Softcore Soviets

Joy Neumeyer recently investigated the long-secret Soviet-era erotica of the Russian State Library:

It was the kinkiest secret in the Soviet Union: Across from the Kremlin, the country’s main library held a pornographic treasure trove. Founded by the Bolsheviks as a repository for aristocrats’ erotica, the collection eventually grew to house 12,000 items from around the world, ranging from 18th-century Japanese engravings to Nixon-era romance novels. Off limits to the general public, the collection was always open to top party brass, some of whom are said to have enjoyed visiting. …

One of the most stunning items seized from an unknown owner is “The Seven Deadly Sins,” an oversized book of engravings self-published in 1918 by Vasily Masyutin, who also illustrated classics by Pushkin and Chekhov. Among its depictions of gluttony is a large woman masturbating with a ghoulish smile.

Nick Davies elaborates on who frequented the collection:

The biggest boost to the [old special storage collection] spetskhran’s naughtier items came from librarian Nikolai Skorodumov, who was allowed to maintain an extensive erotica collection under the guise of “the discourse of communist ideology,” though the truth might be that he was protected by Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, “a pornography aficionado whose apartment reportedly held a dildo collection.” …

While it’s no longer secret, the collection still isn’t readily available to the public, though [collection overseer Marina] Chestnykh points out that this hasn’t prevented a few stray items from going missing over the years, at the hands of “unscrupulous librarians, or even heads of state.”

View the Moscow Times‘ disappointingly unsmutty gallery of the library here.

(Image of illustration from The Seven Deadly Sins by Vasily Masyutin via ARTINRUSSIA)