As the United Kingdom enjoys its last day as a member of the European Union, I am taking the opportunity to revive once again my Friday object lesson series, to show an object from my idealistic undergraduate days – my ‘Youth for Europe’ badge.
Over the years, I lost my idealism and became a cynic, but there’s still a trace of the older me in there somewhere. As the clock strikes midnight tonight in the UK, I will quietly mourn for what might have been, but now, alas, never will.
Friday Object Lesson has now been going for a whole year. I started with Soviet sugar lumps and their wrapping, so to come full circle, I end the year with a candy wrapper from the Mu-Mu restaurant chain, acquired during one of my research trips in the past five years.
I am not sure that I have enough bric-a-brac to do another entire year of Friday objects, so this is perhaps a good time to bring this feature to an end. I am considering what might be a suitable replacement.
The fourth in my series of soccer-related objects is this CSKA (Central Army Sports Club) Moscow scarf. This week CSKA tied 1-1 with Manchester United in the Champions League.
This week’s object is the third in my series of soccer-related items: a Spartak Moscow hat.
Second in my series of soccer-related objects is this Zenit St Petersburg jersey bought by my son when visiting Russia’s preeminent northern city this August. Zenit are the current champions of the Russian Premier League.
My Friday objects for October will all be soccer-related (football-related for Brits). First up is a Lokomotiv Moscow Scarf. Lokomotiv won the Russian Cup in 2015, beating Kuban Krasnodar 3-1 in the final.
Apropos of nothing in particular, this week’s object is a Lenin badge that I bought in the Soviet Union back in 1987.
Several Septembers ago, I visited Vladivostok, where I bought this week’s object: a mug showing various sites of the city, including a mixture of Imperial, Soviet, and modern structures.
Today’s object is another gift brought back by my son from the Tampere Lenin Museum: a Soviet poster from the 1950s. The words say: ‘Away with quacks: they don’t heal, they only rob and cripple.’ I find this interesting as it illustrates how even a very repressive state is unable to entirely control social practices.
Today’s object is a collection of writings by Marx, Engels, and Lenin on the subject of dialectical materialism, which my son brought back from Finland last month. He bought it at the Lenin Museum in the workers’ hall in Tampere where in 1905 Lenin met Stalin for the very first time.
You can read about the Tampere Lenin Museum at its website here. For those interested, here are some pictures of it:
IRRUSSIANALITY 