Children of my generation did not have computers and that says it all. Yes, we didn’t know the game, we didn’t know Warcraft, we didn’t know the fun farm. All our entertainment was kept in secret places at home, in the yard, in bedside tables and mezzanines, on the balcony and in the garage (whoever had one). And now I say with great confidence that my childhood was much more interesting and rich without a computer.
I invite you to remember what bright attributes our childhood was full of. And please add in the comments if I forget something.
I was not some notorious hooligan, street kid or punk. But remembering what we did in the yard, sometimes I feel a little uneasy. Our skills could be the envy of the most serious extremist :) Naturally, our mothers had no idea about our tricks, otherwise... I won’t remember about playing ball, riding a bike, playing hockey with vegetable boxes instead of goals, I won’t tell about a lot of peaceful yard games such as hide and seek, catch-up, Cossacks, "goat" (with a ball), edible-not edible, worms-stop, Moscow hide-and-seek, sifa, lapta, square, classics, klek, etc. I will remember those activities we did for which you could get hit in the neck and very hard from adults :)
So, I'll start with the notorious slingshots.
Slingshots.
Who remembers homemade slingshots? They were of two types - classic and keyed. The classic ones were cut from a thick hazel branch with a fork, a wide gray rope was bought at the pharmacy, a piece of leather was obtained (you could secretly cut houses from a travel bag and dump it on your sister) and everything was fastened with copper wire or blue electrical tape:
Such a slingshot was loaded with smooth pebbles, which were often brought into courtyards along with sand or unripe berries, such as rowan, plum or cherry, which grew in abundance behind the house. The power of the stone shot was sometimes enough to shatter a champagne bottle from 3 meters away. Such a slingshot was valued because not everyone had the skills and funds to create it. It could be exchanged for other valuables such as inserts from Turbo, CinCin and Final90.
While walking and having nothing to do, it was possible to make a simpler slingshot - a keyed one. To do this, in a landfill it was necessary to find a thick aluminum wire in a braid and find a flagellum. As a rule, there were no problems with the latter - it was easily obtained from the elastic band of panties. The newer the panties, the better the flagellum. From all this, something like this was collected (left):
Such a slingshot fired with dowels - pieces of copper or aluminum wire bent into a horseshoe. It didn’t do much harm, but it was okay to scare pigeons and cats. Sometimes this slingshot became the last argument in yard fights - it burned the thigh great! But mostly they just shot in the air, enjoying the sound of the flying key - “furrrrrrr” :) Such a slingshot was assembled for one day and in the evening, as a rule, it was given to a friend for “riding a bike.”
Sikalka.
What do you think a sikalka is? Something from the word "sic". This is true. This was a popular weapon for near-yard water “fighting” before the era of the advent of disposable syringes in pharmacies.
The sikalka was made from an empty shampoo bottle or a liter plastic bottle of Belizna. A hole was made in the cork with a hot nail on the stove and half of a ballpoint pen without a refill was inserted into it. All this was sealed with mastic or plasticine.
Water was poured into a bottle (the first time at home, subsequent times from a pipe under the balcony) and splashed at the opponent water :) It was an alternative to an expensive and scarce water pistol. By the way, the sikalka was great for quenching your thirst :)
Dart.
Probably only the lazy didn’t play the game “darts” :) We also loved throwing darts as children. But they weren’t sold or they cost a lot of money. Therefore, almost any boy in our yard could make it himself. In terms of its flight and insertion qualities, the dart turned out to be no worse than the factory one. See how we made them:
A piece of paper, 4 matches, a needle, office glue and thread. They hung a homemade target from a notebook sheet on the wall carpet and played.
One day my friend and I were playing darts at my house and got into an argument. Out of anger, he threw a dart at me and stuck it right in my hand, and in retaliation I hit him in the stomach... That’s how the showdown with darts was...
On the street they also made darts from welding electrodes. They sharpened one end on a curb stone and tied pigeon feathers to the other:
Boomerang.
