Zoya, 38 years old:- We still have old toys, but there are not so many of them. They peeled off the paint, but they are still loved - from childhood (and not only mine, but my mother's). I love toys on clothespins. We had five identical glasses (the end of the 50s - the beginning of the 60s of the last century). I really liked them, and I loved to arrange them on the Christmas tree. Then one crashed, I was very upset. And after a while my mother married my stepfather. They began to live together, and he brought his Christmas decorations. When we had the “inventory”, my happiness knew no bounds - we had as many as 12 glasses, so loved by me! And I can not imagine a tree without old glass beads. Even specifically looking for where to buy.
1/6Photo: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto:Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archiveDaria, 27: - New Year is my favorite holiday, I like all these New Year's preparations, and I especially love buying Christmas tree decorations. You know, there is such a sign, you need to hang one new decoration on the tree every time, so that the coming year will bring a lot of happiness. Balls, animals, cartoon characters, beads, tinsel and so on - your eyes run wild! Everything around is beautiful and shiny. Although this did not happen before - the tree did not seem less fabulous from this, therefore, despite my love for new toys, I cannot imagine New Year without old decorations - they contain so much warmth and memories. When I was little, I loved to act out scenes with these glass figurines, right on the tree. Now I take care of them like the apple of my eye, God forbid they break! There are a lot of Christmas tree decorations these days, and you can buy them in every store, but there won't be any more like these.
1/5Photo: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto: archive WdayPhoto: archive WdayPhoto: archive WdaySvetlana, 55: - This year Cipollino and the cosmonaut are celebrating their anniversary at the tree - in 2016 they turned 55, as did I, by the way. That's probably why it seems to me that they have always been there. As children, my sister and I loved to look for toys on the tree, well, first we would hang them up, and then make a wish to each other, for example: "Find me a hare" and so on, to see who would find it faster. Later, my children played this game. There used to be more toys from those times - due to two long-distance moves, few have survived, but we cherish them as a memory. In general, there is some special appeal in old Christmas tree toys, because they remember the first KVN episode on a black-and-white screen, Gagarin's flight into space, and in general, they saw me as a little girl. I will never stop loving decorating the tree!
1/4Photo: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto: archive WdayPhoto: archive WdayLarisa, 42: - We still have these toys in our house as a memory of the place where my husband Mikhail spent his youth. It was the 70s, he and his family lived in Kazakhstan. One day, a few days before the New Year, 16-year-old Misha and his parents went shopping, and in a department store they caught their eye on a figurine of a Kazakh girl in a yellow robe with a red spatula. Then we looked at the rest of the toys, and then we wanted to buy one after another: a fish with a red comb, Santa Claus with a long beard, a house in the shape of a mushroom, a hare, a pine cone. Many years later, after moving to Rostov, it turned out that some of the Christmas tree decorations remained intact. We thought: since they came into our family, let them hang on the tree and please the eye. Now we can’t bring ourselves to throw away this piece of family history.
1/4Photo: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto:Wday archivePhoto: Wday archiveAndrey, 20: - Soviet toys came to our house as an inheritance. My grandparents bought them back in the 60s. From generation to generation they were passed on to my parents, and so they have remained in our family to this day. I remember how, as a child, on New Year's Eve I would take out a full box and quickly decorate, and now, out of habit, I hang them on the tree every year. They are simply special, not like everyone else's, the images of animals and different figures themselves look truly fabulous and kind. Perhaps that is why I like such toys much more than those that are produced today.
1/3Photo: Wday archivePhoto: Wday archivePhoto: archive WdayYuzefa Aleksandrovna, 78 years old: - I was born in December 1938 and my mother bought Christmas tree decorations then, and a year later she was gone. I have kept the toys all my life, but I haven’t put up a big Christmas tree for a long time - I have a cat who loves to chew on everything (laughs). Of course, not all the toys survived. There was a war, an occupation. Once the wing of a German plane hit our house, we ourselves miraculously remained alive. Many events have happened over the years... In general, I remember how my aunts in the 40s cut down a dry tree on New Year's Eve (they never destroyed living trees), brought it home and decorated it. It was a holiday. How were toys made in those years? By hand. The wire frame was wrapped in cotton wool, and covered with gauze or paper on top, then painted. I must say that they looked natural. I had a Christmas tree toy - a sausage, and when I was very little I tried to bite it, it seemed to me that it could be a real sausage... Toys of Yuzefa Alexandrovna and other townspeople can be seen at the exhibition in the Pushkin Library in Novocherkassk from January 9 to 19.
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