Rare Historical Photos 

Sketches used by the

Soviet police to identify
suspects based on
ethnicity, 1960s

Soviet-era phenotype chart used by police to

identify ethnicity.

This card was used by police in the

Soviet Union to identify di8erent
nationalities by facial phenotypes.
Originally it was developed by a group of
Soviet criminologists based on various
mugshot collections.

The exact date is unknown, however,

based on few Soviet sources, these
typical faces sketches were made in
1960-1965. In the nomenclature of the
USSR, people weren’t classiIed based on
their race or ethnicity.

···

USSR documents carried two entries:

grazhdanstvo (citizenship): Soviet and
nationalnost’ (nationality): Armenian,
Russian, Jew, Kazakh, etc. This
“nationality” was not equal to citizenship
or residence in one of the constituent
SSRs, but independent. You could be a
Soviet citizen with “nationality: Kazakh”
born and raised in the Ukrainian SSR.

The Soviet Union was an ethnically

diverse country, with more than 100
distinct ethnic groups. According to a
1990 estimate, the majority were
Russians (50.78%), followed by
Ukrainians (15.45%) and Uzbeks (5.84%).

···

All citizens of the USSR had their own

ethnic aZliation. The ethnicity of a
person was chosen at the age of sixteen
by the child’s parents. If the parents did
not agree, the child was automatically
assigned the ethnicity of the father.

Typical faces of di8erent ethnicities in Soviet Union.

Partly due to Soviet policies, some of the

smaller minority ethnic groups were
considered part of larger ones, such as
the Mingrelians of Georgia, who were
classiIed with the linguistically related
Georgians. Some ethnic groups
voluntarily assimilated, while others
were brought in by force. Russians,
Belarusians, and Ukrainians shared close
cultural ties, while other groups did not.

···

Some nationalities developed a relatively

strong sense of nationalism that was
based on resentment against
incorporation into the Russian (and
subsequently Soviet) empire,
dissatisfaction with subordinate status
within this system, and some desire for
autonomy and even independence.

At this same time, other nationalities

were characterized by what might be
called a weaker sense of nationalism,
that did not attach such signiIcance to
historical, cultural, territorial, and
linguistic di8erences.

···

Examples of the weaker deInitions of

nationalism included Belorussia,
Moldavia, and especially the
predominantly Muslim populations in
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, where
religious and cultural identities that
transcended territorial boundaries
coexisted with patterns of economic
underdevelopment.

(Photo credit: State Archive of the Russian

Federation).

···

Updated on: April 30, 2021

Any factual error or typo? Let us know.

Related

The Soviet War in Soviet gym teachers

Afghanistan in rare parade in Moscow,
pictures, 1979-1989 1956
July 14, 2017 October 7, 2016
In "Soviet Union" In "Soviet Union"

Photographs from
the First Miss Soviet
Union beauty
pageant, 1988
January 12, 2017
In "Soviet Union"

ONE COMMENT

Lalexander Ukashenko OCTOBER 8,

2020

I didn't know Lenin was Tatar, Kim Jong-

Un Kazakh, Sigmund Freud Uzbek and
Mullah Muhammad Omar Turkmen.

Leave a Reply
Comment *

Name *

Email *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

POST COMMENT

Search… 

CATEGORIES

› AFRICA

› ARAB WORLD

› AUSTRALIA

› BRITAIN

› CANADA

› CHINA

› COLD WAR

› CUBA

› CULTURE AND PEOPLE

› FINLAND

› FRANCE

› GERMAN EMPIRE

› GERMANY

› GULF WAR

› HOLOCAUST

› ISRAEL

› ITALY

› JAPAN

› KOREA

› LATIN AMERICA

› NAZI GERMANY

› POLAND

› RUSSIA

› SOUTHEAST ASIA

› SOVIET UNION

› SPAIN

› SPORTS

› SWEDEN

› TECHNOLOGY

› USA

› VIETNAM WAR

› WOMEN

› WORLD WAR ONE

› WORLD WAR TWO

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL

Email Address

Subscribe

Join 4,973 other subscribers

Rare Historical Photos © 2022

Exclusive Member of Mediavine Home