Yes, yes, now you can easily buy a boomerang of any shape in a store. But in the late 80s they didn’t sell anything like this. We got out of the situation in the following way: we bought two 30-centimeter wooden rulers from an office supply store and twisted them in a cross with electrical tape, and then twisted the blades at home over steam:
The result was an excellent boomerang that even knew how to return! Again they frightened crows and pigeons. They also launched from the 9th floor, where I lived all my childhood.
A spitting tube or spitting tube.
Another essential attribute of the boy was a metal tube for spitting plasticine or mastic balls:
It was not easy to get such a pipe and it was highly valued in the yard. A large supply of mastic or plasticine was molded directly onto the tube, from which a piece was pinched off and loaded into the tube. Apart from moral damage, such spitting did nothing to its victim. Later, the tube was replaced with an empty gel pen refill, and the plasticine was replaced with millet or buckwheat.
Dymovukha.
The truth is that only our generation knows what the connection is between a child’s tumbler or a tennis ball.
with this one:
Lead.
How much in this word merged for a child’s heart... And merged in the literal sense of the word. Remember how you scoured garages and searched car dumps in search of old batteries?
They split them and extracted pure lead:
They beat out the dried electrolyte and crushed the soft metal into a tin can. Or in a bowl:
They made a fire and waited for the liquid metal to sparkle in the jar.
And then they did whatever their heart desired!
And even this is a useful thing in the era of factions and battles for asphalt...
Once I melted lead at home and got seriously poisoned by inhaling the fumes... Actually, in childhood, out of ignorance It’s normal to undermine your health with all sorts of lead, chewing gum and other shit...
Carbide.
Who remembers the magic stones with a specific smell that bubble in water? Carbide is a joy for the finder, for the whole day! Caring gas welders shook it out of their cylinders right where they worked. Often, in the courtyard of a house:
And in the pile of useless white trash, there were always a few strong pebbles of calcium carbide! When combined with water, it reacted and released the wonderful gas acetylene. It is remarkable because it burns well.
Carbide was used in whatever form. And they simply threw it into a puddle, setting it on fire. And they warmed their hands, squeezing the carbide in their palm, immersed in a puddle. And they put it in bottles of water, plugging it with a stopper... But the most effective use of carbide was a hand cannon:
They took an empty deodorant or Dichlorvos bottle, cut off its neck, and made a hole at the bottom , put the carbide inside, spat on it liberally, plugged all the holes, shook for a minute, opened it and brought a burning match to the small hole... VOLLET!!! :) My older brother told me that in his childhood they whistled a whole cylinder of carbide and poured it into a drainage well with water. We closed it with a heavy lid with a hole and waited half an hour. Then one boy brought the list to the hole and... There was such an explosion that several windows in a neighboring house were broken, the lid flew up, hitting the guy first on the chin, and then covering him a little as it fell. But the worst thing is that he received severe burns to his face, the scars from which remained for life - I saw a photo of him in his adult life...
Knives.
In my opinion, every boy had a folding knife like this as a child:
This has always been a source of pride. He was carefully kept away from his mother's sight and was not often taken out into the street. The knife was always in the sand, remember? And all because it was just a tool for playing “Knives”:
There were many variants of the game, but most often they played “country land” and “tanks”. Each game had many types of rules. For example, “countryman”: they drew a circle and divided it equally by the number of participants. Everyone stood in their own area. Then, while standing, they stuck a knife into the enemy’s area and cut off a piece of his land. “I got wounded” (didn’t stick it in) - the move passed to someone else. And according to one rule, you had to stand on your land all the time as long as you can. According to others, you could stand outside, but in the event of a catastrophic reduction in your area, the enemy offered you to stand on it for 3 seconds. If you can't resist, you're out. You could even stand on tiptoes of one leg - the main thing was to hold out for 3 seconds.
