The photo shows a metalworker and his wife in Imperial Russia. It is 1916, he is 22 years old, and they have been married for two years. The salary of this unskilled metalworker is 45 rubles a month. Black bread cost 2 kopecks per pound (1 ruble = 100 kopecks), an egg 1 kopeck, 400 grams of salt 22 kopecks, and new boots 6 rubles. He rents a one-room apartment.
Since the worker was young, he hadn’t yet acquired enough experience, so he worked as a simple metalworker. A highly skilled metalworker earns up to 90 rubles a month.
This worker wrote a memoir years later in which he said, “After the revolution, wages decreased, but prices rose sharply,” and he also recalled that when he “worked in Moscow, he didn’t earn even half as much, even though he held a much more responsible position.”
That worker’s name was Nikita Khrushchev.
The woman in the picture is Yefrosinia Pisareva, his first wife. She fell ill with typhus and didn’t survive. True to his principles, he refused to allow the coffin into the church. The only way into the cemetery was through the church, so he hopped the fence with the coffin.