Soviet-era textbooks were filled with puzzles that developed students’ logical skills even more than regular math exercises.
Teachers thoughtfully crafted each detail of these puzzles to keep children’s interest.
Nowadays, students in our schools are mostly forced to solve abstract problems.
Old-school teachers, on the other hand, knew how to introduce a playful element into the learning process.
The image of the puzzle in our article today is a perfect confirmation of this.
The illustration you will see below was first published in a Soviet magazine in the late 1960s.
The numerous small details it contains scream this fact.
For modern students, facing such a task is not easy, making this Soviet puzzle quite interesting.
This is a middle-class apartment from the old times.
The son and the father living there are busy with their affairs.
And you and I have to determine some details about the family based solely on the puzzle’s illustration.
Are we ready? Let’s go. Keep your eyes wide open.
The authors of the illustration pose exactly five questions to the reader.
What season is the illustration set in? And to be precise, which month is it?
Does the family have running water in the apartment?
Does anyone else live in the apartment besides the father and the son? Finally, what is the father’s profession?
We’ll give you a couple of minutes to think about the previous questions.
The answers start in the next paragraph, so don’t skip them.
I assure you it’s possible to answer each of these questions based solely on the illustration.
So, here we go. Everything becomes clear right away with the season, if we look at the felt boots (valenki) and the ventilation grille of a well-heated kitchen.
A calendar on the wall confirms that it’s not just winter, but December.
There’s a reason the last page of the calendar is open.
Take a close look at where the son washes his hands, and you’ll see that there’s no running water in the apartment.
The photo was created in the 1960s, you have to understand!
There’s no doubt that a girl lives in the apartment, as we observe the dolls and stuffed animals next to the armchair.
And the father is a doctor. The stethoscope and reflex hammer prove it.
That concludes the puzzle photo. As you can see, everything is in plain sight.
It just takes a lot of observation to connect the disparate threads.
And yet, this image was intended for schoolchildren.
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