Where were the amusement rides made in the USSR? Attractions in the city park of culture and recreation

A little about old Soviet park attractions and entertainment. Attractions from the USSR era.
I think this is not particularly interesting to anyone, I am writing for myself, but I will be glad for additions and reasonable comments =))))

Every year, old park attractions from childhood disappear. They break down, are written off, dismantled for scrap, damaged by vandals and simply stop being serviced due to lack of spare parts.
In the park named after L.N. Tolstoy in the city of Khimki near Moscow in the early 80s there were about 30 park attractions for different age groups. In the 90s, not a single one remained, and only in this 2013, in the summer, the first and so far only attraction “Votor Wheel” was installed. Hooray!! Because there are more similar examples in parks in small towns, alas, we don’t know.

Therefore, I encourage everyone to take pictures of old attractions! Let them at least be preserved in photographs for memory and history.

One of the oldest attractions in the Soviet Union was built in 1931 in Moscow, the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture. Ferris wheel - height 14 meters. For the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957, a new Ferris Wheel, 45 meters high, was built and put into operation - one of the tallest attractions in the USSR. Therefore, from that time on, the old attraction was called the “Small Ferris Wheel”. Both wheels were removed by 2009.

Thus, the Small Ferris Wheel existed for about 78 years.

B. Ignatovich, 1934 Small Ferris Wheel (then just a Ferris Wheel) in the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky.

Small Ferris wheel in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture 1952, photograph from the magazine "Smena" 1952 No. 16

Small Ferris wheel in the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture 1956 Jacques Dupaquier
Jacques Dupaquier is a French academic and member of the French Communist Party.
Came to the USSR 3 times - 1956, 1964, 1975

The history of the first attractions goes back to fair booths, to Easter, Maslenitsa, Yuletide festivities, to the simplest inventions, to the first mechanisms initially driven by people and draft power, etc. More on this later.

In the USSR, until 1959, the production of attractions was carried out by cooperative fishing cooperatives and small workshops.
In the 1920-40s, the country was in dire need of metal, so, as a rule, all entertainment and sports facilities were built from wood, including attractions. And the pre-war attractions have practically not survived to this day.
It's a shame, because... among them were very original!!!

During this period of Soviet history, the heroic expeditions of the Main Northern Sea Route, the achievements of OSAVIAKHIM, the exploits of polar pilots, the discoveries of geologists and much more were widely covered in the press. The propaganda of that time tirelessly repeats: The country needs strong and healthy people! The widespread cult of heroism and physical health was reflected in the attractions. Almost every city has parachute towers, diving towers, simulator attractions for “future pilots and sailors,” and other all kinds of entertainment for the development of dexterity and strength. These attractions are given sonorous names: Test of Courage, Hill for Heroes, Flight to the North Pole, Levanevsky's Flight, etc., etc.

Here, for example, is a pendulum-type attraction to simulate flight.
Please note - the trusses are wooden. The attraction itself is also interesting due to its technical solution: when moving, the pendulum, probably with sufficient force, hits the limiter and this must be unpleasant. And what is the fence used for - for insurance or so that you can push off with your hands? I would like comments from more technically knowledgeable people about the principle of operation =)))

1937 Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture, Moscow B. Ignatovich

The most popular pre-war attraction, of course, was the parachute tower.

“To develop practical skills in leaving aircraft in the early thirties, the Grokhovsky Design Bureau developed the so-called parachute tower. It was a metal truss 20-25 meters high with a platform at the top. With an open parachute, like a large umbrella held by a metal cable, the jumper fell to the ground The first such parachute tower was built on May 10, 1933 in the city of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoe Selo)." http://desantura.ru/forum/forum45/topic17786/
Then parachute towers began to be built throughout the country.

View of the tower through the famous Girl with an Oar

Parachute tower at the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Culture. Photo by H. Foreman, 1939.

Since in small towns there were no funds for the construction of parachute towers, they used...
church bell towers.
Unfortunately, there is no information in which city this photograph was taken or who is depicted in it. Apparently, the liberation of a settlement during the Second World War,
The source of the photo has been lost.
But looking at this mockery is painful and difficult.

