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Sight Words Flash Cards | Sight Words: Teach Your Child to Read
Download and print flash cards from the Dolch, Fry, and Top 150 Written Words lists, or make your own Custom Sight Words Flash Cards. The cards are available in three sizes full-page (1-up); half-page (2-up); and quarter-page (4-up). We recommend printing the flash cards on card-stock paper, to make the cards stiffer and more durable.
These large full-page flash cards are great for putting on the wall and for playing floor games. Select or customize
The medium sized, 2-to-a-page flash cards are perfect for younger children; they have a large font but are still small enough to handle easily. Select or customize
The small 4-to-a-page flash cards are perfect for older children. They are also used in several of our sight words games. Select or customize
Answers to common questions about using the flash cards. More
The Full-Page Flash Card Creator creates custom Flash Card sets. You can combine existing word lists such as Dolch Sight Words and Fry Sight Words or add your own custom words. Generate Custom Flash Cards
Pre-K (40 words) — Download (PDF) Kindergarten (52 words) — Download (PDF) 1st Grade (41 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd Grade (46 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd Grade (41 words) — Download (PDF) Nouns (95 words) — Download (PDF)
1st 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 4th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 5th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 6th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 7th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 8th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 9th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 10th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF)
1st 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF)
Write your own words into these blank sight words flash cards. Download (PDF)
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The Half-Page Flash Card Creator creates custom Flash Card sets. You can combine existing word lists such as Dolch Sight Words and Fry Sight Words or add your own custom words. Generate Custom Flash Cards
Pre-K (40 words) — Download (PDF) Kindergarten (52 words) — Download (PDF) 1st Grade (41 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd Grade (46 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd Grade (41 words) — Download (PDF) Nouns (95 words) — Download (PDF)
1st 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 4th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 5th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 6th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 7th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 8th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 9th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 10th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF)
1st 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF)
Write your own words into these blank sight words flash cards. Download (PDF)
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The Quarter-Page Flash Card Creator creates custom Flash Card sets. You can combine existing word lists such as Dolch Sight Words and Fry Sight Words or add your own custom words. Generate Custom Flash Cards
Pre-K (40 words) — Download (PDF) Kindergarten (52 words) — Download (PDF) 1st Grade (41 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd Grade (46 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd Grade (41 words) — Download (PDF) Nouns (95 words) — Download (PDF)
1st 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 4th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 5th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 6th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 7th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 8th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 9th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF) 10th 100 (100 words) — Download (PDF)
1st 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF) 2nd 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF) 3rd 50 (50 words) — Download (PDF)
Write your own words into these blank sight words flash cards. Download (PDF)
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Q: Why is there an arrow under each word in the flash cards? A: The arrow serves multiple purposes. It reminds teachers to place their index finger on the circle and move it from left to right under the word to lead the student’s eye across the word. The arrow also helps students orient the flash card and helps them remember to read from left to right. Q: How do I hold the flash cards? A: Hold the flash card so that it is directly in front of your child at your child’s eye level. When you move your finger across the arrow, make sure that it does not obstruct your child’s view of the word as this distracts attention from the words. Q: The flash cards don’t print correctly — why do they go over the edge of the paper? A: The one-to-a-page and four-to-a-page flash cards need to be printed in landscape. To do this, go to your printer settings and select “landscape” (not portrait). ↑ TopThese materials are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Essentially, this means you can do whatever you want with the resources, provided you leave the attribution hallmark on the resources. You may use these materials in the classroom, at home, as part of a for-profit tutoring business, or for any other purpose. You do not need to contact us for permission to use the materials. We want you to use them!
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Sight Words Teaching Strategy | Sight Words: Teach Your Child to Read
A child sees the word on the flash card and says the word while underlining it with her finger.
The child says the word and spells out the letters, then reads the word again.
The child says the word and then spells out the letters while tapping them on her arm.
A child says the word, then writes the letters in the air in front of the flash card.
A child writes the letters on a table, first looking at and then not looking at the flash card.
Correct a child’s mistake by clearly stating and reinforcing the right word several times.
- Overview
- Plan a Lesson
- Teaching Techniques
- Correcting Mistakes
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Questions and Answers
Sight words instruction is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Phonics is a method for learning to read in general, while sight words instruction increases a child’s familiarity with the high frequency words he will encounter most often.