The game of "Tanks" was more interesting and longer. I won’t remember its rules, but here’s the shape of the knife - remember what kind of tank was installed this way? :)
Magnesium.
We mixed magnesium, crushed into powder with a file, in a certain proportion with potassium permanganate, which cost a penny at the pharmacy, and wrapped it in a tight paper bag, also wrapped with adhesive tape. They made a hole and screwed a match to it, so that the head of sulfur was exactly in the hole. It turned out something like this:
They struck a match on the box and abruptly threw it aside. The package exploded with a deafening noise and a bright flash.
I also liked to do different experiments with magnesium at home. For example, I put it in acetic acid and collected the hydrogen released in bubbles in a jar. And then he used a match to set this hydrogen on fire :) It burned with a ringing “PA” sound. Or he would set fire to powdered magnesium on the tip of a knife and quickly throw it into the water. As a result of a violent reaction with combustion, magnesium hydroxide sublimated to the ceiling and fell from there in white flakes like snow. By the way, never try to extinguish a burning magnesium or titanium with water - there will be a hydrogen explosion.
In our aviation capital in the 90s you could easily find magnesium. It was enough to find an aircraft junkyard or saw off a piece of the rim from a monument aircraft, of which there were several in the new city. One day, one such landfill burned down and magnesium was no longer thrown out of the plant - everything was strictly accounted for. Cutting magnesium was extremely difficult - it took a hell of a lot of time. But the end justified the means.
Slate in the fire.
I think you can easily remember what happens to slate in a fire :) That's right, nothing good - it shoots a lot. In pieces.
Yes, sometimes it’s so bad that there’s not much left of the original fire :)
The shooting slate simply threw him to the sides. To our delight.
Condoms.
As children, we already used condoms with all our might. Just not for the intended purpose :)
Those who lived higher up periodically “bathed” passersby by dropping huge balls of water on them, 3-4 liters. Particularly frostbitten people added potassium permanganate...
Lamps and picture tubes.
It was a sin not to break a fluorescent lamp thrown into the trash:
They broke with a loud bang if you threw the lamp end-on onto the asphalt. They didn't think about the environment back then...
But this find in the trash heap was extremely rare and always brought great joy to the boys:
Lots were cast to see who would be the first to throw a brick at the top lamp (kinescope ray gun). She was the most vulnerable point of the kinescope. When the lamp broke, the picture tube, due to the internal vacuum, collapsed inward with a very dull bang that echoed in the courtyards. Neighborhood boys immediately came running to see this action. But more often we found picture tubes with a broken lamp...
Siphon cans.
Used cans for carbonation machines (siphon) were also sometimes used:
They were filled with sulfur from matches and the hole was closed with a bolt. Then the infernal device was thrown into the fire...
I must say that this thing was the most dangerous invention of the yard boys. One day, all the students of our school were removed from classes and sent to the funeral of a sixth-grader, whose carotid artery was damaged by a fragment of such a canister... :( The ambulance did not have time to arrive - the guy bled to death on a bench at his entrance...
And another comrade was left without two fingers when he was grinding a stuffed cylinder on an electric sanding wheel...
Personally, I have never made such a balloon. And I categorically do not recommend it to others.
Flying bolt.
An easier way to make a “bang” was to twist two bolts and a nut, with a package tied to the whole thing as a stabilizer:
Judging by the fact that the pictures were easily found on the Internet, we weren’t the only ones who made such things... I also made such a thing, but without a package. I just threw it on the asphalt. And as a result, he received a shrapnel wound to his finger... At the Central City Hospital they performed a mini-operation without my mother’s knowledge. Much later she found a hidden extract from the emergency room about a shrapnel wound... It was a shock :)
May beetles.
We already started looking for cockchafers in April. We went into the forest and dug them out of the ground with a shovel :) May beetles were very valuable in the yard. While we were alive :)
They filled them with full jars. And they were even distinguished by the color of their heads: red ones were firefighters, black ones were workers. There were also border guards with a greenish tint. Long mustache - male, short - female.
