U.S.S.underweaR on Show

It used to be the case that the Great October Socialist Revolution was the cue for the unfurling of a mass of red banners and flags. But on the eve of what is now the Day of Reconciliation and Accord, St. Petersburg was treated to an exhibition of fabrics of another kind: Soviet underwear.

The opening of "Memory of the Body: Underwear of the Soviet era" was the main attraction for city residents enjoying a day off at the St. Peter and Paul Fortress on Monday, as they caught a glimpse of the past "from below," as the organizers put it.

The brainchild of the Goethe Institute and the Pro Arte Foundation in St. Petersburg, this excellent exhibit details the types and styles of undergarments that were worn in the Soviet Union from its very beginning to its ultimate collapse in 1991. "[We do not want] to air the dirty laundry of the U.S.S.R.," say the words on an introductory wallboard, "but [to look] at the intimate, human side of its day-to-day existence."

Divided into three parts, the exhibit shows how the most intimate clothes in the Soviet drawer changed throughout the century, passing from the military mindset of War Communism to the sporting ideal of the 1930s, the poverty of World War II, the thirst for inner privacy of the ?€?60s and the depressed economy of the late Soviet era.

"I think that people who come here start telling their own stories," said Yelena Kolovskaya, chairwoman of the Pro Arte Foundation, after the opening ceremony Monday. "I myself was a serious swimmer [during the Communist era] and went to sports camps at which we were allowed to wear our underwear only, and nothing else!"

And strange though it may seem, the exhibit is highly ?€¦ well, revealing: When you?€™ve seen what people wear right up close to the flesh, you find out quite a bit about them.

The collection of underwear was culled from various museums and two private collections, including that of Yulia Demidenko, who was at the exhibit this week. "Some of the items I just had by chance, from [members of my family]," Demidenko said. "There wasn?€™t much in the museums, and in any case, things you find in museums often come straight from the factory ?€” they are in an ideal [condition], but they?€™re not real things."



Those who supplied clothes also supplied personal underwear stories, written up on the walls of the exhibition. Some of these are hilarious, but also give remarkable insights into Soviet life.

One contributor (all are anonymous) recalled her great surprise at seeing her grandmother doing the housework in her father?€™s underwear ?€” and his total horror upon discovering the same thing. This, however, apparently reflected the straightforwardly unisex attitude to life and work the old lady had adopted as a result of the hardships and privations of the early days of the Soviet era. The emancipated and bra-burning females of the West in the 1960s had no counterparts in the Soviet Union, simply because the bra had ceased to become a major symbol of womanhood.

As well as items of men?€™s and women?€™s underwear, pajamas and corsets ?€” many of which must have been excruciatingly uncomfortable ?€” the exhibit displays the recent work of a number of Moscow-based photographers who have come up with portraits that veer from being contemporary and artistic to the kind of pictures that used to titillate the Victorians. There are also posters advocating the healthy life in the Socialist Realist style, sketches, videos ?€” such as "How I Spent My Summer," directed by Dmitry Gutov, who clearly spent much of it pointing a camera up ladies?€™ skirts ?€” and even a film lecture room.

"Memory of the Body: Undergarments of the Soviet Era" (Pamyat Tela: Nezhnoye Belyo Sovetskoi Epokhi) runs through Jan. 31 at the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg at the St. Peter and Paul Fortress in central St. Petersburg. Daily 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.