Use lesson time to introduce up to three new words, and use game time to practice the new words.
A sight words instruction session should be about 30 minutes long, divided into two components:
- Sight Words Lesson — Use our Teaching Techniques to introduce new words and to review words from previous lessons — 10 minutes
- Sight Words Games — Use our games to provide reinforcement of the lesson and some review of already mastered sight words to help your child develop speed and fluency — 20 minutes
Video: Introduction to Teaching Sight Words
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2.1 Introduce New Words
When first beginning sight words, work on no more than three unfamiliar words at a time to make it manageable for your child. Introduce one word at a time, using the five teaching techniques. Hold up the flash card for the first word, and go through all five techniques, in order. Then introduce the second word, and go through all five teaching techniques, and so on.
This lesson should establish basic familiarity with the new words. This part of a sight words session should be brisk and last no more than ten minutes. As your child gets more advanced, you might increase the number of words you work on in each lesson.
2.2 Review Old Words
Begin each subsequent lesson by reviewing words from the previous lesson. Words often need to be covered a few times for the child to fully internalize them. Remember: solid knowledge of a few words is better than weak knowledge of a lot of words!
Go through the See & Say exercise for each of the review words. If your child struggles to recognize a word, cover that word again in the main lesson, going through all five teaching techniques. If he has trouble with more than two of the review words, then set aside the new words you were planning to introduce and devote that day’s lesson to review.
Note: The child should have a good grasp of — but does not need to have completely mastered — a word before it gets replaced in your lesson plan. Use your game time to provide lots of repetition for these words until the child has thoroughly mastered them.
2.3 Reinforce with Games
Learning sight words takes lots of repetition. We have numerous sight words games that will make that repetition fun and entertaining for you and your child.
The games are of course the most entertaining part of the sight words program, but they need to wait until after the first part of the sight words lesson.
Games reinforce what the lesson teaches.
Do not use games to introduce new words.
NOTE: Be sure the child has a pretty good grasp of a sight word before using it in a game, especially if you are working with a group of children. You do not want one child to be regularly embarrassed in front of his classmates when he struggles with words the others have already mastered!
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Introduce new sight words using this sequence of five teaching techniques:
- See & Say — A child sees the word on the flash card and says the word while underlining it with her finger.
- Spell Reading — The child says the word and spells out the letters, then reads the word again.
- Arm Tapping — The child says the word and then spells out the letters while tapping them on his arm, then reads the word again.
- Air Writing — A child says the word, then writes the letters in the air in front of the flash card.
- Table Writing — A child writes the letters on a table, first looking at and then not looking at the flash card.
These techniques work together to activate different parts of the brain. The exercises combine many repetitions of the word (seeing, hearing, speaking, spelling, and writing) with physical movements that focus the child’s attention and cement each word into the child’s long-term memory.
The lessons get the child up to a baseline level of competence that is then reinforced by the games, which take them up to the level of mastery. All you need is a flash card for each of the sight words you are covering in the lesson.
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Of course, every child will make mistakes in the process of learning sight words. They might get confused between similar-looking words or struggle to remember phonetically irregular words.
Use our Corrections Procedure every time your child makes a mistake in a sight words lesson or game. Simple and straightforward, it focuses on reinforcing the correct identification and pronunciation of the word. It can be done quickly without disrupting the flow of the activity.
Do not scold the child for making a mistake or even repeat the incorrect word. Just reinforce the correct word using our script, and then move on.
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Q: Progress is slow. We have been on the same five words for a week!
A: It is not unusual to have to repeat the same set of words several times, especially in the first weeks of sight words instruction. The child is learning how to learn the words and is developing pattern recognition approaches that will speed his progress. Give him time to grow confident with his current set of words, and avoid overwhelming the child with new words when he hasn’t yet become familiar with the old words.
Q: Do I really need to do all five techniques for every word?
A: Start out by using all five techniques with each new word. The techniques use different teaching methods and physical senses to support and reinforce the child’s memorization of the word. After a few weeks of lessons, you will have a sense for how long it takes your child to learn new words and whether all five exercises are necessary. Start by eliminating the last activity, Table Writing, but be sure to review those words at the next lesson to see if the child actually retained them without that last exercise. If the child learns fine without Table Writing, then you can try leaving out the fourth technique, Air Writing. Children who learn quickly may only need to use two or three of the techniques.
