Oh yes! I am talking about the Russian children’s magazine MISHA published from the MIR, the Soviet Union’s publication house of ‘then’ USSR, during period of the 70S, 80s and early 90s globally. Hope some of you might recollect and relate well with the beautiful memories of the magazine. One day, just discovered that my child has a strange affinity with one of the cartoon characters named “Masha and the Bear” (In Russian, Маша и Медведь). It is an animated television series rather based on the Russian folk tale- “Masha and the Bear” which emphases the adventures or more suitably the mischievous ventures of a little girl named Masha and a cute bear attributed with some human characteristics (http://russian-crafts.com/tales/masha.html).
When you are with children you tend to savor in all the tiny little bits on the screen leaving you unplugged into the realm of fun. The laughter’s are same, the need and content of gaiety, the entire phases of growing up is almost the same in each generation with only some variations in the ‘ways’ or the ‘means’ of execution. It was while watching this series that took me to the flares of my childhood days!
Remember our childhood days when we used to read a lot of comic books and cartoons. It were those days when my father brought several magazines and books subscribed to his school library and we eagerly waited for the new copy to come out from his satchel. There were so many books which I was used to open up in later stages of my life, but MISHA was one of my favorites. The mainstream of the magazine was scripted with several folk tales, short stories, poems, science fiction, puzzles and other useful and creative sections such as ‘pen pals’. I have very fond memories of the magazine and used to read it keenly; especially tried to learn the art and crafts part of it. I remember making greeting cards, a petite doll, and unfolding origami of different creatures out of loose papers all by taking the tips from the magazine. The colorful stories illustrated on the sleek and shiny pages were a visual treat none the less than any other modern entertainment “apps” for the children of today. It was one of the finest delight for me from my father’s homemade yet an enriched library on the two or three wooden racks in our room, honestly feel obligated to the small space provided by him which helped in cultivating the habit of reading. I don’t know if I will be able to create any such library for my kids in the future, but hope to extend whatsoever knowledge extracts I have within me to them.
In the course of time, all along the ‘business’ of our lives, we somehow forgot the importance of such useful magazines in the raising up of children. As fate would be, the publication of such children literature faced a standstill, being outdated by technology and soon piled up in a corner of our rooms, waiting unfortunately for the “raddiwala” to their rescue. But then again in some point of our lives we do all remember our days spent for good reasons. Just as if writing down today, I ponder over and ask my self – at least I should have preserved one copy of it for today! But it is fine, it happens, and that is why I sat back and decided to write and share something about it. A question raised up in my mind- what happened to MISHA? And in an attempt to answer my own question and out of mere inquisitiveness, I just goggled online to search for the magazine and found a site (I am sharing below) which provide PDF copies of some of the issues of the magazine-
https://saintelmosfire.wordpress.com/tag/russian-childrens-magazine/
Have a nice time!