A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union

More than three hundred photographs visually survey the diversity of Russian landscapes and cityscapes and depict routine daily life throughout the Soviet Union

In 1987, 50 Western and 50 Soviet photographers spread out across the Soviet Union and captured on film a day in a country that stood at the apex of remarkable change as it celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. As the Soviet people looked back on decades of war and famine, conquest and achievement, and forward to sweeping changes during a time of new leadership and openness, the photographers were granted unprecedented access to homes, factories, schools and even prisons. They traveled to all 15 Soviet republics and across 11 time zones. They ventured into areas that have been closed to outsiders for centuries, and they came back with candid images of the daily life of the people behind the headlines, capturing a lost Soviet era, the twilight of a country.