Measures 7" x 9 ½", cloth-wrapped hard cover (the original dust jacket is missing), 480 pp., illustrated with b/w and color drawings, photos, and diagrams. Published by the State Publishing House for Agricultural Literature, Moscow.

The short foreword from the publishers claims that the book encompasses all aspects of everyday life of a collective farmer's family, but can also have a wide variety of applications in urban environments, by Soviet urban families. The foreword ends with a rather long list of Soviet luminaries in the fields of agriculture, medicine, education, biology, zoology, etc., who contributed to the creation of this guidebook.

After reading through this list of names and titles, the title of Chapter 1 comes as a shock. "Hygiene of the Homestead and Farmstead". The book was published in 1957 when all the surviving farmers whose property could be called a homestead or farmstead, were finishing their long sentences in GULAG as "kulaks", while the majority of urban families occupied one room in a "kommunalka" apartment, sharing the kitchen and bathroom with several other such families.

Each section of the book, be it cooking, making preserves, caring for babies and older children, making clothes and decorating them, doing laundry, cleaning clothes, gardening, animal husbandry, etc., is full of good advice. For those who have a garden, animals, the optimal 8.25 sq. meters of living space per family member, fresh meat or fish to cook, etc., the list goes on. To brighten up the business of Soviet home economics, the publishers thoughtfully inserted at the end a couple of pages of lyrics of sentimental songs to sing while preserving wild mushrooms, boiling your baby's diapers, or knitting your jacket.

In very good to excellent condition. Shelf and usage wear is showing in the scuffs to the cloth of the hard cover and the slightly curved-in corners, but the wear is minor and not too intrusive to the eye. The internal pages also show that the book used to be put to good use, but the soiling is mild, we found no damaged or missing pages, the paper is supple, and the binding is strong.

Please note that the pen in our photo is for size reference.