Dangerous Soviet things. Urban legends and fears in the USSR

Jeans infected with lice, larvae under the skin of the African guest, a portrait of Mao Zeduna, appearing at night on a Chinese carpet, swastikas hidden in the construction of houses, chewing gum with crushed glass - this is an incomplete list of Soviet city legends about dangerous things. The book of famous folklorists and anthropologists A. Arkhipova (RANEPA, RSU, RASH) and A. KIRZYUK (RANGHIGS) - the first anthropological and folkloristic study dedicated to the fears of Soviet man. Many of them found expression in texts and practices that are obscure to our contemporary: in the 1930s on a matchbox, people looked for Trotsky’s profile, and in the 1970s they passed rumors about treats poisoned by the Americans.
The book tells why there were such fears that they turned into rumors and city legends, as they influenced the behavior of Soviet people and sometimes gave rise to large -scale moral panic. The study is based on polls, interviews, memoirs, diaries and archival documents.
2nd edition