What replaced the Internet for Soviet citizens: Telephone chats, a magazine with life hacks and more

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

The Internet has become so firmly established in our lives that even those who started using it at a conscious age do not remember very firmly - what did we replace this source of knowledge and information with before. How did you find the right place, person, material for an essay or book, how did you communicate when it was impossible to meet? Everything was more complicated - but everything was.

Reference books and encyclopedias

Usually, only telephone directories are remembered - where one could recognize someone's home phone by their last name - and large encyclopedias in several volumes about everything in the world, but in fact, in the pre-Internet era, one could buy or find such publications on a variety of topics in the reading room: from popular medical or culinary reference books to very highly specialized ones related to any profession, hobby or science.

Of course, in small towns and even more so in villages, libraries did not have such an extensive stock of different books that it was easy to find information on the fauna of the tropics or a narrow technical field. This problem was solved in two ways: they deliberately made a day to go to a regional center or regional center, to a larger library, or they sent an analogue of a search query to some media: that is, they wrote a request to cover this issue in the next radio program or the next issue of the magazine.

Specialized magazines

Subscribing to thematic magazines in the USSR was very cheap, and many kept filing for years on a wide variety of topics. Not because it is pleasant to re-read about new items in the Soviet heavy industry - but as a replenishing directory, alas, without the ability to search for topics alphabetically, as in a book directory, but with constantly added relevant information.

Such files were collected not only at home, but also in libraries of various kinds of houses of culture. Subject magazines were easier to order than new encyclopedias, and the demand for them was very high. Especially for publications dedicated to this or that work by hand. I must say, they were wonderfully, accurately and clearly illustrated, which replaced the video sequence on YouTube for those thirsty for knowledge.

Radio and television

When a Soviet person desperately wanted to know what they ate in Ancient Rome or how the fate of the lover of Chekhov and Stanislavsky actress Marilyn Monroe, as well as a little enlightenment in the novelties of psychology, pedagogy and medicine, he wrote a letter on radio or television. There were several programs in which they were always ready to answer such questions or devote a separate episode on a topic that is of interest to the audience.

There was only one thing: it was important not to miss the program. It was difficult even to ask someone to record an episode on a cassette, so you sit in front of the apparatus with a pencil and a notebook and quickly write down everything you need in text, by hand.

Inquiry Office

The addresses and telephones of organizations, as well as citizens, if their last name, first name and patronymic were known, could be found in the city information bureau. They also gave the schedule of work of institutions, which did not differ in great variability: from nine to seventeen. But it was possible to find out which days were unacceptable. True, not in every city, more often it was necessary to call the number received at the information desk.

It was also possible to find out the numbers of institutions by calling the information line, but it did not work in all cities. There was one more telephone service, also not everywhere: the exact Moscow time. But more often citizens checked the signals on the radio.

In general, the telephone played a special role in the life of a Soviet person. Children spent hours “on the phone” in the evenings, for example, doing homework together or just discussing something. There were even their own "telephone games" - verbal, deliberately in order to play in the evening with a friend or girlfriend. These are mainly “cities”, burimes, different quizzes. Some played real word role-playing games! To be honest, sometimes not only children, but also adults hung on the phone - but no one made any comments to them about this! If, for some reason, devices from different apartments in the house made it possible to listen to each other's conversations, then the children of the same entrance sometimes arranged collective chats.

Self-publishing and wall newspapers

Not every samizdat was persecuted in the USSR. Homemade handwritten (less often typewritten) magazines and wall newspapers were a popular form of entertainment in work collectives, in residential porches, and even in families. No, we are not talking about wall newspapers drawn on the instructions of the party and the class teacher - there were just silly newspapers that were made on their own initiative.

Some resembled corporate blogs, others - forums (a blank sheet was hung up under a question or an essay on which you could write your thoughts and comments), others generally turned into a mess: an almost blank sheet was hung up with a call to create, and on it everyone who wished, wrote funny poems, drew cartoons, left offers to go to such and such a date together for a new play.

Newspaper ads

In order to meet or find someone whom they almost completely met by chance in life, they advertised. To find something and buy or borrow it, they also advertised. They sold through advertisements, called to do something together, and looked for companions to travel by car (for gasoline) to the south. One could come across announcements with a cry of despair: who knows how to do this and that, share your knowledge, it is very necessary!

Tear-off calendars

Many modern entertainment portals are very much like tear-off calendars of the Soviet era: there, on each piece of paper, in addition to the date and the necessary astronomical notes, jokes, recipes of the day, life hacks and interesting facts from history were published.

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