Kalyazin, the bell tower, which will then be flooded and rise as a silent monument from the bottom of the reservoir.

“The popularity of parachute towers was very great; in the Soviet Union, a special parachute tower was developed for preschool children.
It was an ordinary slide that ended at a height of 1.5 meters from the ground, behind which there was an arrow to which a parachute was attached. At the top, a harness was attached to the child, he rolled down the chute, and from 1.5 m he softly landed under the dome.
There is a newsreel about this and reports in foreign newspapers.

source http://desantura.ru/forum/forum45/topic17786/
text under the photo
" Air-minded soviet children are provided with thrills of parachute jumping trough use of special towers erected in many city parks. Equipped with small parachute, the youngsters slide down a chute atop the 14-foot towers and settle slowly to the ground. Metal guide rings keep the parachutes open..."
"Soviet children can get a taste of parachute jumping by descending from special towers installed in many city parks. Wearing a special parachute, children slide down a chute from the top of a 14-foot tower and then slowly descend to ground on a parachute. Special metal rings keep the parachute open."

After the war, towers were also built in parks as attractions until the 70s.

Leningrad. The parachute tower in Primorsky Victory Park, installed in 1957.

And then they remained mainly attributes of sports and military bases, as ground-based simulators for preparing for parachute jumps.
The skeletons of the destroyed towers were preserved in parks for a long time; they still exist in Sokolniki Park to this day.

2013 remains of a parachute tower in Sokolniki Park

In 2006, in Kyiv, the diving tower in the Spetsnaz Base Amusement Park on Trukhanov Island was restored and opened for jumping.
The jump costs 100 hryvnia, which is about 390 rubles.

To jump from a tower, a person’s weight must be no less than 45 and no more than 100 kg, otherwise the counterweight will not work. The landing is quite hard and there is a risk of injury. But now there are ways to eliminate this drawback - to make a coating with partial depreciation.
According to experienced skydivers, jumping from a tower is scarier than jumping from an airplane, because... the ground is very close.

Given that there are now a huge number of people who want to jump from a parachute, it is not clear why not revive this attraction in the parks?

In the USA, there was also a legendary parachute tower at the Coney Island amusement park in Brooklyn with an interesting history.
The height of this tower reached almost 80 meters, 12 parachutes, an elevator. It was brought from New York after the 1939 World's Fair and installed in the amusement park at Coney Island in Brooklyn. Since then, the tower has been wildly popular. It was called Brooklyn's Eiffel Tower.

Once they even had a wedding on the tower. The bride and groom, guests and correspondents descended simultaneously on all twelve parachutes. In the morning, the young woman filed for divorce, but this is not relevant.
The tower brought its owners a solid income until 1968, when the business had to be stopped due to a lawsuit. It so happened that a black boy got stuck in the air during a jump, became entangled in the lines and hung upside down for about half an hour. The child, of course, was scared, but remained unharmed. The parents decided to get money for moral damage and turned to a black lawyer. The lawyer was not lazy and looked up the state law NY 1843. Of course, no one remembers the reasons for the adoption of this law, but it “prohibits the hanging upside down of black boys under 12 years of age, from a height of more than three feet, and for a period not exceeding 20 minutes.” The victim was 11 years old at the time of the incident and, as it turned out during the hearing, he was hanging at a height of 120 feet for 35 minutes. The lawyer received for his clients a fantastic sum of $700,000 at that time, the owners of the tower went bankrupt, and Brooklynites lost one of their favorite entertainments.
http://d-awards.ru/246-chernyjj_parashjutist.html

In 2004, the authorities decided to restore it, simply as an architectural structure, without parachute jumping. Now the tower serves as a decoration of the landscape with interesting, complex lighting.

