Soviet refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and washing machines were made "for the ages," collector and an employee at an aviation plant, Ivan Borisov, told RIA Novosti.
Soviet items such as the EAYA washing machines, ZIL refrigerator or Chayka vacuum cleaner have been working for decades and are still in use.
"The products were designed not to be profitable, but to make life easier. They had a different meaning, initially," Ivan said.
According to the collector, many Soviet people had fond memories associated with these household items. They often purchased items planning to own them for many years to come.
"Some people waited for a refrigerator for six months, someone won it in the lottery and someone received it for victory in a competition. People had stories, sweet memories related to these items," the man said. "All the things of those years […] exude warmth," he added.
All of the Soviet items in Ivan's collection are still in working condition, among them, a vacuum cleaner and a refrigerator which were produced in 1945. The collector explained that the main thing is to install the equipment properly, and then it will function without any failures.
"The Soviet technical items almost never fail," Ivan said. "Vacuum cleaner motors can operate for 40 years. The manual says that after 300 hours of work one should replace the carbon brushes in it. But when you open it, you see that these brushes have not been worn down, even though it obviously had been working for much a longer time," the collector said.
"This is the evil of our time: not only are we offered a new product every day, […] but it is also designed to quickly go out of order so that we have to buy a new one," Ivan said.
According to Ivan, old equipment often labelled as "garbage" has much more sense in it than it may seem at first glance. These items are precious reminders of the times, which people, for various reasons, prefer to forget, the man explained.
