Konstantin Bor-Ramensky, advertisement for Koverkustexport published in Soviet Travel: An Illustrated Monthly, February 1934

Artist’s printed monogram БорР at upper right

Quarto size (215 x 275 mm)

Inv. no. ST_2_1934

The English-language Soviet Travel: An Illustrated Monthly began publication in Moscow in 1932. Over the following years, it was advertised as publishing articles “by leading Soviet writers on all points of interest in the Soviet Union. … Profusely illustrated with photographs of Soviet life and the scenic wonders of one sixth of the globe.” It was intended both to offer an idealized view of the Soviet Union to readers, even those who might only be “arm chair travelers,” but also to drum up business for Intourist, the newly created official state travel agency, and to support Soviet industries looking for commercial outlets abroad.

In addition to the photographs, the wrappers were printed with brightly colored graphics and advertisements in styles often influence by Constructivism, a movement soon to be excoriated as a kind of formalism alien to Soviet viewers. Editor-in-Chief Leon Abramovich Blok (or Block) and Managing Editor I.A. Urasov engaged early Soviet graphic artists who are now often unfairly forgotten, including Konstantin Bor-Ramensky (1900–1943). The entirely self-taught artist achieved enormous success designing posters, the interior of workers’ clubs, and book covers, including that for V.V. Kamensky’s 1931 Iunost Maiakovskogo (Mayakovsky’s Youth). His design is an advertisement for Koverkustexport, a state agency overseeing an unusually wide and somewhat unrelated range of wares. As the name suggests, they were responsible for sales of carpets (or kover in Russian), but also examples of handicraft such as lacquer boxes, embroidered goods, table linens, wooden toys, decorative objects made from bone or horn, silver jewelry, semi-precious stones, footwear, musical instruments, gramophone records, and sports accessories. Most of the advertisements for Koverkustexport in Soviet Travel emphasized wood toys, including nesting Matryoshka dolls. These small, probably inexpensive, and relatively lightweight goods probably made for easier sales when clients could be found. Room-sized rugs from the Caucasus, while attractive, were expensive to ship and likely unable to compete with better-known Persian carpets. Bor-Remensky’s ad is one of the most interesting to be found and was probably among the most effective. Rather than showing a jumble of unfamiliar toys or a stack of carpets, he situates an elegant woman with a fashionable bob haircut in an interior decorated with the trust’s goods. Her embroidered dropped-waist dress, the embroidered tablecloth, napkin folded for a formal dinner, and lace lamp shade present an aspirational image of a unified interior for foreign buyers rather than a pile of unfamiliar objects. While no carpet is visible, a typical pattern is reproduced at left, perhaps suggesting the use of carpets as wall decoration often to be found in Soviet interiors.

Sadly, the immensely talented designer’s life came to an end with the German invasion in June 1941. Bor-Ramensky immediately joined the military to take part in the defense of his country. He was wounded in November 1943 in the Smolensk region and died in a field hospital shortly thereafter.