Continued PART 2 http://bob-many.livejournal.com/370473.html?mode=reply#add_comment
Sources:
https://pastvu.com/
www.yandex.ru

A little about the popular game - "Giant Swords"

In the USSR, until 1959, the production of attractions was carried out by cooperative fishing cooperatives and small semi-handicraft enterprises.
workshops.
Everything changed on May 9, 1959, when by order of the Local Industry Administration Krasnodar region on the basis of small semi-handicraft enterprises of the city industrial plant and cooperative industrial artels "Metallist" and "Red Kuznets" it was decided to found the first Yeisk mechanical plant "Attraction" in the USSR
. Despite the primitive base and the small number of workers for such a plant - a little over three hundred people - production was established here in an extremely short time, and within a year "Attraction" was given the status of an enterprise of union significance." (c)

"Yeysk Mechanical Plant "Attraction" - during the Soviet period, it was a monopolist in the country in the production of park attractions; the plant's products could be seen in every city park of the Soviet Union. The plant reached its peak capacity in the late 80s, producing 1,500 attractions per year, operating more than 1,000 people." (c) http://Soviet-factories.rf/srednee-mashinostroenie/yeisk_mechaincal_plant.html
According to data for 2009, the company produced more than 55 thousand attractions!!!.

JSC Attraction (formerly Yeisk Attraction Plant) August 2013

This summer we saw a report that Open Joint-Stock Company"Attraction" (Yeysk Mechanical Plant) is in a difficult situation.
online:
"Current situation:
The plant is in dire straits, production areas are largely sold out. A significant part of the already relatively small revenue comes from renters. The team has shrunk significantly even in comparison with the pre-crisis 2007. The output volume is not comparable to the Soviet one, it has fallen tens of times." http://Soviet-factories.rf/countries_of_former_ussr/-2.html
This is very, very unfortunate! Many people love and remember these wonderful attractions, which meet a high degree of safety, are familiar from childhood and are unlike those from abroad.

At the same time, Attraction OJSC did not stop and continues to produce products
Business newspaper: "On April 11, 2013, Yeisk OJSC "Attraction" began producing new types of products - children's play complexes, towns and playgrounds, as well as outdoor sports equipment and exercise machines" http://www.dg-yug.ru/a/2013/ 04/11/Na_Kubani_vipustili_novie

It was at the Yeisk Attraction plant that wonderful attractions were developed and put into mass production, not inferior in complexity and equipment to those around the world.

From the official site:
"The event that occurred in Yeisk on May 9, 1959 went unnoticed by central means mass media, however, this in no way diminishes its significance on a national scale, because it was they who laid the foundation for the development and formation of the then Soviet entertainment industry.
On this day, the Yeisk mechanical plant "Attraction" was founded - the first and - today - one of the leading manufacturers of park attractions in Russia....
... The position of a monopolist obliged Attraction to do many things: the development and expansion of production capacity, increasing production output, the constant development of increasingly complex models of entertainment equipment, the selection and training of highly professional personnel, the creation of its own infrastructure became the main strategic directions of the activities of the team and the management of the enterprise. The plant is building not only new workshops, but also residential buildings and its own recreation center on the shore Sea of Azov, kindergarten "Bell" for 280 places, a wonderful Sports House...
By the end of the 80s, the company already employed more than a thousand people, and the production of attractions of varying complexity reaches one and a half thousand products per year..."

"The history of the development of production of Soviet attractions at the Yeisk plant "Attraction."

1959 - the “Aerial Carousel” design is developed, which is considered one of the very first attractions. Based on this model, a number of other, more complex carousels have been created.

1959 Aerial Carousel
"Aerial carousel - a carousel, the seats of which are suspended on chains or metal rods to a rotating structure" Encyclopedic Dictionary

found on the net

In the photographs, the carousel looked unpresentable, but it was under the dome, a brightly colored attraction, beloved by young children and hooligans in middle school.
On May 9, a brass band plays on the dance floor and elderly couples dance to the sounds of a waltz, and you fly on a carousel and the blue sky, and your parents wave their hand - it was a little happiness from childhood.

Now, as far as we know, there is only one modern version of the aerial carousel left in the parks and it looks like this:
The base tower extends telescopically, and the umbrella with suspended double-row seats changes the angle of inclination.

If it were not for the tasteless combination of dirty pink-violet-yellow shades - it would be quite a cute attraction =)))

Sokolniki Park 2013

in Almaty park there is a slightly different option (source unknown)

1959 The first attraction with a lifting rotation, “Turning Airplanes,” was designed.
The legendary attraction consisted of two two-seater airplanes mounted on booms. Due to the traction force, the planes rotated in a circle around the column. And they not only rotated, but also changed height.
It was a thrilling ride and children under 14 were not allowed

Many never managed to fly on these planes - by the 80s, these attractions had disappeared virtually everywhere.