Once there was a rumor in the yard that the pharmacy was accepting beetle covers for money... I won’t continue further. It could be called genocide... In the end, the wings were not accepted :)
Crossbows and scarecrows.
A match crossbow or scarecrow could easily be assembled from an ordinary stick or clothespin:
They shot with burning matches.
Dowels.
Let's look at the picture:
I think our generation will easily explain the connection between these objects. They hammered the dowel into the asphalt with a brick, took it out, crushed matches into the hole, inserted the dowel and threw a brick on top... Bang! and the piece of asphalt was gone... :) Matches cost 1 kopeck per box and were freely bought in the store.
Pistons.
Who had such a revolver that fired such caps?
But it was more interesting to poke something sharp at the brown spots and watch them ignite :) Or It’s even more interesting to roll up a roll from a strip of piston and hit it with a hammer. Ringing in the ears for 10 minutes was guaranteed :)
Shells.
Empty cartridge cases were also used.
They were filled with sulfur from matches, bent over the neck and into the fire... Personally, I made an improvement proposal and filled gasoline cartridges for lighters:
The flapping is not so strong, but it is impressive :)
Instead of gasoline, it was possible to fill in diesel fuel, which was easily drained from such tar colliders:
Construction cartridges.
Occasionally, someone would have the following construction cartridges, which they would load into a construction gun for driving in dowels:
Those guys who did biathlon at home sometimes had cartridges like this from the “small stuff”
From these they simply took out the gunpowder, fortunately the bullet was easily removed with pliers (they were idiots)..
Capacitors.
In the 5th grade, the school was overwhelmed by a craze for radio components. Capacitive capacitors from the TV (from 2000 microfarads, 100-300V) were charged from a 220V outlet and used as a stun gun on comrades...
Smaller parts, such as resistors and diodes, were jammed into the socket with a textbook, which led to a normal explosion and a shower of sparks...
But more frostbitten ones were doing this...
Gun.
Still, there were legal factory-made weapons. Remember?
Peaceful hobbies.
From peaceful inclinations I remember braids from the system and colored wire. They found a piece of telephone cable and pulled it apart.
Cherkash on the shoe.
The fire was the boy's constant companion. It was easy to find a match, but not always from boxes of cherry... We got out of the situation in this way: we took a filter from a cigarette, put it on the end of the sole, set it on fire and waited until it melted a little. Then the brown side of the box was sharply applied. The rough base was glued to the shoe. Thus, the “box” was always with me. True, I had to update it periodically, since my mother scrubbed it while washing her shoes. :)
Our toys and household items
Memory is a tricky thing. You remember some detail, and it will pull out from the depths something long forgotten... At the same time, such an amount of endorphin is released that it just brings a lump to your throat.
OUR LIFE
I don’t know about you, but for me the 80s are primarily associated with this:
Remember? Place your fingers in a pinch and press the lid :) Then you need to lick it and put it in the bucket if you are going to drink the whole bottle, or straighten the edges and then put it on the neck. You pour into the glass: “ulk-ulk-ulk...”. A bottle of kefir and half a loaf of bread became a symbol of the 80s. And they were even sung in a famous song.
The bottles accumulated under the radiator for some time, then they were taken to the collection point for dishes and handed over.
The proceeds were used to buy kefir or milk again
And so on in a circle.
Our parents sometimes allowed us children to return bottles and spend the money on something else:
or
In a waffle cup, 10 kopecks - pure ice, 12 and 15 - cream, 20 - the height of pleasure, ice cream. It also happened with a wooden stick in a paper cup, but it gave me goosebumps when my teeth scraped against the wood... brrrrr
But more often they bought milk not in bottles - you can’t carry a lot of it, and it was more expensive, but on draft:
It was almost never in the store - it was quickly sold out by lunchtime. That's why my mother chased me for milk before school. About 6 o'clock in the morning. In a barrel:
The line was always terrible and if you were 10 minutes late, you might not get anything and then you had to go get milk already at lunchtime, after school, right at the end of the lunch break at the store. It was necessary to know the location of all the barrels in the area, so that if something happened, you could run to another barrel... You could write a lot about food, but I won’t deviate from my topic - we’re talking about children :)
Money box.
