The game «Take what you are given»

The game «Take what you are given» developed by employees of Kirov's museum illustrates the daily life of children and adults in Leningrad in 1930s.
The game «Take what you are given» is a quick journey back to the days of Stalin epoch. It allows the visitors of the museum to become the residents of the city of Leningrad in 1920-1930 and learn about their daily lives in difficult times in the period of goods shortage and starvation. From 1929 to 1935 in USSR and in Leningrad there was rationing system of supply by the basic foodstuffs. In 1931 all the population of the city was divided into three main groups in accordance with class status and role in the soviet economics:
I – workers
II – office workers
III – children.
These groups of people might buy their scanty rations at state prices in special stores called as ZRK – closed working co-operative stores.
New soviet elite consisted of Party and soviet leaders, scientists, skilled specialists and Red Army commanders had privileges in a food supplying. They bought foodstuffs and goods in special distribution centers with large selection of goods at low state prices.
But in those years in the Soviet society was group of people excluded from voting according to the Soviet constitution of 1918. This group included former bourgeoisie, members of nobility, owners of houses, shops, priests and monks. They were stripped of the right to rations that’s why they could buy foodstuffs in the markets and commercial stores at commercial prices only.
Five persons take part in our game and each of them is a representative of one of the mentioned above groups.
The aim of the game «Take what you are given» is to show how and where different social groups of soviet people purchased foodstuffs in the years of the rationing system.
The game provides an opportunity to understand ordinary life in extraordinary times of Stalin epoch.
In 2005, the game «Take what you are given» presented by Sergey M. Kirov’s Museum became a winner of The First All-Russia Festival of Museum’s Projects for Children.

© 2009