Jacques Dupaquier Attraction "Bending Airplanes" at the "Krasnoe" state farm in the village of Vodyanaya Balka, Krasnodar Territory, 1964

Turning airplanes in Pavlovsk, 1980

1959 The legendary swing “Dead Loop” or “Nesterov’s Loop” was developed rotating around a horizontal axis.
It is on them that in the film “I Walk Through Moscow” the heroine of actress Galina Polskikh, Alena, asks a swindler to ride in order to detain him until the police arrive

A counterweight is attached to one end of the axle, and a two-seater aircraft is attached to the other. A motor is installed in the nose of the aircraft, which accelerates the propeller and the aircraft begins to rotate around a horizontal axis.

Leningrad Primorsky Park, 1968

Izmailovsky Park 1962

These attractions also practically did not reach the 80s. Either there were not enough parts for shock absorption, or the attraction was considered not safe enough.

1959 - “View Wheel” designed- the first production model mastered by Soviet industry.

Mr. Eagle 1966 Mr. Wheel of Review

1960 - the “Children’s” carousel was developed designed specifically for preschool children.
This is everyone's favorite carousel with horses, elephants, lions and other animals.
Leningrad, Central Park of Culture and Culture

There is nothing left of our beloved carousel, which was covered in the park with a heavy tarpaulin for the winter; even the concrete platform has sunk into the ground. For a long time we looked for its analogue in the parks of different cities, and did not find it.
But this year, this carousel was suddenly found in the famous Ivan Poddubny Park in Yeisk! Children's carousel "Carnival"
Of course, this is a later version - in our time the animals were made of plywood and wood, or maybe from pressed sawdust, but that's all - even the bench in the center! former.

g Eagle Carousel Carnival

This carousel appears in cartoons (for example, the cartoon "Carousel Lion"), films and children's books.

1960 The “Wheel of Meetings” project was put into operation, which moves along two intersecting trajectories.
I can’t even imagine what it is =)))

1960 The “Chain” carousel was designed.
It is made in the form of an openwork umbrella with a diameter of 8 meters, from which 20 single seats are suspended on chains.

A. Grinberg Sokolniki 1964, Czechoslovak exhibition

Later - the famous and still popular attraction "Whirlwind"

carousel "Whirlwind" in the famous park of Ivan Poddubny, Yeisk 2013

1962 - the first mobile carousel for school-age children was produced.

such a carousel has been preserved in Yekaterinburg, PARK OF CULTURE AND RECREATION NAMED AFTER V.V MAYAKOVSKY. If anyone takes a photo and shares it, we will be glad! =))

1962 The Spiral attraction is developed(carousel of complex rotation). This attraction is a metal structure with which you can move along the turns of an ascending and descending spiral in a complex movement.

Perhaps this is an analogue of the "Turbo" attraction???

What could be better in childhood than entertainment? In our provincial Soviet town, built around a mining complex, such an entertainment place was the only city park of culture and recreation with attractions built in it. This is what he became for us, Soviet children, for a while summer holidays from May to September. And even though the rides were not the same as in Disneyland, we didn’t know any others and therefore were very happy to stand in a long line at the ticket office on a hot afternoon and take a breeze on the “Whirlwind” or “Romashka”. And the bravest older children rode on the Ferris Ring and it was a real childhood!

Some of those Soviet attractions still operate in our city. Not to say that they are very successful, but they function. True, the Ferris Ring was dismantled several years ago, but its operation would no longer be safe. But you can still ride on “Romashka”, “Locomotive”, “Whirlwind” and “Russian Coaster”. My kids still ride them. But they don’t experience the same drive as we once did. They just ride and that’s it. They have a lot of other things, too much, that give them equally strong emotions. Therefore, we received many times more impressions from what we had.

It was not just joy for us, but a real holiday when, on a weekend or a holiday, my parents and I came to the park on our city attractions. Everyone rode on the carousel, from young to old. For adult men, huge metal “Power Swings” were installed, which swung mechanically using their own strength. Particularly powerful male skaters could even make “sunshine”, and more than once.