Often, all our childhood savings fit into one piggy bank. Mobile. It was convenient to go to the store with her for ice cream or gum. 50 kopecks and 1 ruble were quite rare coins, so there was no place for them. Moreover, as a rule, we didn’t have such big money :)
Opener.
No, we didn’t open a bottle of Duchess or Pinocchio on the curb. We drank lemonade more often at home. We opened the lid with something like this:
Cities were often drawn on openers.
When traveling we took a universal folding knife with us:
Although even now you won’t surprise anyone - this thing is as constant as a shovel.
Magnifying glass.
The magnifying glass was considered one of our main treasures - with its help we could see a beetle and light a fire in sunny weather. The latter function was used much more often.
The larger the magnifying glass, the more productive it is in this regard:
Binoculars.
I didn’t have such a magnifying glass, so to make a fire I used lenses from theater binoculars - another attribute of our childhood.
The front lenses were very easy to unscrew. The binoculars were used very rarely for their intended purpose - they did not go to the theater often. And if they did, they forgot about him. I loved watching fireworks through it in the city center - I lived on Verkhnaya, on the 9th floor. And in general, from the 9th floor you could see a lot of things with binoculars :)
Stereoscope.
I had another binocular - a stereoscope. I still remember with reverence how I looked at the first 3D pictures in my life through a stereoscope. It was something! There are so many emotions - all the figures seem to be alive and three-dimensional. I didn’t understand how this happened, so I perceived it as a miracle. Bears, monkeys, mice are the heroes of the pictures.
We had about 20 of these cards. At their core, these are comics, a story in 6 frames. Moreover, children's imagination was not limited to them and completed the story for an entire cartoon :)
Here is one of my favorite cards - about bears and school. I always dreamed of going there to see them - everything was so great there :)
My mother still has the cards, but my children no longer squeal from them like I do :) Why, if there is a 3D TV at home...
The stereoscope is not the only everyday embodiment of Soviet 3D technology. Do you remember this? :)
Stereo postcards. They either had image depth or simply changed the image. A kind of animated GIF :) You twist it at different angles and laugh...
Compass.
Who had such a compass?
Judging by the fact that the picture was quickly found on the internet, many people had it.
Cooking station with compasses.
For some reason, I’m sure that most of you had parents who worked as engineers and therefore had the following sets at home:
This is a preparation - a set of drawing tools. We had a lot of them. Thank God, my studies at Ulyanovsk State University did not include making drawings, as at Polytechnic, because I hated drawing... The last time I did it was at school. And then, with my mother’s help :)
Stationery.
My mother was a specialist in drawing devices and stationery - she was an engineer all her life at the drawing board. Therefore, I went to school only with the best KOH-I-NOOR pencils and an eraser from the same company, with an elephant:
But it washed perfectly, without dirty streaks. With the help of it and the blade, the “three” in the diary was masterfully turned into a “five”, and the “stake” into a “four”.
I won’t mention ordinary writing pens, because they were like dirt. But about four-color ones:
Remember those thick “rockets” with four rods inside: blue, green, red and black? All possible colors of Soviet pens in one case. I didn't have one like that :)
These pens, with a body made of colored plexiglass, were something like treasures:
They practically didn’t write about them - they just brought them to school and showed off. There were also pens with roses in glass, but I couldn’t find a photo of them. Help - maybe someone still has it :) By the way, they were usually made by prisoners in the zone.
Satchel.
I went to first grade with a backpack similar to this one:
In the 90s, children went to school with these:
I liked mine better :) Eternal and indestructible.
