Remembering the USSR... Devils from a dropper (12 photos)

11 March 2011

Anyone who happened to be in a Soviet hospital at least once in the 80s should cringe when they see these photographs. These trinkets were made in hospital rooms in almost any hospital. Devils, fish, pens, keychains.... I just needed to get an IV.

And then the flight of fancy and boring lying in the hospital room was brightened up by the fascinating process of weaving.
The easiest thing was to make a handle. This did not require any special skills. Just a square weave around a ball rod, or as we called them back then - pastes.
Devils were also made on the basis of square weaving, with minor modifications for the legs, arms, tail and head.
Some skill was needed to make more complex fish, frogs and other crafts, which already required imagination and cunning weaving.
Due to the fact that people stay in the hospital for a relatively short time, the basics were learned quickly and you, in turn, as a “master”, passed on the skill to the newcomer in your ward.
As a result, no matter where and with whom you were in the hospital, you were sure to be skilled in making complex souvenirs.
The most important thing was to get the material.
When I was a child, I was in the hospital five or six times. There was a maternity hospital next to the children's hospital in our city, and we ran to its backyard, where there were garbage containers.
This is where all the material was mined - after all, the used systems were thrown away every day.
Only those with traces of blood were not taken. Everything else was used - the tubes themselves, clamps, needles and valves.
Sometimes the pipes were painted with green paint, blue or potassium permanganate to make a more beautiful craft.
The head was usually secured with a needle from the same IV.
After being discharged from the hospital, at school it was necessary to show off the IV pen, little devils, or give a goldfish to the neighbor on the desk...
And I also remember that often the devils from IVs hung on the mirrors of bus and trolleybus drivers. And some of them had entire exhibitions on their windshields...

Shaggy devil