The Soviet Kiss, Gone But (Mostly) Not Missed
- By Amos Chapple
Men locking lips in public might be a rare event in today's Russia, but comrades kissing behind the Iron Curtain was once the height of fraternal protocol.
![Soviet dictator Josef Stalin looks unsure as pilot Valery Chkalov (right) leans in for a kiss in 1936. ](https://gdb.rferl.org/92fe9850-5c05-4887-ae5e-2d6846fbefac_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Soviet dictator Josef Stalin looks unsure as pilot Valery Chkalov (right) leans in for a kiss in 1936.
![By 1937, Stalin seems to have warmed to the practice. Here, he lunges for a peck from pilot Vasily Molokov. ](https://gdb.rferl.org/98b899aa-5b4b-4ee7-ac7c-fbc65128d7f2_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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By 1937, Stalin seems to have warmed to the practice. Here, he lunges for a peck from pilot Vasily Molokov.
![Red Army soldiers kiss after victory was declared over Nazi Germany. The "socialist fraternal kiss" was reportedly an expression of equality -- upturning the ancien regime's custom of lowly subjects kissing noble hands (or feet, in ancient Rome and Persia). ](https://gdb.rferl.org/96e1fb28-e5b0-450b-b304-986b936545e2_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Red Army soldiers kiss after victory was declared over Nazi Germany. The "socialist fraternal kiss" was reportedly an expression of equality -- upturning the ancien regime's custom of lowly subjects kissing noble hands (or feet, in ancient Rome and Persia).
![What looks like a last dance is actually a state event to welcome cosmonauts back to Earth led by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (third from left).](https://gdb.rferl.org/6d143318-e370-40ca-9521-ca250f463a71_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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What looks like a last dance is actually a state event to welcome cosmonauts back to Earth led by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (third from left).
![Another angle of the 1962 event shows Khrushchev mid-kiss. The socialist fraternal kiss was usually reserved for the cheeks, but as enthusiasm for communist utopia began to wane, stately kisses only grew in passion.](https://gdb.rferl.org/34212c6f-aa86-4622-a7e0-018440ff7f57_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Another angle of the 1962 event shows Khrushchev mid-kiss. The socialist fraternal kiss was usually reserved for the cheeks, but as enthusiasm for communist utopia began to wane, stately kisses only grew in passion.
![And no one kissed like Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, pictured (center) greeting communist heart-throb Konstantin Chernenko in Crimea in 1980.](https://gdb.rferl.org/ccde76eb-45b8-43a9-9b03-b5b7f8f3c6d1_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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And no one kissed like Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, pictured (center) greeting communist heart-throb Konstantin Chernenko in Crimea in 1980.
![As Brezhnev locks lips with Nikolai Podgorny in the Kremlin in 1975, two elder statesmen (right) suffer instant demotion to third and fourth wheels.](https://gdb.rferl.org/fc0ab3a1-a5a1-4259-8163-5e0a8d8cfef2_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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As Brezhnev locks lips with Nikolai Podgorny in the Kremlin in 1975, two elder statesmen (right) suffer instant demotion to third and fourth wheels.
![The Brezhnev kiss involved three kisses, usually on alternating cheeks; but the closer the ties between Soviet states, the closer wrinkled lips slid. This famous greeting between Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker in 1979 was later immortalized in a mural titled God Help Me Survive This Deadly Love.](https://gdb.rferl.org/7ca2f84a-a05d-4316-8aca-a5be40f66ff5_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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The Brezhnev kiss involved three kisses, usually on alternating cheeks; but the closer the ties between Soviet states, the closer wrinkled lips slid. This famous greeting between Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker in 1979 was later immortalized in a mural titled God Help Me Survive This Deadly Love.
![Mikhail Gorbachev (pictured greeting Honecker) may have ushered in a new era when he rose to lead the U.S.S.R., but the Soviet kiss was one custom that continued unchanged. ](https://gdb.rferl.org/18934cd3-87ff-49ba-af21-1f523d5b7ac3_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Mikhail Gorbachev (pictured greeting Honecker) may have ushered in a new era when he rose to lead the U.S.S.R., but the Soviet kiss was one custom that continued unchanged.
![Three years before the Berlin Wall came down, Honecker grips Gorbachev tight during the latter's state visit to East Germany in 1986.](https://gdb.rferl.org/92d41bc7-3c30-4e15-9f60-3511ad3fab7d_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Three years before the Berlin Wall came down, Honecker grips Gorbachev tight during the latter's state visit to East Germany in 1986.
![In the dying days of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, Soviet official Ivan Silayev grabs a last kiss as tennis champion Andrei Cherkasov dreams of a brighter future.](https://gdb.rferl.org/26f30aa9-8ef8-4c4a-879f-9569e501432e_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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In the dying days of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, Soviet official Ivan Silayev grabs a last kiss as tennis champion Andrei Cherkasov dreams of a brighter future.
![This 2005 photo of Vladimir Putin being kissed by a WWII veteran is the last image we can find of a Soviet kiss being planted on official cheeks.](https://gdb.rferl.org/02461822-8ac2-44b8-a73a-1132f38d3965_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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This 2005 photo of Vladimir Putin being kissed by a WWII veteran is the last image we can find of a Soviet kiss being planted on official cheeks.
![But for die-hard communists like Ushangi Davitashvili, who keeps a shrine to Stalin in his garden in Tbilisi, the lip-smacking tradition continues, even if those lips have long-since turned to stone.](https://gdb.rferl.org/e4009948-630a-4d20-914c-d1ea02936dd4_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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But for die-hard communists like Ushangi Davitashvili, who keeps a shrine to Stalin in his garden in Tbilisi, the lip-smacking tradition continues, even if those lips have long-since turned to stone.