Video: What was shown in the first Soviet video salons and why they were so popular
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
On April 7, 1986, by order of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, the widespread opening of video halls and videotape rental offices was allowed and even prescribed. This was a forced response by the government to the phenomenon that took over the country: VCRs and cassettes with foreign films appeared in the vastness of the Soviet Union. Through this crack in the "Iron Curtain", after a long break, the people were able to see the mysterious and alluring world of Western cinema without cuts.
In the United States, VCRs went on the mass market in 1971. With a slight delay of ten years, this miracle of technology reached the USSR. The first copies were brought by "traveling" citizens, and in terms of importance such a purchase could compete with a car. In the 1980s, foreign video equipment began to be sold in the Soviet Union legally in closed Berezka stores - for currency and checks. After that, it could already be found in thrift stores, albeit at completely unrealistic prices - a Japanese “Panasonic” could cost about three thousand rubles (about the same amount a person earned in a year). But the obviously overpriced "Vidiks" did not frighten the people. The situation in those years was brilliantly described by Mikhail Zhvanetsky:.
Fully in accordance with this principle, according to the results of a 1983 poll, 40% of Soviet citizens wanted to buy a VCR. The state responded to the increased demand. By 1984, the release was launched and the sale of the domestic brand of miracle technology - "Electronics" VM 12 began. The product immediately became scarce. It was delivered to large cities in limited quantities, for which huge queues lined up. In those days in the newspapers one could find an advertisement for an exchange - a car for a VCR. Little by little, but steadily, video tape recorders won the hearts of the unspoiled Soviet viewer. The lucky ones who had a "Vidac" at home immediately became significant people in society, because not only relatives and neighbors, but also often unfamiliar people who were considered quite appropriate to invite "to the video" gathered to see them.
At the same time we watched everything that came across - low-quality action films mixed with world classics, Disney cartoons and special copies - "films for adults". With the latter, however, they tried to observe decency - of course, children were not allowed to such "sessions", and even men's and women's companies were sometimes separated so as not to embarrass each other. Until now, adults and very successful people admit that some old films know literally by heart - just in childhood, those few pictures that the personal video library was rich in, they looked "to the holes" - so that they could then repeat the tricks for Bruce Lee, and to issue dialogues "word for word" (in some cases - even in the original language, if the cassette was brought untranslated).
The translation of those first films became a special page in the history of our country. The characteristic nasal male voice, which spoke for both heroes and beauties, is still remembered by everyone. The most famous translator "with a clothespin on his nose" was Leonid Veniaminovich Volodarsky. According to his own statements, he translated films simultaneously, the first time. There are two versions of the “special” voice. According to the first, he changed the timbre on purpose so that he could not be "identified and attracted" for illegal activities, and according to the second, the famous translator and voice actor simply had a double nose fracture (the result of an accident and a fight). One way or another, but in 30 years, Volodarsky has translated more than 5000 paintings. And, by the way, his translations are still remembered, and some connoisseurs even love and specifically seek. Despite all the quality deficiencies, many find the translation itself very successful - rather “sharp” and “humorous”. Particularly memorable phrases, which the translator used to replace American curses, today may cause bewilderment, but it cannot be denied that they were a real "sign of their time": "Fuck you! …", "Oh God!", "Holy shit" …
The first video salons were an ordinary room (in a school, a house of culture, housing office, vocational school, or even just in the basement). Several dozen chairs, blackout curtains on the windows, a VCR and a TV with a conventional screen. In the late 80s, such "centers of culture" began to emerge en masse in every city, even a small one. There were also original options: a railway carriage (in St. Petersburg, on the outskirts of the Finland Station and in Kislovodsk on a dead-end branch), a 1960s aircraft (in the Victory Park of Stavropol), buses (in Baku), a trolley bus (in Kharkov), decommissioned river " rockets ". In some places, there were even mobile video salons, which were located right in the truckers' vans.
There were video salons and official ones. The first one in Moscow was opened in the building of the former cinema "Ars" on Arbat, at building No. 51, and bore the unpretentious name "Arbat". After them, a little later, instead of spontaneous places of exchange of videotapes, the first video distributions appeared. The era of Vidiks was short-lived, but bright and memorable.
To plunge into the era of the first video salons and restructuring will help nostalgic collection of photographs taken in the USSR in 1985.
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