Adults also loved such attractions as “Whirlwind” and “Surprise,” which was installed later in the early 90s. “Russian Coaster” was also staged at the same time. Those who were more fearful rode on the “Romashka”. And only those over 12 years old were allowed on the Ferris Wheel without adults. For children there were “Locomotive” and “Small Daisy”, as well as children’s swings – “boats”. We were especially fond of “Autodrom”. A ticket for it cost 30 kopecks. In those cars you could feel like a real professional driver.

A cafe was installed in the amusement park where you could eat delicious ice cream and drink an unsurpassed milkshake. There was also a shooting range where my dad taught me how to shoot at a moving target. One bullet cost everything - exactly as much as it cost to make a phone call.

It cost 20 kopecks to ride on the rides for adults, the cooler and more extreme ones. Carousels for kids cost 15 kopecks. Quite affordable prices for any Soviet citizen.

In general, the park was organized and equipped superbly, with taste and love. Shady alleys were created for family walks with benches installed there. There were fountains and drinking fountains everywhere, and there was a stage in the park for performances by various artists on holidays. And we had such holidays that this is a separate issue altogether.

Everyone knows the legendary object of the exclusion zone - the amusement park in Pripyat: the overgrown Autodrom, the rusty Ferris Wheel. Many people, including me, want to see them live. It turns out that you don’t have to travel so far to do this; there are exactly the same attractions in St. Petersburg’s Ekateringhof Park, but in much better condition and without any radiation. For me, this was also a date with childhood; I once rode on the same rides in the Brest City Park, but they still function properly there.

// Part 23

1. I came to the park in the evening, when the white night had just begun to thicken.

2. The first “pepelats”, familiar to many, “Surprise”, peeked out from the foliage.

3. Surprisingly, but factory, which produced amusement rides in the USSR, is still alive and doing well!

4. “Surprise” was developed on it in 1974.

5. In technical terms, here “during the rotation of the common umbrella, the angle of inclination of the supporting boom changed.”

6. During operation, the drum rose to an almost vertical position (unlike the “Orbit”).

7. Standing skaters were fastened along the rim of the drum.

8. When rotating, the back was pressed against special plates. As far as I remember, this attraction had an age limit of 16.

9. Drum rotation drive.

10. Electric motor.

11. Nearby is the classic Carnival carousel.

12. Toy animals ran in a circle around the axis of the umbrella.

13. Elephants, giraffes, deer, horses, camels...

14. All horse-drawn transport is represented here, there are not enough donkeys, but there are plenty of them in the area.

15. This carousel could be restored; it was preserved well.

16. “Junga” was found in many parks throughout the USSR.

17. A multi-section “steamboat” drove around the lighthouse. In Brest, unfortunately, “Junga” did not survive.

18. The detailing is amazing: there is a chimney, a steering wheel and even a small propeller!

19. An analogue of the “Jungi” is still produced by the Yeisk plant “Attraction”, but it is called “Corsair” and looks monstrous .

20. “Sunny” was not far behind “Yoonga” in popularity.

21. This is a “micro Ferris wheel” for the little ones. A modern analogue of the attraction - "Treasures of the Sea". But the only thing that fascinates me is the look of the old version.

22. In the burnt warehouse you can still see a lot of spare parts for the attractions.

23. “Mushroom” even has a sign that has not been defaced by vandals.

24. This is another classic carousel.

25. Instead of animals there are vehicles.

26. Touching “spacecraft”.

27. Fighter jet.

28. On the control panel there is not only a steering wheel, but even one dial gauge.

29. Next carousel - “Bell”

30. The attraction really looks like a flower with ten buds.

31. When landing, you had to fasten yourself with chains to the seats, and when you started the engine, the seats leaned back a little and then swayed smoothly.

32. Flower core.

33. An enlarged version of the “Bell”, but with a change in the plane of rotation, is called “Orbit”.

34. This is the only attraction that is still fenced and locked.

35. To photograph the remote control, I had to insert the camera through the bars, having first removed the lens, since the entire device did not fit between the bars.