Name/Title
Postcard: V. I. Lenin Volga Hydroelectric Power Station, Tolyatti — with Spanish manuscript messageEntry/Object ID
2025.1.7Description
A color photographic postcard showing the Volga Hydroelectric Station (Волжская ГЭС им. В. И. Ленина) at Tolyatti on the Volga River, with the long horizontal powerhouse and spillway dam crossing the frame, ranks of transmission towers and power lines fanning out across the water, and the Kuybyshev Reservoir ("Zhiguli Sea") behind; green planted embankments and a lattice crane occupy the foreground. The image is a slightly muted, characteristically Soviet offset color print.
The undivided-style back carries printed Russian captions and publisher data, a stamp box, and a Spanish-language manuscript message in blue ink. The printed caption reads "Тольятти. Волжская ГЭС им. В. И. Ленина / Фото Б. Круцко" (Tolyatti. Volga Hydroelectric Station named after V. I. Lenin / Photo by B. Krutsko), with imprint "Издательство «Планета». Москва, 1972" (Planeta Publishing House, Moscow, 1972) and the publisher's logo. Technical/print codes appear in the upper-right box: "А02545-72 / 8в-174 / Ц. 3 к. / З. 1110 / Тип. № 5" (the "Ц. 3 к." indicating a price of 3 kopecks), and the card is numbered "10" at lower right, indicating one card from a set. The handwritten message, in Spanish, reads: "Esta es la Hidroeléctrica del Volga aquí en Toghliati [Tolyatti] tiene 22 turbinas de 100,000 kilowatts cada una. ¡un Fenómeno!" ("This is the Volga hydroelectric station here in Tolyatti; it has 22 turbines of 100,000 kilowatts each. A phenomenon!"). The card is unposted (no stamp or postmark) and shows light staining at the right edge.Subject
Tolyatti (Samara Oblast)Subject Person/Organization
V. I. Lenin Volga Hydroelectric Power StationSubject Place
* Untyped Subject Place
ToghliatiCountry
U.S.S.R.Region
Eastern EuropeContinent
EuropeCollection
The Cabrera Arús family collection, Leopoldo Arús Gálvez collectionPostcard Details
Postcard Type
Photochrome (1930-Present)Place Published
City
MoscowCountry
U.S.S.R.Region
Eastern EuropeContinent
EuropeDate Published
1972Photographer
B. KrutskoPostmark
Notes
Maker/Attribution: Izdatelstvo "Planeta" (Planeta Publishing House), Moscow; photograph by B. Krutsko (Б. Круцко).
Date: Printed 1972 (per imprint).
Place: Published Moscow, USSR; subject is Tolyatti (Samara Oblast).
Edition: Card No. 10 of a Planeta postcard set; print run code "З. 1110."Transcription
Transcription
Esta es la Hidroeléctrica del Volga aquí en Togghliati tiene 22 turbinas de 100,000 kilowatts cada una. ¡un fenónemo!Language
SpanishNotes
Printed (Russian): "Тольятти. Волжская ГЭС им. В. И. Ленина / Фото Б. Круцко"; "Издательство «Планета». Москва, 1972."
Printed codes: "А02545-72 / 8в-174 / Ц. 3 к. / З. 1110 / Тип. № 5"; card number "10"; Planeta logo.
Manuscript (Spanish, blue ink): "Esta es la Hidroeléctrica del Volga aquí en Toghliati tiene 22 turbinas de 100,000 kilowatts cada una. ¡un Fenómeno!"
No signature, address, stamp, or postmark present.Parts
Single postcard (one leaf, printed both sides).Relationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Leopoldo Arús CaraballoNotes
senderPerson or Organization
Leopoldo Arús GálvezNotes
receiver, ownerPerson or Organization
Planeta Publishing HouseRelated Places
Place
* Untyped Place
ToghliatiCountry
U.S.S.R.Region
Eastern EuropeContinent
EuropeNotes
BoughtPlace
City
HavanaCountry
CubaRegion
Caribbean, Central AmericaNotes
received, preservedResearch Notes
Notes
The depicted hydroelectric is not the Volga HPP at Volgograd, but the V. I. Lenin Volga HPP at Tolyatti. This is worth clarifying because there are two hydroelectric stations on the Volga that are sometimes confused: this one — formally the V. I. Lenin Volga HPP (Волжская ГЭС им. В. И. Ленина), today officially named Zhigulyovskaya / Zhiguli HPP — sits between Zhigulyovsk and Tolyatti in Samara Oblast (then Kuybyshev Oblast). Construction began in 1950; the first turbine went online December 29, 1955; the station was completed in 1957 and renamed after Lenin on August 10, 1958. From 1957 to 1960 it was "the largest hydroelectric station in the world", and it remained one of the most heavily celebrated icons of Soviet industrial achievement throughout the postwar era. The downstream Volga HPP (at Volgograd, completed 1961) is the other — they are routinely conflated, including in postcard-text recall.
The Tolyatti station's actual specifications differ slightly from the postcard message:
- Turbines: 20 Kaplan-type units (not 22). Leopoldo Arús Caraballo may have been thinking of the downstream Volgograd Volga HPP, which does have 22 turbines — the two stations are easily conflated.
- Per-unit output (1972): about 115 MW each (originally rated 105 MW; later upgraded). Leopoldo Arús Caraballo's "100,000 kilowatts cada una" (= 100 MW each) is a reasonable round-number for what an enthusiastic visitor might be told or remember.
- Total installed capacity (1972): approximately 2,300 MW. Leopoldo Arús Caraballo's implied figure (22 × 100 MW = 2,200 MW) is close.
These small inaccuracies illustrate what the station looked like through a Cuban technical visitor's eyes when scaled back to the back of a postcard, with the awed punch line "¡un Fenómeno!" doing most of the work the precise numbers would have done.Notes
Tolyatti (Togliatti / Тольятти) is itself a noteworthy place. The city was renamed in 1964 from "Stavropol-on-Volga" after the Italian Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti died that year. It was massively expanded through the 1960s–70s as a flagship Soviet industrial city, especially via construction of the VAZ (Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod) automobile plant — built 1967–70 in cooperation with Fiat to produce the famous Lada — which made Tolyatti synonymous with Soviet consumer-industrial modernity. A Cuban technical visitor arriving in 1972 would have been encountering a city that was effectively the USSR's poster child for industrial achievement, with the V. I. Lenin HPP as its visual anchor.Created By
María A. Cabrera ArúsCreate Date
February 9, 2024Updated By
María A. Cabrera ArúsUpdate Date
June 22, 2026
