Customer Reviews

Home-Made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts

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A television aerial made out of forks and a lamp made of aeroplane parts; a plastic colander mended in four different places; one shovel that recycles a `men at work' sign and another, the handle of a crutch; DIY sink-plungers, DIY torches, mudflaps, waffle-irons, telephones... These are a few of the `thingamyjigs' to be found in Vladimir Arkhipov's delightful `Home-Made', a sort of Blue Peter extravaganza of the Brezhnev era.

This small book, with it's colour photographs of funny, crudely made objects and short accompanying texts, achieves something matched by few conventional histories - a vivid and moving picture of real life behind the Iron Curtain. The shortages throughout the Soviet era and the Yeltsin years were, of course, the original impetus for much of this ingenuity. After the war there was terrible need, as the pathetic tools and rat-traps made during that time testify. Under Brezhnev, a version of communism was achieved in which money was more or less meaningless; there was not enough in the shops for people to spend their roubles on. Instead they relied on barter and complicated personal networks, friends who could weld metal or supply parts.

On the one hand, the `home-made' phenomenon is a lesson in why the Soviet economy collapsed - everyone was pilfering, not to mention spending their workdays doing their own and others' DIY. Arkhipov suggests that the activity was a direct response to life in the an oppresive state: `Each person who can make something with his hands prefers to make something small and concrete rather than uniting with others to change lives'.

On the other hand, to us living in the disposable age, Arkhipov's collection is something of a vindication of the Soviet Unions anti-consumerism. Each of these objects, however basic, is important. First it's creator had to search around for the materials, barter for them or recognise them in a punctured child's ball or a broken watch-strap. Then it was laboured over, perfected through a series of experiments. Finally it was used and used until it became worn by use. By this time the most mundane artifact is, as you can imagine, a matter for pride and affection. It is almost an heirloom.

Many of the objects are purely functional. But many, perhaps the majority, are not so practical. They are expressions of their creators' passions - rock climbing pegs and fishing reels, toys and tapedecks. Some reveal DIY geniuses for whom the pleasure was in the production itself, like the author's father who fashioned a radio out of a soap dish, flashing Christmas lights and a heat chamber for making rubber car parts. One that seemed to have a particularly Russian charm was a combination of pen and torch. `This,' says the inventor, `is connected with that romantic poetical period in a young man's life when the muse only takes it upon herself to visit him at night... You hold it under the pillow and use it for all your youthful musings'.

In the preface, Susan B Glasser, a Washington Post journalist, mentions a home-made radio `round which the family would huddle, listening to Voice of America', the forks bought `because the Soviet Union was about to collapse and there was nothing else for sale'. Like many Westerners, she seems convinced that everyday life in the USSR - unlike in the US or Europe - revolved entirely around the political situation. Yet one of the most pleasing things about this book is the light it sheds on Soviet citizens' real preoccupations - how to amuse your children while they are eating their dinner (a home-made bubble wand), how to keep your fishing bait dry (an ingenious little box), or how to soothe a sore back (a back-massaager made out of an abacus).

Arkhipov points out that the urge to thingamyjig is universal and hopes to create `a collective virtual record of a worldwide phenomenon'. If you are interested, visit [...]and join the party.

Charlotte Hobson.

While some of the circumstances that brought about these objects seem tragic, each suggests possibilities. The book also reminds me how stifling abundance can be: A man describes a radio he made, "This all seems incredible and ridiculous now, after you've seen the Chinese radios in the shops. There's so much of everything now, it's hard to understand the way we lived then. And how we should live now." Indeed.