I would have LOVED most of these as a kid. The ones I found ugliest or most disturbing were the newer, more commercial-looking ones (like #'s 5 and 18).
I especially like this miserly devil feller.
I've been meaning to ask how did you manage to do that remarkable double post the other day?
Dinged if I know.
Now I know why Russians drink.
(BTW, these are some of the most disturbing AND the most awesome things I have ever seen!)
I think that a large portion of the disturbing factor comes from the state of disrepair a lot of them are in. The site seems to specialize in the abandoned and disused.
Lots lof lovely linkage under the pictures. Excellent timewaster there. If I had more time and money to travel, I'd love to vist and document abandoned sites.
The russians love their gnomes, don't they?
Looking at these reminded me of some of the weirder playgrounds of my own childhood in Alabama. The weirder things were, the more I remember them. If you've never been to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga TN, then you are probably not aware of the now little advertised but still existing Fairyland Caverns and Mother Goose Village.
Roadside America has a short blip about it: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/GALOOrock.html
How crazy is it? I present Snow White (via Flickr): http://www.flickr.com/photos/brent_nashville/356777679/
There's something disturbingly erotic about that Snow White.
I always found the idea of that coquettish lady living with 7 grown men both disturbing and enthusing *cough*
Act out your Snow White fantasies now with the Playmobil Snow White set, complete with glass coffin.
Just two dwarves gnomes? What a cheap knockoff.
I like it.
This American trend of safe and sanitized playgrounds for special snowflakes is ruining our kids today. Let them play on the steel merry-go-round with no handholds, the hot metal rings and monkeybars, and the 12 foot broiling metal slide that wobbles and pitches you off onto your head onto the asphalt.
It was good enough for my generation, and look how many of us survived!
the 12 foot broiling metal slide
Oh yes. The hot metal on our short-wearing, chicken legs. The rusty chains of the (also metal) swing. The crude welder seams on the go-round, snagging on your clothes as you attempted to get off it.
No childhood is complete without returning al least once from the playground with a bloody nose or scratched knees.
Just following the linkies, and all of the sudden...
Argh!!
WTF is THIS??
The thing that was sitting on John Hurt's face?
Whatever it is, I suspect it's more like five millimetres than five feet.
triop.
Considering how scary a lot of Russian fairy tales are, I doubt these are as scary to Russian kids as they are to us/would be to our kids.
Russia has an extremely high rate of alcoholism in adults. Coincidence? I think not. They're fucking traumatised.
I submit that it's the abject poverty and the brutal cold, not the fairy tales. But then again, the fairy tales can't be helping...
The fairy tales are probably a coping mechanism for the abject poverty and brutal cold as much as the adult alcoholism. Rum baba, Baba Yaga...coincidence?
Can't help noticing that "Lara" is a bit of a Russian name, there...
English Russia is a fantastic photography site.
alcoholism in adults
Including the drinking of their Russian Airborne Troops, on a particular day.
Winnipeg is brutally cold, and has a high rate of alcoholism, too many Russians and Ukranians, and a Snow Witch who lives in a cave in the sky and eats children. Coincidence? Yes.
dwarvesgnomes? What a cheap knockoff.