Gallery Happy Soviet Childhood

The design of the entire underpass was intended to be an integral whole and is united under one theme of childhood. The gallery’s original name was Happy Soviet Childhood. In one of the interviews, the author of the mosaics Yury Labintsev said: “The aim of creating mosaic pictures is not only to provide a feast for the eyes of Rostovites and city visitors. It is known that scientists use frescos and mosaics of ancient towns to learn about everyday living of their residents. Our works will be a vivid story on what will be history for next generations.”

The mosaics on one of the walls of the passage focus on various periods in the life of Soviet children. The mosaics reflect stages of life from birth to school leaving, from a maternity hospital to starting an adult life. Thousands of Rostovites will recognize the history of their life in the pictures. So, let’s go a way from a maternity hospital to a school-leaving party.

Picture One: A maternity hospital. Happy parents and relatives. Outside the window, you can see houses only recently built. A new life in the new light house.

Picture Two: Free-spirited games of preschoolers. Winter amusements. Children are making snowmen, playing snowballs, sledding down the hills right in the yards. They are sledding on their own, in pairs and one after another. They are skating and playing hockey. What a happy and careless time it was! Wonderful years of childhood! On the background, there are new buildings pushing detached houses aside.

Picture Three: The first of September. The First Form, the First Bell, the Little Octobrists, pioneers and Komsomol members. In this mosaic, there are two Easter eggs from the project’s author – Yury Labintsev. It is his self-portrait, a little boy among the first-formers, wearing an old uniform. He is the fourth from the left, near a girl who is petting the dog. And another Easter egg is Valentina Tereshkova, the first female cosmonaut standing among parents of the first-formers. A woman with blue eye-shadows wearing a pilot’s uniform. Children from a kindergarten came to congratulate the first-formers on the first day of school. A building of the school as a sanctuary of sciences with a signage Welcome! In the background, you can see a signage Glory to working people! on the building behind the trees.

Picture Four: Schooldays. A lesson of Mathematics. A boy wearing the Young Pioneer scarf is standing at the blackboard, he evidently does not know the answer to the problem on the blackboard. Pay attention how amazingly all the details are crafted. The lesson is in progress in the ordinary way: while the teacher turns to the blackboard, pupils can go about unrelated activities – fly a paper plane, eat an apple, pull the braid of a girl they like, and draw attention with their hand raised for straight-A pupils.

Picture Five: A school-leaving party, start of an adult life. There is another joke of the artist in this picture. A redhead signer wearing a loose red dress is signing on the stage at the school-leaving party, it is no less a person than Alla Pugacheva, a rising star of the Soviet pop music. Residents and visitors say thanks to masters for their magic, which produced a gem for their much-loved city, for plunging into the world of Soviet childhood, which a great many people now think back of with a heartbreaking nostalgia.

The theme of the mosaic pictures on the opposite wall of the underpass are working-class people. It has pictures featuring jobs that were honored in the Soviet times. They used to teach in the Soviet Union: “All occupations are important, all occupations are necessary”. The pictures show people working in mines, at plants, farms, in fields and gardens. The miner in the picture is a woman, a surprising and rare detail.

During preparations for the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, for some mosaics in this underpass, the surrounding authentic tiles were replaced with modern ones.