Q: How long will it take to get through a whole word list? I want my child to learn ALL the words!!!
A: That depends on a number of factors, including frequency of your lessons as well as your child’s ability to focus. But do not get obsessed with the idea of racing through the word lists to the finish line. It is much, much better for your child to solidly know just 50 words than to “kind of” know 300 words. We are building a foundation here, and we want that foundation to be made of rock, not sand!
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VZGLYAD / German media found a new “Skripal case” for Russia :: In the world
A Georgian militant was killed in Berlin, whom the local media certifies as an ex-employee of the anti-terrorist department of the Georgian Interior Ministry, who left for Ukraine to "continue to fight against Moscow's influence." Journalists talk about “liquidation on behalf of a foreign intelligence service,” but they are looking for the ends of this amazing story in the wrong place.
Last Friday, in one of the central districts of Berlin, Moabit, a citizen of Georgia was shot in the head. In hot pursuit, the police detained a Russian citizen, in whose apartment they found a large amount of cash. At the same time, their colleagues in diving suits were scouring the river Spree for the murder weapon.
German newspapers, lacking hot material on weekends, were full of monotonous headlines like "Russian kills Georgian in the center of Berlin." Against the general background, this is almost a sensation, a scandal was brewing, although only the word “Berlin” is true in these headlines.
There was a hole high in the mountains
Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a native of the village of Duisi in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia, a Kist by nationality, turned out to be killed. A former militant, he took part in the Chechen war on the side of the militants and was part of the Makhauri Brothers detachment, which consisted entirely of Kists. For some time he was considered the leader of the Pankisi Jamaat, which swore allegiance to Al-Qaeda * (a terrorist organization banned in Russia), and one of the representatives of Doku Umarov in Georgia. In addition, he was accused of attacking Ingushetia in the summer of 2004.
Khangoshvili was walking to the Berlin mosque for Friday prayers when a man on a bicycle caught up with him and shot him in the back of the head. The Berlin police detained the murderer in hot pursuit - there are cameras everywhere, and it is not clear what he was counting on at all.
At first, the German police reported that the detainee was a Chechen, but later deleted this message for reasons of political correctness. So he turned into an abstract "Russian" in the headlines. But the Russians are not in the habit of hopeless actions, strongly reminiscent of an action of blood feud, when the killer is not too concerned about his future fate. The main thing is to fulfill the duty of honor.
Khangoshvili is a typical representative of the Kists of the 1990s. Even in Soviet Tbilisi, there was a criminal-street term "duiseli" (that is, a native of the village of Duisi), which meant an extreme degree of frostbite. They preferred not to get involved with such people because of the lack of generally accepted ideas about morality (even criminal) in their environment.
Ethnically, the Kists are closer to the Ingush than to the Chechens. Specifically, the Khangoevs (Khangoshvili) belong to the Ingush teip Fyappiy, but they speak a dialect of the Chechen language. Some Kist teips of Chechen origin (Dishny, Terloi, Khildekhara) have relatives in Chechnya, but for almost two hundred years of residence (the Vainakhs began to move beyond the Greater Caucasus Range somewhere in the 1840s) in the isolated Pankisi Gorge, the Kists turned into a separate people.
Pankisi is lofty, gloomy and hopeless. Jobs (as well as education) there is not much. With the beginning of the war in Chechnya, the Kists "came to the aid of the Vainakh brothers." It was Makhauri, together with Baraev, who took hostage British engineers working in Chechnya in the mid-1990s, and when the ransom negotiations dragged on, they laid the heads of the British along the road near Urus-Martan.
Checkpoint near the village of Duisi (photo: Besarion Kezerashvili/TASS) |
At some point, the Pankisi Gorge turned into a breeding ground for terrorism and banditry. In Duisi and its environs, Chechen fighters rested, gained strength, and trained. At the entrance to the gorge, a checkpoint was set up, through which the Georgian police could not pass, and did not try very hard. From time to time there were conflicts with shooting, several attempts of the Georgian special forces to enter Pankisi were repulsed. The gorge has become a state within a state with specific laws, a way of life and views on the world around.
