On 18 September 2014 the exhibition "Together and Apart. The Urban Family in Russia in the 20th century" opened its doors in the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The exhibition is a co-production of the International Institute of Social History and the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.
Photographs from family albums, audio-visual projections, household objects, posters and film portray life in the "Soviet century" from the perspective of the people who lived it, in their everyday experiences of growing up and ageing, of marrying and raising a family, of housing arrangements, study, work and leisure. At the root of the exhibition are the results of the IISH research project "Work, Income and the State in Russia in the Soviet Union".
"Together and Apart" was curated by senior researcher Gijs Kessler of the IISH, exhibition maker Jeroen de Vries, and Tamara Kovaleva of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. The exhibition in the State Museum runs from 19 September until 18 November 2014. Earlier versions of the exhibition were on show in the Drents Museum in Assen (Nov. 2012 to June 2013) and the A.V. Schusev State Architectural Museum in Moscow (Sept. - Nov. 2013).
Sergei Ilyich Berdichevskii, former Menshevik, in exile in Arkhangelsk with his family. 1928. From a family album.
The project was supported by the Committee for Culture of the city of St. Petersburg, the SNS REAAL Fonds, the Mondriaan Fonds, the Wilhelmina E. Jansen fonds, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Moscow, the Friends of the International Institute of Social History, and the Netherlands Institute in Saint Petersburg.