Twist circle.
Who remembers what it was called?
Popular household exercise machine. An invariable item in morning exercises :) Children used it as a carousel - you squat on it and spin until you feel sick. Was? :)
Shell.
Where were all the more or less valuable little things, like crosses and chains, kept? That's right, in a rapana shell, in the sideboard where the crystal stood :)
Now they are small, but in our childhood the Black Sea rapana had not yet degenerated and reached enormous sizes ! Thanks to them, we all learned how the sea roars.... :)
Lighter.
“Matches are not a toy for children,” public service announcements of that time told us. But it didn’t say anything about a lighter :) Therefore, in the most secluded place, many of us kept this thing:
Gasoline, reusable metal lighter. An extremely expensive and rare item. In my opinion, to get it, you almost had to pawn your soul :) It was used on especially special occasions, when it was necessary to impress friends by lighting the first cigarettes in my life, at the age of 13. By the way, that’s when I stopped smoking for life, after smoking one summer.
Bike.
Of course, we all had our own bike. I don't even doubt it. Velik was the main transport, entertainment and currency of the summer holidays. For “having a ride” you could get some nice things, like chewing gum or a slingshot. The bicycle was our car. I go wherever I want! Let's find out who had which one :) I tried to remember all the brands and models of two-wheeled horses that existed at that time (80-90s).
I'll start with Kama. Because I had one. Or rather, at first it was with my brother, but he was stolen right from the landing when I was still learning on two wheels. Then a handsome red one was bought for me too!
Oiled, folding, shiny, with a step and reflectors! In the store on Lower Terrace.
How much we saw with him. How many kilometers have we covered in the private sector and dirt roads? We went to Karasevka's dachas to pick berries and ran away from the owners of these dachas. Gopniks tried to squeeze the bicycle more than once, but a faithful friend saved me from them too... How many bags of potatoes were transported from the cellar on Volzhskaya to the apartment on Telman... And the “eights” on wheels are like battle scars. And how many friends rode behind, on the trunk and in front, on the frame... The bicycle could carry 3-4 people at once.
And our childhood began with this bike:
Then he “left” for the village and his parents bought a second-level bicycle:
Good old “Bear”! I remembered it at the last moment and shed a tear :) True, I had a red one. Thick tires softened all the bumps and potholes in the yard :)
Bicycle of the third level - "Schoolboy":
There was another one, like - “Stork”.
I skipped this level and immediately switched from “Mishka” to “Kama”. By the way, after that I didn’t ride a bike for 15 years and last year I just bought a Stealth :)
I had a Kama, and my friend had a Salyut:
The Salyut has slightly larger wheels than the Kama, so it maintained speed well. But the Kama accelerated faster. And on the Kama it was easier to stand on the sawhorse or fly into the curb at speed.
Respectable guys rode the Uralets:
It had an uncomfortable frame - more often they rode “under the frame”. Especially those who have no experience riding a frame bike.
And finally...
Yes, yes. The eggs remember everything... :)
It was an adult bike and was taken for a ride from his parents. True, they didn’t risk riding on the frame - they often fell off it and their legs couldn’t reach the pedals. Our parents used this bike to take us to the garden or to the forest. For very small children, a seat was screwed on; larger children simply sat down with their legs dangling to one side. By the way, we also tried to ride someone on the frame. Woe betide the driver who could not hold the bike and the passenger fell from such a height with his back onto the asphalt :)
Handles for the package.
At one time the following handles for bags were popular:
You take a simple bag with a picture and attach handles to it. When in high school it was already scary to go to school with a bag, they began to come with bags. Although I was a nerd, the package did not bypass me either. I had a cool Marlboro bag with red plastic handles. I spent a whole year with him.
"Zuko", "Invite" and "Yupi" - just add water.
Lemonade 90s. Pure chemistry, but how loved it was!
