Remembering the USSR.... Bags and string bags (14 photos)

21 December 2011

What our time is almost no different from the Soviet era is, probably, the pre-New Year bustle.
Go shopping for gifts and food for the New Year's table.
Only then there were crazy queues, and now there are crazy traffic jams. And the queues too...
Watching people scurrying around mega-markets, entertainment centers and shopping cities with boxes, bright bags and supermarket plastic with products, I suddenly remembered how little I ran to the store, clutching in my hand a string bag or a canvas grocery bag sewn by my mother on a sewing machine ...
After all, think about it - back then it was almost useless to come to the store without a bag. The packages were not sold at the checkout. Everything purchased would have to be carried home in hand. So then everyone carried a net or bag in a briefcase, “diplomat” or handbag..

2. By the way, the history of the origin of the notorious string bag is interesting.
The woven rope bag, which became incredibly popular during Soviet times, was invented in the Czech Republic.
True, at first their inventor Vavrzhin Krcil, who lived in the vicinity of the town of Zdiar na Sazave at the end of the 19th century, produced only hair nets that were then in use.
And when the demand for them began to fall catastrophically, the savvy Vavrzyn attached handles to them - and thus the famous mesh bag was born.
The Russian name for a mesh string bag was invented in the 1930s by the famous satirist Vladimir Polyakov, but this word was made popular by the famous Arkady Raikin, who, during his speeches five years later, delivered a monologue with approximately the following content: “And this is a string bag! Maybe I’ll bring something home in it...”

3. There were different types of string bags. In addition to the traditional mesh, you could also find a similar one - homemade. Of course, it didn’t fit into a jacket pocket, but it was tougher

4. Metal mesh bag. In general, it is worth noting that a Soviet citizen could very often see what his neighbor bought in the store thanks to the different options for “open” bags

5. Another transparent option. By the way, thanks to its rigid design, it was convenient, for example, to carry milk glass containers to the collection point.

6. Fabric bag.

7. And one more option

8. I used this bag to hand over bottles to the glass collection point. It held many more bottles than any other bag

9. Rare plastic bags. They were cherished like the apple of their eye. Over time, from multiple folds, the pattern became more and more blurred, but the bag was still not thrown in. Washed, dried and went to the store again