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20+ photos of Russian babushkas like you’ve never seen them before!

Lifestyle
RUSSIA BEYOND
‘Pravda’ newspaper, axe and bones, 1984 / Vladimir Vorobiev/MAMM/MDF
We’re used to seeing a Russian babushka as a calm old woman in a headscarf sitting on her knitwork. But not all of them are so soft and kind! We’ve put together a gallery of badass Russian grandmas that you won’t want to mess with!

Russian babushkas never give up and defy all stereotypes. People say they can stop a running horse and enter a burning house. They raise their grandchildren, keep the house in order, never complain about life and always try to stay positive! And here is photo evidence of their endless energy!

Museum guards
Vladimir Vorobiev/MAMM/MDF
Two old women having small talk
Vladimir Vorobiev/MAMM/MDF
An old saleswoman in the GUM department store in Moscow
Semen Mishin-Morgenstern/MAMM/MDF
An old woman from Chukotka
Dmitry Baltermanz/MAMM/MDF
An old woman knitting, 1949
Georgy Lipskerov/MAMM/MDF
A countryside cyclist and an old woman with a yoke, 1979
Vladimir Sokolaev/MAMM/MDF
A peasant woman during World War II
Arkady Shaikher/Private collection
“Once upon a time there lived an old woman and an old man”
I.Lagunov/The State historical Museum of Southern Ural
“Don’t worry!”
Rustam Mukhametzyanov/Rustam Mukhametzyanov archive
An old woman holding a sheaf of grain
Leonid Shokin/MAMM/MDF
A grandma cleaning mushrooms she just picked
L.Zhaleiko/A.Sologubova collection
An old woman posing on a tractor
Mikhail Prishvin/State Literature Museum
An old woman posing in a headscarf, 1870s
A.Krasovsky/MAMM/MDF
Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofya
Leo Tolstoy State Museum
A peasant woman hauling her disabled son near Sarov Monastery, 1903
‘K.E.von Hahn and Ko’ photo studio/Sarov Monastery museum
Maria Polenova with Alisa the horse. Pavlovskoye estate
Boris Kustodiev/Astrakhan State Art gallery
‘The Exodus’ After the Nazis aviation bombed Murmansk
Yevgeny Khaldei/MAMM/MDF
An old woman sitting on a bench, 1956
Yevgeny Khaldei/MAMM/MDF
A grandmother and her ‘little’ grandson, 1960s
Anatoly Boldin/MAMM/MDF
An old woman selling potatoes at a railway station somewhere in the Urals, 1974
Dmitry Vozdvizhensky, Nina Sviridova/MAMM/MDF
A group of old women on a holiday in a village, 1978
Denis Tyulenev archive

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