One day, two Russian stormtroopers were forced to bombard the outskirts of Duisi, that is, targets that had been reconnoitered in advance, such as sheds, where weapons were stored and bombs were collected. This caused a fit of impotent rage in Tbilisi, although Georgia got off lightly: in 2003, Moscow seriously considered the idea of landing an airborne assault in Duisi and solving the problem once and for all.
During this period, she showed interest in the situation in the Pankisi Gorge and South Ossetia. A fairly large group of refugees from Pankisi arrived in Tskhinvali, by local standards, and they had to be settled somewhere and fed with something. In Vladikavkaz, for these purposes, they tried to create a special organization to help refugees from Pankisi, but the problem resolved itself.
There were persistent rumors that the Kist leaders were actively cooperating with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the security and intelligence service of Georgia, for which they were allowed to lead a criminal lifestyle and live according to their own concepts.
The secret of the Lopota Gorge
Zelim Khangoshvili did not capture the first Chechen campaign due to his age, but participated in the second, in addition, he was considered in Pankisi an authority on a par with the Margoshvili family, whose head was blown up at the beginning of the zero years by a grenade on a stretch in a toilet of the type toilet in his native Duisi. "Soaked" practically.
The authority left Georgia in 2015 after another assassination attempt. In Tbilisi, where he lived, an unknown person approached his car and unloaded a whole clip from Stechkin, that is, this attempt was similar in style to the current one in Berlin. Khangoshvili then was saved only by the fact that he lived not far from the hospital, they managed to take him there on time and operate.
Earlier there were rumors that they tried to poison him. After that, Khangoshvili left for Ukraine, but he did not feel safe there either, so he decided to move to Berlin with its large Chechen diaspora.
The key to understanding this whole story is the events in Kakheti, specifically in the Lopota Gorge in August 2012.
According to the official Georgian version, a certain well-armed group of Chechen fighters (about 20 people) crossed from Dagestan to Georgian territory, immediately starting to rob and take hostages. The group was blocked by Georgian special forces near the village of Lapankuri and after three days of fighting was killed.
Mikheil Saakashvili personally arrived on the scene, who used the long-forgotten word "lekianoba" (this was the name in the 18th-19th centuries for regular raids of Dagestanis, mainly Lezghins-"leks", on Kakheti, once they even stole the entire reigning house with all the princesses Bagrationi). It was his last pre-election period, and Saakashvili was in dire need of a victorious military operation.
The ethnic Kists Akhmed Chataev (aka Akhmed Odnorukiy: his arm was shot off in Chechnya), Timur Makhauri, better known by his nickname Zona (aka Ali Dabuev, aka Ruslan Papaskiri), and the same Zelim Khangoshvili.
The exterminated detachment consisted mainly of Chechens, some of whom had previously lived in Western Europe as political refugees, a few Kists and one Ingush. About six people simply disappeared, they are not among the identified corpses, it is quite possible that they somehow escaped. Later, the number of those who escaped theoretically increased to 10, which is important.
The further fate of the negotiators is remarkable. One-armed Ahmed was accused of organizing a terrorist attack at the Istanbul airport in 2016. Then he returned to Tbilisi, where he was killed during a special operation by the Georgian police on November 2, 2017. According to other sources, Chataev, blocked in his apartment, blew himself up with a grenade. On September 8, 2017, Timur Makhauri was blown up in a Mercedes with German license plates in the center of Kyiv. In the car with him was Ukrainian model Natalia Tselovalnikova, who was badly injured. Makhauri did not just live in Kyiv, but actively fought in the Donbass as part of a volunteer battalion made up of fugitive Chechens.
And now fate has caught up with Khangoshvili, who left Kyiv for Berlin just after Makhauri's death.
Never trust Saakashvili
So what really happened in the Lopota Gorge? There is a version that in early 2012, Georgian intelligence and representatives of the then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Bach Akhalai (one of the people closest to Saakashvili) began to contact fugitive Chechen field commanders living in Western Europe with interesting proposals.
