Olga Eigis, advertisement for SET (State Electrical Trust) in Soviet Travel: An Illustrated Monthly, March 1939

Quarto size (215 x 275 mm)

Inv. no. ST_march_1939_258

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 influenced by Constructivism, a movement excoriated by the government as alien to Soviet viewers. Editor-in-Chief Leon Abramovich Blok (or Block) and Managing Editor I.A. Urasov engaged Soviet graphic artists who are now often unfairly forgotten, including painter and graphic designer Olga Eiges (1910-1996). Eiges studied in the Graphics Department at the Moscow Institute of Fine Arts (MIII) from 1934-1939 under Alexander Deineka (1899-1969), a key figure of Soviet Socialist Realist painting. Her career in graphics included work for several state institutions, including the Institute of Health Education, the Soviet State Circus, and Torgsin, for which she completed a series advertising lightbulbs made at SET, the State Electrical Trust. This back cover from Soviet Travel, with one of the trust’s light bulbs flying above Moscow’s Red Square like an airplane, is taken from that series. The advertising of lightbulbs for sale abroad was something of a paradox, given that they were then in short supply in the USSR.