Language: Russian and/or Ukrainian
Period: Early–mid 2000s
Origin: Moscow, Kyiv, Odessa former USSR publishing market
Format: Original printed magazine
Condition: Used vintage / varies by issue
Contents: Adult photography, fiction, stories and period advertising/features
Age: 18+
A wonderfully strange surviving piece of Eastern European newsstand culture.
Before smartphones, social media and unlimited internet access, magazines like these were sold at kiosks throughout the former USSR.
They occupied a peculiar middle ground between men's magazines, glamour photography, cheap romantic fiction and tabloid entertainment.
Inside you'll find a very early-2000s mixture of adult photography, erotic and romantic stories, readers' letters, relationship material, advertisements and wonderfully questionable graphic design.
Content differs considerably between publications: some are primarily photographic, while others devote much more space to fiction and erotic stories.
They are also fantastic little time capsules of the period. Cheap paper, enormous Cyrillic headlines, primitive Photoshop, colourful typography and wonderfully chaotic layouts give them an aesthetic that disappeared remarkably quickly.
Despite the obvious male audience for the photographic magazines, this wasn't exclusively men's publishing. Romantic and erotic fiction was also an important part of the market, with publications such as Formula of Love specifically advertising любовно-эротична проза- romantic-erotic prose on the cover.
Available original titles include: Зеркало любви (Mirror of Love), Формула любви (Formula of Love), Ночные искушения (Night Temptations), Интим (Intimacy), Новый Эротический Дневник (New Erotic Diary), Эротический Бульвар (Erotic Boulevard), Секс Истории (Sex Stories) and Соблазны (Temptations).
Issues vary in format and content, generally around 30–65 pages. All are genuine period publications rather than modern reproductions. Expect normal storage and handling wear appropriate to magazines roughly twenty years old; please select the exact issue you want from the variants and refer to the photographs for condition.
To comply with international laws all pictures are edited to not show any nude.
The magazines self however leave none to the imagination.
