ensuring a more rational use of the time of the builders of socialism. A separate strategic line dealt specifically with women who actively took up social work. The reorganization of the housewife's life, provided that her household chores were alleviated, contributed to the strengthening of the role of the toiler in the general cause of increasing productivity.

By the end of the 1950s, the new way of life had by itself determined the main directions of the sphere of everyday life. Now the Soviet citizen could use the services of the bath and laundry complex, the ateliers offered tailoring of clothes to individual orders, the points of photography services, shoe repair, household appliances and watches were widely spread. Of course, the Soviet Union did not invent something fundamentally new, because there were laundries, hairdressing salons and shoe shops in pre-revolutionary times. True, then these were private shops. The novelty was that the consumer service strategy was brought to the state level in the form of a national ideological project.

Ministry of Life and the essence of the national project

In the early 60s, the notorious Households of Life began to appear across the country. The premises for them were taken into account even at the design stage of housing construction. It was forbidden to use households occupied by enterprises for any other purpose, not to mention confiscation. New residential complexes have incorporated a wide range of services within the same building: laundry, dry cleaning, atelier, hairdresser, shoe repair, clothing, household appliances, pawnshop, rental, etc. Such a convenient approach and accessibility, at least for city dwellers, quickly made household homes in demand. In 1965, in the USSR, in order to improve the level of consumer services for the population, special republican ministries (MBON or Ministry of Life) began to be created. All service enterprises were subordinated to them. Centralization brought funding and service management to a whole new level of quality.

The household service was centrally supplied with special technological equipment. More than 130 factories throughout the Soviet Union were engaged in the manufacture of machines, mechanisms and tools for consumer service establishments. There were even separate technological institutes and specialized technical schools that produced personnel for the system of consumer services. By 1970, vocational schools were specially created to train workers of mass professions in household services.

Mobile workshops and mobile hairdressing salons

With the expansion of the consumer services system, a "socio-geographical" injustice loomed in terms of service to the inhabitants of villages and small towns. In some settlements, it turned out to be unprofitable to build Households. And there were also residential areas, devoid of even an elementary professional hairdressing salon. If a collective farmer needed to repair his boots and watches, he was forced to go to the nearest regional center. The Ministry of Households put this problem for consideration, deciding to test the pre-war practice of movie propellers. Then "the most important of the arts" was delivered to the Russian wilderness on specially equipped lorries. Special equipment transported a portable screen, a movie projector, a gasoline electric generator.

Mobile household workshops, equipped with a hairdressing salon and a shoe workshop, went to Soviet villages. The Tartu Automobile Repair Plant of the Estonian SSR became a pioneer in the production of suitable equipment. The successful operational experience of such machines throughout the Union partially resolved the issue. The scope of application of such service and domestic buses and the geography of their production were gradually expanding. But with the development of the consumer service, such vehicles increasingly acted as a mobile receiving point, where it was possible to issue an application or organize the delivery of citizens' property in need of repair to service institutions. In the 1980s, UAZ and IZH-2715 transported linen from suburban collection points to laundries, faulty equipment for repair, and then returned to the owners to the collection points.

Dry cleaners, auto repair shops, cookery

A large domestic sector of everyday life was public catering, in particular, cooking. The sale of semi-finished products and ready-made food was a generous state measure to facilitate civil life. The USSR also thought about car enthusiasts, opening a network of car repair shops for them. True, in the country, boys were taught this from childhood at school and in circles, and then at DOSAAF. But in any case, there was an opportunity to shift the care of your favorite car to a professional.

Soviet dry cleaners deserved special attention. Today, critics of the Soviet behind the scenes like to remember the cut buttons on clothes when they check in for service. By the way, this fact took place, since the fittings could break in massive washing machines, tarnish or melt. The receptionists of dry cleaners most often determined the nature of the contamination by eye. There was even a service: removing stains in the presence of the customer. Specially trained stain removers used hydrogen peroxide, potassium thiocyanate, hydrochloric acid to remove even the most stubborn stains.

If you are interested in the history of the USSR, read our article about why former seminarian Joseph Stalin tried to eradicate religion in the Soviet Union.