Half Mandrill, Half Mandela

“Rezinotrest [Soviet rubber-industry trust] is your protector from rain and slush. Without galoshes Europe is bound to sit and weep.”

Who know Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote ads for galoshes? Threatening and imperious ads for galoshes. I wrote a bit about it.

chagalov:

Representatives of creative avant-garde at a meeting with the Japanese writer. From left to right: Tomizi Tamiji Naito [(1885-1965), japanese writer), Boris Pasternak, Sergei Eisenstein, Olga Tretyakova (actress, wife of the poet Sergei Tretyakov), Lili Brik, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Voznesensky (soviet diplomat) and the translator. Moscow, May 1924 -by Anatole Cemenka (Semenka) [source: Borodulin’s Collection]

Many thanks to nostalgiya who provided the translation of the following note, and many thanks also to Pat and Aurelio Asiain who provided informations about Tamiji Naito.

“Years, People, Life”
Little-known photograph
Moscow. In May 1924 in the Soviet Union came the famous writer Tomizi Naito. He (the guest) acquainted with the Soviet intelligentsia.
V.V. Mayakovsky, B. L. Pasternak and S. M. Eisenstein met with the writer T. Naito in Moscow. [follow the caption of the photograph]

nostalgiya:kvetchlandia

Uncredited and undated photograph.
  Writers and intellectuals in the early Soviet Union, including Boris Pasternak (second from left), Lili Brik (fifth from left) and Vladimir Mayakovsky (sixth from left).

Whoa. This is all gold. Mayakovsky looks ready to break a man with his bare hands.