Dzhokhar Dudayev's nephew Ruslan Idigov was allegedly contacted by Odnorukiy Akhmed and Timur Makhauri, who then used a passport in the name of the Tsalka Greek Ruslan Papaskiri. They reported that the Georgian government was ready to prepare, train and arm a large detachment of Chechens (more than a hundred people) at the bases of its Anti-Terrorist Center and at military bases in the suburbs of Tbilisi, supply them with everything necessary and provide them with a corridor to Dagestan. Dukvakha Dushuev, the former bodyguard of Akhmed Zakaev, who lives in London and heads the so-called Chechen Independence Movement, could also participate in the negotiations. And from the Georgian side, Akhalaia, his deputy Gia Lortkipanidze and Saakashvili's assistant Petre Tsiskarishvili were responsible for the operation.
As a result, they managed to recruit 120 Chechens, Ingush and Kists living in Western Europe. They were transported to Georgia, provided with documents, rented apartments for them. For a couple of months, the arrivals restored their uniforms at the military base in Vaziani, after which they were taken by pickup trucks to the Lopota Gorge, where Georgian special forces and border guards were already deployed by helicopters.
In the gorge, the Chechen detachment was surrounded and offered to defiantly hand over their weapons. It was pure water "decree", as expressed in 1990s, which Saakashvili needed for election and propaganda purposes. A victorious special operation against the “threat emanating from Russia”.
The "fighters for the independence of Chechnya" refused to surrender, demanded the fulfillment of the agreement (that is, providing them with a corridor to Dagestan) and began to take local residents hostage. During the three days of fighting, three Georgian special forces were killed, five more were injured.
Mahauri and Khangoshvili were involved in the negotiations. At the same time, the parties knew that both Kists were members of the Georgian Anti-Terrorist Center and had complex and confusing relations with the special services. The mediation failed, and since then the families of Makhauri and Khangoshvili could turn into bloodlines for the Chechens and Kists who died or still survived in the village of Lapankuri.
The main one who broke the oath, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Akhalaia, also fell under the distribution. After the loss of Saakashvili's team in the elections, he lived in Austria, but after the threats he chose to return to Georgia, where he felt more secure.
There is a version that several Chechens who survived in the Lopota Gorge also had refugee status in Austria, where they returned determined to take revenge on everyone - from Saakashvili and Akhalai to Makhauri and Khangoshvili.
The Berlin police are not obliged to know about all this, the same applies to the German media with their creative headlines about "a Russian who killed a Georgian in Berlin." It is unlikely that they have any idea about the blood feud, which lasts eight generations.
The weekly Der Spiegel even tried to turn Khangoshvili into a new Skripal, writing that the prosecutor's office is leaning towards the murder on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency. But it would be better to take a closer look at the "Movement for the Independence of Chechnya", based in London. Yes, Saakashvili cynically framed them in 2012 in his own interests. But this does not change the fact that this hotbed continues to exist.
* Organization(s) have been liquidated or their activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation
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VZGLYAD / With such idols as Kikabidze, the USSR was doomed :: Author Anton Krylov Georgy Danelia's film "Fortune", filmed in 2000. Vakhtang Kikabidze has not traveled to Russia for 10 years after the war on 08.08.08, which is officially considered Russian aggression in Georgia.
But for some reason, Vakhtang Kikabidze's opinion about the coat of arms of the Soviet Union became almost the most discussed topic of the past week (after football, of course).
Politicians, cultural figures and simply caring citizens vying to discuss the position of a Georgian pensioner who dared to rejoice at the collapse of the USSR and condemn the coat of arms of this country, about which, without any participation of Vakhtang Konstantinovich, a hooligan ditty was composed Soviet coat of arms, if you want to reap, but if you want to forge, you will still receive . .. an order.
It is easy and pleasant to scold the evil and ungrateful shifter and feel nostalgic for the Soviet times. As well as supporting the great artist Kikabidze and condemning the Soviet prison of peoples. Depending on outlook.
It has long been noticed that any post on a social network, the author of which either scolds or praises the USSR, collects a lot of comments from people of different ages - both those who caught the Soviet regime, and those born after the collapse of the communist project. Not paying attention to each other's arguments and not reading the source text, they enthusiastically convey to the world their hard-won, but, unfortunately, not particularly interesting point of view.
It is a pity that Facebook and other social networks did not exist more than 70 years ago.
