The article examines the 1952 “Book of Tasty and Healthy Food” in the context of the development of mass agitation and propaganda in the USSR. This colorful and richly illustrated publication was not only a guide to cooking, but also set the task of planting the idea of the achievements of socialist construction in people’s mind. The book proclaimed the triumph of the Soviet food industry and housing construction development. It was the first to describe such a social space as the kitchen, a place for cooking, and it dealt with a personal kitchen, and the appearance of gas stoves and refrigerators. The author shows that the guide, not least of all set the goal of stimulating the buying activity of citizens in order to replenish the state budget. The recipes presented in the book were aimed at different income strata of the society and people of various occupations. The book advertised delicatessen products: black caviar, artichokes, champagne, sturgeon, etc. At the same time, some of the recipes were targeted at working women, and the book featured a wide selection of convenience foods produced by the food industry. However, turning to the actual living conditions of citizens in this period allows us to conclude that for many readers the book was just a myth of a blissful life. The analysis of appeals made by citizens to the executive bodies shows that many of them did not even entertain the hope for the change for the better, and the process of modernization of the housing stock continued in violation of the norms of social justice. The abundance of food that was demonstrated in the book existed solely on paper. Even in large cities the distribution of food supplies to regular grocery stores was uneven. The situation in the provinces was even more patchy. In a planned economy, some foodstuffs were shipped over long distances. All this created the prerequisites for food shortage, and the “Book of Tasty and Healthy Food” was intended to fulfill, above all, an ideological mission.

This article examines citizens’ letters to newspapers as a mechanism of dialogue between the authorities and society. It analyzes a range of regional periodicals from the 1950s to the 1960s. Publishing readers’ letters in periodical print was a customary practice in this period. The large number of such publications was driven by editorial boards’ need to rely on non-professional contributors, given the limited professional staff of district newspapers. Taken as a whole, the examined issues of the regional press suggest that a considerable number of published letters were complaints concerning various aspects of everyday and workplace life. These may be treated as a source for the history of Soviet everyday life. They reveal the uneven, mosaic character of urbanization in the regions and the persistence of many unresolved domestic and workplace problems. The author stresses that any analysis of periodicals must take into account party control over mass media in the Soviet Union. Particular importance is attached to understanding the purpose of publishing large numbers of complaint letters in newspapers. The analysis leads to the conclusion that letters were used as an instrument for shaping public consciousness: undesirable behavior was publicly censured, while broader social problems were reframed, through the epistolary lens, as isolated and private shortcomings. Typical themes included everyday problems of various kinds: a poorly functioning club, a non-operational shop, bad roads, and repair issues. The authorities required newspaper editorial boards to process citizens’ appeals and to publish official responses from local institutions. This created the illusion that appealing to the newspaper provided an effective solution to the problem. In practice, however, the situation has not always been like this. An analysis of the state’s response to published letters, viewed through documents of executive and party authorities, shows that in reality resolution was often delayed for many years, while some issues proved unsolvable because of systemic deficiencies in the state apparatus. Only a portion of everyday issues were effectively resolved through the newspaper.