We always took a bag of this stuff to the dacha and diluted it in clean spring water :) Remember? "...The birthday was not like a holiday.... UNTIL WE DISCOVERED YUPI!!!!!... YUPI is a joyful taste!..".
Not a single holiday would be complete without a couple of decanters of colorful water on the table. And once I gave advice to the courtyard gopniks to stir it in vodka, for a more pleasant use... When they threw up, I got a little “plywood” :)
How, for example, some people no longer remember that in the USSR there were iron rubles, and not just paper ones
Here is one of the most popular group games of our childhood - "Hippos":
And also this one, the progenitor of computer car simulators - the game "Behind the Wheel":
But these toys could only be obtained for New Year or birthday:
I just have no doubt that all the boys had such revolvers:
A strip of caps wound into a roll was inserted into the drum, the end was pulled out and the trigger was pulled. The "strike" slapped the piston and "fuck-bang!" - fire and smoke :)
But the coolest weapon in the yard “Voinushka” was considered to be the plastic PPSh machine gun:
Do you remember the clockwork, walking robots?
And the wonderful “calendoscope”?
They could sit and stare at it for hours:
Domino "Berry":
Game "Tag":
Puzzle "Snake":
"Pythagoras":
Or like this:
Nails:
But the boy's most desired toy was cars. For the street, for the sandbox - these are:
For home - "souvenirs":
There were many different ones. Mainly the domestic auto industry. And they weren't cheap. They were also given as gifts on major holidays or for good behavior. I inherited my collection from my older brother. True, he broke up with her with great regret, despite the big age difference - they were so dear to us...
I remember how my mother bought me as many as 2 cars by September 1, when I went to school, 1st grade. It was UAZ-Bukhanka and Volga-Aeroflot. Oh, what happiness it was! I also had a Niva - it had a complex suspension of many parts, a full-fledged spare wheel and all the doors opened. And also “Muscovites”, “Ladas”.... The decoration of the collection was a black “Seagull” and the only foreign car - “Maserati Mistral Coupe”. Many people had it made of plastic, but mine was made of metal!
Now there is almost nothing left of the collection :( Nephew, my children have completed the destruction I started... Only he didn’t let the Maserati be torn to pieces - he hid it away as a souvenir :)
The most expensive were buses and KAMAZ trucks.
Keychains like cars were also popular:
There were several types:
And the following crafts from the system were also in use:
Or fish:
In my opinion, skeleton keychains were also very popular in the early 90s:
I don’t know why, but I also had this souvenir plate lying around in my toys:
And what serious battles unfolded when someone came to visit and they got the soldiers!
Crusaders against sailors, cowboys against Indians:
They also used airplanes from the board game:
But the “dashing” 90s came and the soldiers were supplanted by hordes of alien brethren. ROBOTS!
Do you remember how fast you ran to the coveted kiosk when your mother gave in to persuasion and allocated 200 rubles for the robot? I even remember how much they cost and what 200 rubles looked like back then!
The first robot I bought was with the head of a sawfish. There were so many of them!
Heroes of then popular cartoons were pitted against robots:
And then at Disney hour on Sundays they ran TRANSFORMERS commercials.
And a new Epidemic began...
In general, with the advent of the 90s, the epidemic became a constant companion of our childhood. The flood of bright goods from China, Poland and Turkey excited our minds, accustomed to faded and monotonous colors... Take, for example, the Walking Spring Epidemic:
Rubber bouncy balls:
Even the coolest Soviet ball flew up from the impact to a height of no more than two or three times our height. These same people jumped up to the 5th-6th floor... It was generally perceived as magic. True, some low-quality balls quickly scattered into pieces (usually glossy ones). But the low price made it possible to pack them in armfuls and even exchange them and give them as gifts:
Jumpers became a replacement for the usual glass balls and we quickly forgot this game:
And then the good world of children's games was finished off by this:
And officially our childhood ended, giving way to youth.