Imagine 1944 (27 years after the October Revolution, it's like 2018 relative to 1991). Only a few days remained until the complete liberation of Soviet territory from the Nazis. An elderly Finnish or Polish actor, who shone on the stage of St. Petersburg more than thirty years ago, in an interview with an American Russian-language newspaper claims that the eagle on the coat of arms of the Russian Empire always reminded him of a plucked chicken.
And now Soviet citizens and the Russian-speaking diaspora unanimously digress from the discussion of the offensive of the Red Army and the allies (and what else to talk about in 1944?) and begin to blame or support the elderly Finn (or Pole). Rave? Rave! But in 2018, for some reason, this does not surprise anyone. All reading Russia enthusiastically condemns (or supports) a former compatriot who has been living in another state for 27 years.
Although it is not at all the words of Kikabidze that should be discussed, and not whether the Soviet Union was a prison of peoples or a paradise on earth, to revive which is the sacred duty of every decent person. There is no agreement here, and there cannot be. It is more likely that a lamb will devour a lion, and the Moskva River will flow with milk and honey, than a convinced anti-Soviet will at least agree with a communist.
But what is extremely difficult to argue with is the fact that with such folk idols as Vakhtang Kikabidze, Bulat Okudzhava or Vladimir Vysotsky and even the recently deceased Stanislav “You can’t live like this” Govorukhin, not to mention the entire galaxy of rockers, Soviet The union was doomed.
And even Iosif Kobzon and Lev Leshchenko, who did not miss a single festive official concert, did not say a word and did not do half the deed in defense of the swaying Soviet colossus.
In modern Russia there are patriotic actors, patriotic stage and even patriotic rockers and rappers. In Ukraine, this stuff is generally overkill. Georgian cultural figures, both young and former Soviet, also regularly show their readiness to resist the terrible Russian occupier (albeit only in words, in reality they open restaurants in Moscow and feed potential occupiers with ajapsandalom).
But in the USSR, the Fronde was not just good manners, but the only possible modus operandi for practically any person who had anything to do with mass culture. Everyone who discovered in himself the talent of an actor, director, singer, writer and poet, came to the “party”, which was not yet called that at that time, and discovered that here one could only be an anti-Soviet. Something else was not only not fashionable, but in principle impossible.
And if someone joined the party or gave a loyal interview, then in the evening in the kitchen with the tape recorder turned on with the recordings of Vysotsky or Galich, and later - Makarevich or BG, he explained to a comrade: “Well, you understand, old man, I just for the kids."
Any "people's idol" in the USSR, to one degree or another, did not like the Soviet regime, and it doesn't really matter whether it was because of his convictions or "for the company." Until now, very few people know how to separate power and the country, and even then this skill was generally unique. “I hate this government” and “I hate this country” were synonymous simply because people did not see any other government in the country and, in principle, did not represent it.
And then you can argue again as much as you like - it was the USSR that was so terrible that talented people were unhappy without exception, or, conversely, the country was beautiful, and talented people turned out to be entirely, quoting V. I. Lenin, "not the brain of the nation, but its shit."
This is indeed a debatable issue. As well as where Vladimir Vysotsky would have ended up in August 1991 and October 1993, Vasily Shukshin would have signed the appeal of the intelligentsia to Yeltsin demanding to crush the red-brown reptile and Viktor Tsoi would travel these days to the Donbass and Crimea, as Alexander F. Sklyar, or to Ukraine, like Boris Grebenshchikov, or generally ignored the entire former territory of the Ukrainian SSR, like Konstantin Kinchev. Here are just the most reasoned answers to these questions will not change anything.
Personally, it seems to me that the matter is not in Kikabidze, but in the USSR. Folk idols were not sent from other planets and were not bred in special incubators.
In a situation where the whole society, from the children of the top leaders of the CPSU to workers and collective farmers, in words swore allegiance to the country, but in reality was ready to sell their souls for imported clothes, furniture and the notorious sausage, the creative intelligentsia was only a mirror, reflecting not the most joyful reality. Maybe just a little crooked mirror, more convex, but not a window to another world.
In the 90s, many regretted their anti-Sovietism, as well as the destroyed country. Director Georgy Daneliya compared the Volga in the 70s and in the 90s when he was filming the film Fortune: “There were no endless tankers and barges. There were no cheerful crowded villages. Rusted carcasses rotted in the backwaters. Learn more