Seller, Timofei Lavin
–       This is my mother’s dress. I don’t remember that time when there was a total shortage of things but my mother has told me that in the beginning of the 1990s the shelves in the stores were empty and you were lucky if you got a hold of a nice dress. One day she heard a rumor that dresses were on sale in the closest shop. She had to stand in a long queue during her lunch break and then she bought three dresses. She gave one of them as a gift to her mother while she kept the other two for herself. This one is the last one in the ‘collection’. Together with my mother we have decided to sell the dress. It is unfashionable and uncomfortable to wear. At home my mother walks around in sweatpants and t-shorts. When she goes out she puts on something nice. The dress is just hanging in the closet.

Buyer, Ingvill Fossheim:
–       This is not just a dress. Its history is from the Soviet era and it is a memento from a nice experience I got to have through an art project in Tromsø and Russia. I didn’t wear the dress the summer after I bought it, it is a little big, and I considered giving it away or taking it in so it would fit but I haven’t decided how I am going to do that yet. Since I work with costumes, I collect clothes with good stories which I can also use as costumes. I have inherited clothes from my mother, grandmother and aunt, which have sailed the seven seas with my uncle. I have lived a nomadic life and when I wear the clothes I have inherited then something from those people are with me.

Seller, Timofei Lavin:
The purse was sitting at home for many years. I remember from childhood that there were old photographs, my grandfather’s compass, stamps and photos of Soviet actors in it. Before, it belonged to my grandmother. Now it doesn’t have an owner. The purse is at home like a museum piece and not an item that would be used every day. I am selling it because I know that purses like these are considered to be vintage. I’m sure there is someone out there that will appreciate its style. The purse is of good quality and made of genuine leather with a silk lining.

Buyer, Kobedeva Elena:
Since childhood I have dreamt of a purse like this. I remember asking my mother all the time to buy me a purse like it. But my mother didn’t even have expensive things at that time. Right now I am very fond of the Soviet style. I even feel some nostalgia for that era. Then you had fewer things and you appreciated them more. I like secondhand markets, vintage things and furniture. I have just moved into a new apartment and it is really messy there and not everything has found its place yet. But I hope that both the purse and other expensive things from the Soviet era will. If you think that the purse is going to be lying around like it is part of an exhibition then you are wrong. I am going to use it every day. It is after all a real treasure. And I have to show it off to everybody.

Seller, Natalija Todua:
I grew up in a time when all of the women could make their own dresses. There was a shortage of good clothing in the shops but you could actually find good fabric, thread and accessories. My mother was a seamstress and I inherited a large collection of thread from the Soviet era. They are of good quality, 100% cotton. Today, you don’t see those in the shops that often. Most thread is synthetic. I don’t sew often so I have decided to sell the thread. For those that are good at sewing these will be a real treat.

Buyer, Maria Grakun:
It is important for me that things are natural. I have been looking for thread like this for a long time. If you really yank hard you can break the thread but it is durable when you go over the seams. I am going to give birth to a girl at any minute so it is important for me to keep my house and sewing things tidy. And waiting for a new person to be born.

Seller, the Lanin family
Everyone is creative in this family. The mother’s name is Olga and she is a stay at home mom. She is only responsible for raising the kids, so Tanja, Olja and Misja do activities like handicrafts, drawing, sports and writing poetry. They got an interest for collecting vintage things from their mother. Each of the children has their own toys and all three of them have their favorites. No one remembers when the panda came to their home. Maybe it was a gift from someone. But because none of the kids are that attached to the panda the Lanin family had decided to sell it so that it won’t sit around gathering dust.

Buyer, Ksjusja:
I took a trip down to the secondhand market with a friend and I saw the panda and I liked it a lot. When my friend saw I was interested in it he bought and gave it to me as a gift immediately. I have a whole zoo of plush toys at home. I hope that my animals and my cat Tuuli (tuuli means wind in Finnish) welcome the panda into the family. I am a student. Sometimes it is nice to come home after a hard day of studying and see all of the animals.

Seller, Olga Lanina:
We have a lot of things from the Soviet era. We moved to a new apartment with the kids and the previous tenants were a big Soviet family. We found a lot of things in the closest and on the shelves like magazines and journals and some sporting goods. We are not going to sell the things the kids play with because these things help expand their conceptualization of an era that’s past. Even the picture of Lenin from the magazine Ogonjok tells more about the Communist leader than modern history textbooks do. This makes it so that our kids, in contrast to their fellow students, know what Oktjabrjata, Pioneers, Komsomol members and Communists were. We want to sell the Soviet era rackets because the kids don’t like to play badminton.

Buyer, Vladimir Lasarev:
I’m really sentimental. The rackets remind me of my Soviet childhood when a lot of kids played badminton in the streets. I have a little daughter but I can’t play badminton with her yet. But my wife might be willing do it with me. She is a doll maker and she sits a lot when she works, so some moving around is good for her. I even want to lose a little weight. I am a ship builder and I am often out at sea both as a captain and as a part of the crew. In between the seasons I let myself to be lazy and I put on some winter fat. The rackets will keep me in shape. I bought them and put them in the trunk so that I would be able to take them out and get some exercise when I’m out traveling.

Seller, Live Hanne Haugen:
The dress is big and eye-catching. I like long dresses with narrow hips and puffy sleeves. Since I work in performing arts I am always on the lookout for uniquely expressive costumes. This one is fun, pretty timeless and it is not often that you can get your hands on this type of dress. I bought it at the Secondhand Impro project For what it’s worth…where I was participating in it as a dancer in Tromsø, and it has been used in a couple of performances afterwards. I thought it was a nice thing to take with me further on to the Secondhand Impro project in Russia, both as a costume and as something to sell. I almost regret selling it but it is also absolutely wonderful to get rid of things. Besides, the woman who bought it was a really cool and beautiful person. I hope the dress has a good life in Russia. It is really a dress that’s lived an exciting life.

Buyer, Olga Simonova:
It was love at first sight for me with this dress. It has unusual colors and it is really long and stylish. The first time I saw it was when the owner was wearing it during the performance. As soon as it was back on the rack I tried it on and bought it right away. That very same night I had it on when I went to a party. All of my friends were excited about my purchase and I was really taken aback when I noticed that some of the colors in the dress reflected the lights in the discotheque. Despite it being a vintage dress, it is a modern one.

Grandmother’s bridal veil
Seller: Elena Lisitsyna
This is my mother’s bridal veil. I found it in the attic with some vintage rubbish. I have used it for a long time in my work as a fashion designer where in some of my collections border insanity. The Snow Girl collection was shocking and the veil was in high demand. Since then I have sold out all of the models from the collection and the bridal veil was left over. I don’t have any plans to get married and my favorite everyday thing to wear is a motorcycle helmet. That’s why I have decided to sell my grandmother’s veil – it doesn’t go very well with riding a motorcycle.

No one has bought it yet.